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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   22010 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 4, 2026

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I've been watching a lot of TikToks recently and I've been shocked at how many women on there have their nails done. Growing up I've always had a strong "ick" for manicured hands and I remember being grossed out by a cousin who visited my home who had her toenails painted in red. I've always assumed doing one's nails is something uneducated, trashy women do and although I never consciously revisited this assumption, the years I spent in academia definitely did not contain enough notable counterexamples to force me to reexamine it. Am I deluded, or do most other men also find painted nails gross & icky? For years I've always thought that this would be one thing that women do but had no idea how unattractive most men find it. Has there been any study done on the increasing popularity of women painting their nails? Pretty sure the answer is zero lol

Three things

  1. I work in financial services in a large city, in my yuppie social sphere, almost all the white collar women either get their nails done, or paint their own nails. Your impression that it's "trashy" is wildly out of date*, much like thos forums opinions on tattoos. To note however, all of them typically get tasteful pastel colors and the size of their nails is "mildly longer than a man keeps his, with an almond tip".

  2. I do not give a singular fuck about painted nails. I do not know a single man who gives a fuck about painted nails. It's pure inter-sex competition. I'm pretty sure every anxious striver yuppie woman plays the American Psycho business card scene in their head when she sees someone with "nicer" nails than her.

  3. *the gigantic fake nails that to my understanding are very popular amongst the African American community, are incredibly trashy. To my boy brain, I hate how deeply impractical they are. To my (limited) aesthetic taste, I also hate how garish they are.

Early in my career I had the great pleasure of being on-boarded by a lady with ~2 inch long nails. It was absolutely hilarious to watch her attempt to navigate a laptop trackpad and keyboard. She didn't even use a mouse! Psycho behavior.

This is similar to my observations. Hispanic women with working class mothers also like impractically long nails.

I note that much of US Hispanic culture seems to emulate African American culture

I recently witnessed a tiktok of a Dominican heritage American (I use those terms because I imagine she was born here, not in the DR like her parents) going on a rant and she sounded like she was doing a bad AAVE impression for laughs but that's genuinely how she talks

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