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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   2954 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 14, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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The other comment can be interpreted as a joke with two meanings.

In the misty past, it was the default assumption that all users of the Internet were ugly men, and any user claiming otherwise without providing proof was a liar—a person shrewd enough to assume a convincing false persona in order to gain social clout in online spaces. (A long-dead shorthand phrase related to this phenomenon is "tits or GTFO"—i. e., the identity of an Internet poster as female cannot be confirmed without a photograph in which the subject exposes herself while holding a piece of paper with a timestamp.)

In modern times, this assumption has greatly weakened. (In particular, the "rationalist" community has been accused of being too trusting and incapable of simulating the thought processes of liars.) But it has not totally disappeared. So, in the opinion of the other commenter, if you are actually a woman you will get the deserved attention that you want, and if you are an ugly man pretending to be a woman you will get the undeserved attention that you want from this website's "quokka" denizens (positive reinforcement for your evil trolling).

In the misty past, it was the default assumption that all users of the Internet were ugly men

The joke I remember was "Welcome to the Internet, where all the men are men, all the women are men, and all the children are FBI agents."

That was before anyone was really thinking of trans-ness or anything like that, just the demographics of those inclined to figure out dial-up modems or work in tech in that era.

Haha, I started using the internet when I was 16 so I do remember TITS OR GTFO phase; those men probably have families now. Strange thing to consider.

if you are actually a woman you will get the deserved attention that you want

What type of attention do women deserve and want? I want to imagine the internet is more egalitarian now and just being a woman online (an egirl?) isn’t enough to warrant any special treatment or attention.

What type of attention do women deserve and want? I want to imagine the internet is more egalitarian now and just being a woman online (an egirl?) isn’t enough to warrant any special treatment or attention.

LOL. Compare:

(1) An attractive woman goes to a mall, supermarket, or big-box store and basks in the knowledge that she is turning the heads of a dozen men by simply existing near them.

(2) A person claiming to be a woman (of unspecified, but implicitly not low, attractiveness) goes to a forum of mostly-male autists and basks in the knowledge that she is turning the heads of a hundred men by simply claiming to exist near them in cyberspace.

But maybe I'm just engaging in the typical-mind fallacy, and expounding on these topics despite being totally unqualified to discuss them.

An attractive woman goes to a mall, supermarket, or big-box store

I like that you descriptively provided three different shopping locations, but if you really want to cover male headturners definitely include the hardware store.

I understand what you mean about “hey! I’m a woman online” but I have to be honest getting perspective from a diverse group of women even on a small Internet forum where there may only be a handful of them actively online is really helpful. So, for example, this comment from @Gaashk was very insightful. Maybe just for that tender reason alone I appreciate knowing women online.

I've heard "on the internet nobody knows you're a dog," but not "tits or GTFO," presumably because I never claimed to be an attractive woman. Nobody cares if someone is a dorky homeschool girl on the internet.

(1) As I said, the specific hostility of "tits or GTFO" is long dead. I personally never saw it first-hand.

(2) I said "of unspecified, but implicitly not low, attractiveness", not "attractive". Lots of men salivate over women who are merely "not unattractive" (three stars out of five) rather than "attractive" (four stars)—and lots of autists are interested in "dorky homeschool girls".

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