My pet peeve is when a poster makes a post which can be mis-understood. Someone jumps on it and says “SO you hate democracy eh?” or whatever. So Poster A then writes “No, that’s not what I said, and that’s not what I meant”- whereupon Poster B has to spend about a dozen posts proving that indeed, Poster A did say “xxx” and that proves Poster A does hate democracy. One of the reasons I’d like a edit feature, which the current Administration is dead set against. That’s Ok, it’s their board. But for fucks sake- once a poster has said “No, that’s not what I said, and that’s not what I meant”, then hijacking the entire thread and spending a dozen posts trying to PROVE that Poster A really said & meant that he hates democracy isn’t getting anyone anywhere. Look, these posts are basicly emails, and thus without intonations, facial expressions and the like- they are very liable to mis-interpretation. So, once someone has said “No, that’s not what I said, and that’s not what I meant”- DROP IT!
Second Pet peeve is “whooshes”. In some forums (GD, GQ) I think they are a form of Trolling, and IMHO “being a jerk”.
So . . . I guess your contribution to this thread would be “use of the word ‘meme’ in accordance its current popular definition”?
Seriously, suggest another way for me to communicate “a non fact repeated frequently enough that it comes to be presumed to be an actual fact”; “an idea whose only support of factuality is that it gets repeated a lot.”
Seriously Daniel. What word would you use to communicate that?
And I’m seriously bewildered by the venom with which you react to my use of that word, my subsequent attempt to explain my understanding of its definition. I’m open to considering the possibility that I misunderstand that word, but so far you’ve only convince me that your mother was attacked by a meme when she was pregnant with your or something; your level of invective over my possible misuse of the word is disturbing.
Hmm. I can find no documentation of that. But that’s been my understanding of the way I’ve seen the word uses; a non-truth being giving currency by simple repitition. Maybe I should just call it a Bushism . . .
Anyway, the definitions I’ve found online offer no extra connotation of non-truth; only that it’s an idea that gets passed around within a culture. Like a rumor, only without necessarily the connotation of non-truth. But “rumor” doesn’t work in the context I’m trying to describe. Maybe I’ll just say “viral factoid” from now on.
First of all, I’d like to point out that I was going to click on the ad for “End Procrastination Now,” but then I decided I’d get to it later. Bad-dum-dum! Hot-cha!
Second, I think bitching about what goes on in movie theaters is perfectly acceptable. So there. I’m saying this mostly because at the movies last night there was a guy whose cel phone rang, then he answered it and proceeded to have a conversation right there in the theater. Then later it rang again and he did the exact same thing. Some people are just born idiots and no matter how hard they try, they’ll never sink any lower because they’ve already hit bottom.
I have recently made the plea that if you are going to post a link, especially to a news article, give us an idea as to why we would find it interesting enough to click on it.
I too had cow-orker.
I would love to see less “The dems are stupid because…” and “the republicans are…” etc. I would prefer we talk about issues.
The “you don’t have to read this thread/post” arguement could be circular. After all, you didn’t have to read *my *post.
So you want an irony-free Dope? Good luck with that.
Oh, and by the way I was being sarcastic.
Seriously, could you flesh out why whooshes bother you? What’s wrong with a pinch of deception in conversation for a good purpose?
Yeah, THIS is fucking annoying as hell. “Because I said to” is not a very compelling reason to click on a link, you horrible, unfeeling, unthinking self-absorbed ninnies!
While that might not be the technically correct definition of meme, lissener uses the term in the samederogatoryway that most others do (no offense meant to any of the linked posters). This usage is apparently even popular in academia: Simon Conway Morris uses this definition in his rant against memes (and neo-Darwinism in general) in the last chapter of Life’s Solution. In a way, it’s kind of funny. Memes were meant to provide a bottom-up explanation (removing the necessity for any intelligent designer of sorts) for human culture and thought. Somewhere along the line, there appeared the thought that meme -> bottom up -> unthinking -> stupid/sheep-like. In the end, the main result of Dawkin’s efforts was to give new life to the old creationist retort: “maybe you came from monkeys.”
To stay somewhat on the topic of the thread, I’m not particularly enamored with the constant re-use of once funny typos. “Cow-orker” fits in here, as does “fucko off”.
I’ll grant that this was more of a “new and different unpleasant movie experience.” However, I couldn’t think of a more appropriate title at the time, and using a title like “I had a new and different unpleasant movie experience!” sounds stupid. And no, I was not exaggerating.
As for simply not going, it’s my wife who insists on seeing movies in the theater.
It irritates me when people complain about not getting warned about a pdf file. “I had no idea it was a pdf file, even though when my mouse was over the link, the display had pdf on the end. You should have warned me!”
Frank, you’re talking about me. Please see this thread for my thorough explanation of why I feel it’s only polite to warn people that you’re linking to a PDF. I feel I pretty much stated my piece as cogently as possible in that thread, so I’m not going to rehash it here.
Okay, I’ll pile on. The Yakov Smirnoff imitations just aren’t funny. You know, “In Soviet Russia…” Ugh. Dopers generally are quite witty so there’s no need to drop that in a thread when a original, snarky response would garner respect and admiration for those for miles around…
(waits patiently for the obligatory “In Soviet Russia” comment)
And no, I was not exaggerating.