I have built a dance hall in Minecraft, and this afternoon will be the first of a series of square dance classes hosted in that dance hall to help some friends learn C3A, a complex and challenging level of square dancing. We will be using Minecraft as a virtual reality we all have access to, and two Californians, a New Yorkers, some folks from Boston, and possibly a guy from Toronto will “gather” there to “dance” together. We’ll be using discord for sound.
We did this over the pandemic, when it was too dangerous to gather in person to dance. A friend from far away recently expressed frustration at having nowhere to learn C3A, and i thought we might give it another try, and enough other people were interested that we’re giving it a go.
It’s also entirely possible that you are so tone deaf that you routinely say things that are grossly misunderstood by people reading your posts in good faith. And that you routinely fail to notice the implications of your statements. And you are so tone deaf that you routinely think other posters are not posting in good faith. You might want to think about that.
Fwiw, I’m pretty tone deaf. And sometimes, someone reacts to something I’ve said with anger, disgust, etc. when i really didn’t mean it that way. I don’t go all SaRcAsTiC on them and mock them. I apologize for causing offense and explain that i didn’t mean that. On Israel, people really do profoundly disagree with you. But on trans issues i think you aren’t in major disagreement with the people you are pissing off, and you should think about what you are saying and why you are pissing off your allies. (And i don’t even think thorny was angry. I think she was trying to be helpful in pointing out problematic aspects of your communication.)
I’m pretty thoroughly pissed off now, though, by @Babale’s insistence that I must be arguing in bad faith; or else that my comment on their post must mean that I’m socially clueless, but their serious misinterpretation of what I said doesn’t indicate any problem on their part. Complaining about misinterpretation while misinterpreting the person one’s complaining about is really annoying.
I will grant that in some areas I’m socially clueless; but I really don’t think that’s the problem in this case. I think the problem here is that, having learned social clues from the outside, I now often consciously notice things going on that people who have only learned such clues instinctively don’t notice. I have learned enough about human social behavior over the years to realize that if such things are pointed out, some people will react with interest and/or gratitude; others with mild and/or reasoned disagreement; and some will just get pissed off and start ranting, because they’re under the delusion that anything that can be taken as criticism of how they speak or behave is essentially insulting.
People in that last category must spend a lot of time being insulted. But I’m not going to spend any longer trying to talk this one out of it; that obviously isn’t going to work.
and those people, with respect to a social cause that is in desperate need of allies, should really consider why they are getting pissed off at allies that generally, and broadly, agree with them on such issues and consider whether that really is the best course of action.
Let’s just be honest here. If I had used that same exact sentence to make the point that “I played coed sports and everything was fine” rather than “I played coed sports in a very recreational environment that isn’t analogous to competitive sports”, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. That’s what makes this feel much less like a well meaning pointing out of something I may not have noticed, and more like a “gotcha” that’s meant to discredit the rest of my points by implying I don’t view women people.
Yes, yes; you have been unfailingly polite, while I have been nothing but rude. Sure.
I use it the same way I would put someone else’s term in scare quotes. Maybe in particularly emotionally charged instances of scare quotes, because it takes more effort to input alternating caps than it does to put in scare quotes.
I honestly had no idea it stood out to people so much or that you people were reading so much into it. I’ll use it less if it bothers people so much, and save that for Zoomer Zones
FWIW, I read it the same way. It came across as point scoring and language policing - “Ha ha, I caught you using the Bad Language, that means I’m the better person.”
Honestly, not sure how it could be reasonably taken any other way. Maybe coming from a close friend, in a overtly non-hostile context, but from a virtual stranger, in the context of a Pit thread? I’ll buy that thorny_locust had good intentions, but there’s no way that’s going to get interpreted as anything other than a “fuck you, sexist” jab.
Thank you for explaining that so well. That’s spot on. Which made it super weird to see people tell me I’m socially oblivious or tone deaf for seeing it that way.
What three insults would that be? I genuinely didn’t mean any, and the only one I can see is the implication that this is a “Boomer Zone” as opposed to a “Zoomer Zone”, which is a light hearted jab at worst, and is intended as shorthand for “site that leans older” vs "site that leans younger.
I’m gonna really find it funny if one is “you people” because I originally typed “you guys” but decided to change it given the recent thread on the subject. I briefly considered “y’all”, but I do have some standards.
Good effort - I would have put the alternate capitalization on the word “apology” rather than “purported”, because you’re trying to imply it wasn’t an apology, not that it wasn’t purported.
Still, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. I give this one 3.5 out of 5 Fellow Kids.
(That applies to me too, by the way. I understand older Zoomer humor, but younger Zoomers are basically aliens. Post irony and meta irony are a lot).
I’m willing to grant “ambiguous”. But there’s a whole lot of distance between “ambiguous” and “no way that’s going to get interpreted as anything other”.
And the proper response to “ambiguous”, IMO, even in the Pit, isn’t “you must be arguing in bad faith”. It’s some version of “what did you mean by that?” Considering it’s the Pit, possibly adding whatever expletives you feel like adding.
I’m trying to think why the alternatingly caps thing is so amazingly annoying. I think it’s because I read capital letters as shouting, so in my head, a word where every other letter is capitalized sounds LOUD and soft, LOUD and soft, LOUD and soft, like a fucking air raid siren. It’s a synesthesic nightmare.
I don’t get the point of trying to speak kids’ language, anyway. Kids already understand adults - they have to to survive. The only reason to speak like they do is so they don’t think you’re uncool, which in my case would be unfair, because I am uncool, and I wouldn’t want them to be mislead.
I used to read a now-defunct webcomic in which the alternating caps was used for things said by literal trolls (or as literal as possible to get in a fantasy; magically-distorted humans who would kill and eat you if they got a chance, and who were called trolls in the comic); and in the comments alternating caps were sometimes used for things supposedly voiced by those literal trolls. So when I see alternating caps, that’s what I think of.
It’s not school kids; AFAIK it’s a Reddit thing, and the most common age group for Reddit users is @Babale’s age. I don’t use alternating caps much because it’s overdone and annoying, but a lot of this ‘gen-Z slang’ is stuff I regularly see people around my age using, and you do tend to pick it up. Maybe those people were trying to be cool for the kids?
Mixed caps is about the same as putting claps between words. It’s sarcastic and dismissive and generally a sign that whatever has been written can be ignored.
Yeah, my gut feel (and I’m no Memeologist so I could be incorrect) is that it ‘bled up’ to young Millennials on Reddit like myself from older Zoomers. Which is why I call it a Zoomer meme. But it’s not JREG Brainrot.
Wait, is putting claps between words always sarcastic? I could have sworn I’ve seen it used sincerely.
Well, I’ve definitely seen it used post-sarcastically; where your truly believe in the phrase you’re inserting claps into, but you know that PUTTING CLAPS INTO A SENTENCE IS CRINGE but you’re doing it anyways.
CLAPS