site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

6
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

While I did think of you guys in a Running Dad way (but in one of the many variations where he's running toward instead of away from something) when I first saw this story on the interwebs and had a comment in the works, it's perhaps in somewhat of a orthogonal direction than what @RoyGBivensAction suggested.

If the allegations are true with regard to her committing a Smollett, and that this is not some sort of weird hoax or whatever: this could serve as a cautionary tale for the online right when it comes to trusting thots, given how hard the online right has been simping for figures like Sydney Sweeney lately and how there's an entire ecosystem of supposedly rightwing e-girls whose characters, surprise surprise, appear not to be too different from e-girls as a whole.

Two days before the alleged phony assault, Greene drove to Pennsylvania and paid a body modification artist she found on Instagram $500 to deliberately carve gruesome wounds into her face, neck, chest, back, and shoulders with a scalpel, the court documents alleged.

Wow, can't believe she crossed state lines. There's also some joke in there about how chicks will leave you on read while they do things like drive across states to pay someone $500 to carve up their skin, get tied up and beat up.

Local residents in Greene’s hometown were horrified when they heard about the story.

At the end of the day we’re talking about a 25-year-old girl, a beautiful girl, whose politics aren’t supposed to reach that level of extreme,” Fiona Tierney, 49, told The Post.

“Now she’s got to spend the rest of her life with these scars to remind her of what she did. What, she’s going to the beach wearing a bathing suit with all that on display? She’d never live this down. What kind of a future is that?”

It's always a shame when a more than "WOULD"able chick chooses to scribble upon her skin. I also found amusing the implicit admission that doing things like prancing around in a bikini is a central aspect of a young woman's lifestyle. And indeed, "25-year-old girl": #Fightfor35.

“While Natalie is no longer associated with the congressman’s government office, our thoughts and prayers are with her and hope she’s getting the care she needs,” Van Drew’s office told the outlet.

Damn, that's cold—vicente_del_bosque.gif. I can't help but imagine Van Drew as the Wojak with the seething mask in front, but grinning behind it. Most people have never heard of you, but now you've suddenly made national news because a young former female employee got your name scrawled on her body.

I also found amusing the implicit admission that doing things like prancing around in a bikini is a central aspect of a young woman's lifestyle.

You know, maybe this off topic and deserves it's own thread, but at some point we're going to come around to an America where the red tribe is more promiscuous and sex-positive than the blue.

When that inflection point comes, everyone from Gen X and older is gonna have to totally rewire their brain.

Although the stereotype of conservatives/Republicans being more attractive than progressives/Democrats has been around for awhile (with some research supporting this), the online right in recent years has been increasingly vocal when it comes to tolerating and even celebrating the thottery of conservative (or not-so-conservative women) women—simping for figures like Sydney Sweeney and Taylor Swift, signal boosting sorority girl recruitment videos (where they do group dances in skimpy outfits: "come teehee around and be sex objects with us instead of those other sororities!") in an effort to somehow pwn the libs.

So much for conservative, traditional values. It might just be a sign of times though, if even the dissident right has given up on thot-patrolling and has instead embraced thottery like a form of Stockholm Syndrome—Stockholm Sydrome, if you will.

And indeed, "25-year-old girl": #Fightfor35.

Girl just refers to an unmarried woman in this context. Similar to 'senorita'.

#Fightfor35.

Nah, 'girl' is any woman 15 years younger than the speaker. The same way my 70-year-old relatives talk about a 50-year-old as 'such a nice young man'.

I don’t know. This whole world is topsy turvy when I’ve got 20 year old girls calling me “dude” and guys much shorter than me calling me “buddy.” You’d still get a glass cracked on your head if you say that to another man where I’m from. It’s like calling someone “friend” or “homeboy” making quotation marks with both your hands at someone right before you spit at and smack them across the face. That term was always considered insulting in any context. You never call someone that.

‘Dude’? or ‘buddy’?

Reminds me of a Pratchett quote:

He called people ‘friend’. Someone who does that isn’t friendly.

“Dude” is appropriate. Just in proper context and not when a woman calls you it. “Buddy” was always considered an insult where I’m from.

Dude is one of those deliberate friendzone words coming from a young woman. Buddy, mate etc.

"Nice young man," not a "nice boy". So there's not the same parallel. Also, although just another anecdote, my ~70-year-old relatives would never refer to 50-year-olds as "young."

That being said, when I'm 50 someday I'd be happy to take the free W of being referred to as a "nice young man" or a "nice boy," and possibly ration the memory like a camel.

"Out with the boys"?

I think a better example would be “kid.” I was “the kid” at work until I was 30, and it only stopped because we hired a guy in his early 20s.

You may find this video by David Mitchell amusing.