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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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My personal social circle is unhappy and distressed and posting lots of doomer posts, but mostly sane. They think the world is going to suck with Trump in charge, but they aren't threatening to leave the country or start underground railroads or join the 4B movement.

Online, it's hard to tell to what degree all the cataclysmic tweets and videos from leftists melting down hysterically and screaming that we're going to enter an era of plantation slavery and the Handmaid's Tale are nutpicking (the reason LibsOfTikTok is so popular is that Millenials and Zoomers so freely provide so much content) and to what degree they reflect a genuine widespread sentiment.

Online, it's hard to tell to what degree all the cataclysmic tweets and videos from leftists melting down hysterically and screaming that we're going to enter an era of plantation slavery and the Handmaid's Tale are nutpicking (the reason LibsOfTikTok is so popular is that Millenials and Zoomers so freely provide so much content) and to what degree they reflect a genuine widespread sentiment.

I know that Tumblr is very far from a representative sample, but the histrionic posts coming across my dash thanks to the #politics tag have been plentiful enough to exceed mere "nutpicking."

Well, "very far from a representative sample" indeed. If there is anywhere that I would expect 90% of the posts to be hysterical meltdowns, it's Tumblr.

Incidentally I'm kind of amazed that the word 'hysterical' hasn't gotten y'alled yet.

I'm not sure what "y'alled" means. Is this a reference to some feminists saying it's a "gendered" insult?

I'm not sure what "y'alled" means.

It's a reference to such sentiments as "Instead of saying 'you guys', which is etc., try something like 'y'all!'" A typical example of a larger pattern.

"Instead of saying 'you guys', which is etc., try something like 'y'all!'"

Oy. I do that at work all the time. I'm actually afraid to say "you guys" anymore.

This change is really weird to me, as someone from the heart of “you guys” territory. I had a lot of progressive friends in school who always said “you guys.” They didn’t think of it, it was just what people said, not something anyone needed to police.

They also weren’t the wokest of the woke I knew, so maybe the others were into it.

But if we’re going to pick a gender-neutral plural you, I nominate “you’uns”.

This change is really weird to me, as someone from the heart of “you guys” territory. I had a lot of progressive friends in school who always said “you guys.” They didn’t think of it, it was just what people said, not something anyone needed to police.

Yeah, I don't think it's universally agreed upon. Some left-leaning people are okay with "you guys", and some think it's another example that is masculine-normative, that's excluding women. From what I've seen, I guess I see hardcore leftist-of-the-left radical feminists be most against it in terms of calling people out, followed by the older token progressives who are looking for a way to contribute and/or signal their allegiance and/or keep the eye off Sauron off themselves. Like, advocating against "you guys" is the sort of thing that I've seen corporate boards and their lackeys do and recommend. It's enough to scare me, though, so I end up being a lackey, too, in the interests of not letting anything get between me and my ability to provide for my family.