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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33047 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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If it's true the Grossberg lawsuit is the reason for Tucker's firing - (there's also a LA Times story that Rupert thought Tucker's 1/6 coverage might get them in trouble), it proves that the Right needs to learn that yes, you can probably make "cancellable" statements about minorities in a college-educated conservative-leaning workplace, because any minorities who work in such a place aren't going to be upset about it or they'll just agree.

OTOH, making jokes about which female Governor candidate you'd rather have sex with is likely to upset even otherwise quite conservative women at that said workplace, because even in a right-wing space to the right of much of the nation, the median conservative woman is still going to be upset about openly sexual comments like that. 1960's/1970's feminism - aka, I can have my own job, financial independence, not getting fired for getting pregnant, and freedom from open sexism in the workplace is basically believed by 90% of women in the US.

The Right needs to learn this, or they'll keep ending up in the same place.

And where are we going to be in another few decades?

The Right needs to learn that 2010s trans activism - Trans Women Are Women, respect people’s pronouns, etc - is believed by 90% of people even in a conservative workplace.

Someone needs to put their foot down.

Someone needs to put their foot down.

Are you defending people's right to discuss which governor you'd most want to have sex with in the workplace? I don't think that's ever been an acceptable topic. You could probably get away with it in small workplaces where you're joking with friends and it'd never leak, but I think it'd pretty much always cause controversy if it was leaked.

but I think it'd pretty much always cause controversy if it was leaked.

"Controversy" like playing footsie with the idea the election as stolen? If so, do you think Fox always cares about controversy?

Let's put it another way: let's say this information leaked about Fox (or any other workplace) but there was zero lawsuit risk. How important do you think the "controversy" would be in practical terms?

"Controversy" like playing footsie with the idea the election as stolen? If so, do you think Fox always cares about controversy?

I think Fox probably should be firing people who have lied or severely misled about the facts of the 2020 election.

Let's put it another way: let's say this information leaked about Fox (or any other workplace) but there was zero lawsuit risk. How important do you think the "controversy" would be in practical terms?

I think it's a tough comparison because before you fire someone for skepticism about the 2020 election, you've got to firmly establish the facts of what happened in the 2020 election. That takes some time to do. Whereas Don Lemon's comments,

“Nikki Haley isn’t in her prime, sorry,” the journalist said in February while discussing Haley’s suggestion that politicians over age 75 should be subject to mental competency tests. “When a woman is considered to be in her prime — in her 20s, 30s and maybe her 40s.”

When Harlow, 40, asked her cohost to clarify, Lemon said that an internet search would explain what he meant. “Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m just saying what the facts are,” the Transparent author told his fellow anchor. “Google it. … Nikki Haley should be careful about saying that politicians are not in their prime, and they need to be in their prime when they serve. Because she wouldn’t be in her prime, according to Google or whatever it is.

are pretty clearly sexist to me. Unless I'm missing some key context, it's saying a women's prime as a politician is equivalent to her prime as a sexual partner. That's just clear cut not acceptable for a mainstream news anchor to be saying, at least if the news network isn't trying to break into some dissident right niche.

Oh, I thought we were talking about some Tucker situation like the Nancy Pelosi bikini pics!

Lemon's comments were clearly sexist. I didn't even consider you meant him because he's gay* (which makes him using red pill ideology on national television very funny).

CNN and Fox may not be in the same boat here in terms of how much they have to be "PC".

But you do seem to be right in this case- at least part of the story being put out by CNN is that it has affected CNN's ability to book guests

In recent weeks, CNN’s bookers had discovered that some guests did not want to appear on the air with Mr. Lemon, and research on the morning show reviewed by CNN executives found that his popularity with audiences had fallen, one of the people said.

His job -unlike most - actually depends on such relationships.

I think Fox probably should be firing people who have lied or severely misled about the facts of the 2020 election.

They can't fire people who were merely guests on their shows.

They can make a point after the guest leaves to say that person is wrong about everything, Biden won the 2020 election fairly, and they will not be inviting them back.

And then they'd be redundant with CNN.

More comments

Are you defending people's right to discuss which governor you'd most want to have sex with in the workplace?

It is worth pointing out that there is a bog-standard conservative argument against this type of behaviour, not just the feminist one that it might be overheard by a woman who would need to retreat to the fainting couches in a way which affected her job performance. This s*** is rude, and tolerating it coarsens the culture. The right correctly understands that there are places where the culture is unavoidably coarse, and where locker-room talk should be tolerated, but white-collar workplaces like Fox News are not those places.

If Robert E Lee had overheard two young lieutenants in the Army of Northern Virginia joking about what they were going to do to Mrs Lincoln after they got to Washington, he would have made them stop. (Enlisted men, probably not). Trumpy conservatives don't care about that any more, but old-school conservatives like Rupert Murdoch do.

Yeah. Rupert cares. The long time supporter of Ailes until it became untenable. The guy who has married how many women?

You think that's bad? In the deepest recesses of the Internet, I have even seen people play a sick game called "fuck, marry, kill". Not only do they make light of who they would have sex with, they're even joking about forced arranged marriages, and outright murder. What does it say about our culture that this "game" seems to mostly be enjoyed by adolescent girls? Armageddon can't come soon enough.

There's a big difference between what's appropriate between friends and what's appropriate between coworkers, yes. A married couple is allowed to have sex in any room in their home, but a married couple is not allowed to have sex in any room in their workplace, even if their the bosses in the workplace. Some behaviour, including most sexual behaviour or discussion, is not workplace appropriate.

but a married couple is not allowed to have sex in any room in their workplace, even if their the bosses in the workplace

What law prevents a married couple from having sex in the workplace that they are the bosses of? Assume they close the door so as not to scare the interns, but everyone knows what's going on.

Maybe it's not technically illegal, although I wouldn't be surprised if it was according to some sort of workplace law. But the reason why it's not an acceptable thing is that it makes the employees really uncomfortable. Having standards for acceptable, professional workplaces is good.

I have been in two fist-fights in my life. One was over cheating at cards in middle school. The other one happened because someone nominated my sister as a candidate to marry, shag, or kill. The game is disrespectful, and it is only safe to play with casual acquaintances if you stick to nominating women who are known not to be respectable, such as actresses.

Playing with close friends, or with people who are equivalent such as team-mates on an all-male team with an appropriate level of team bonding, is part of the way groups can bond by engaging in mildly transgressive behaviour. Even so, there are limits, and a female politician who was not clearly outgroup would be pushing them.

Good on you for standing up for your sister, but nothing you said contradicts what I pointed out. As per my explanation, being nominated for one of the candidates absolutely is an insult, but don't try to tell me it's beyond the pale in a broader context. It's also a bit weird you seem to assume this is mostly done by men with female candidates, when the majority of cases I saw was the opposite.

I can’t say I’ve ever seen it played between women. I always assumed it to be a very male-brained game, though perhaps the girls in my social circle in high school were unusually prudish.

I used to browse Tumblr a bit, the women there seemed to find it hilarious. More recently on one of the TERF podcasts I listen to someone threw a superchat with some male IDW figures as the candidates. Can't remember all of them, but Jordan Peterson was on the list.

I am a man, so most of the times I have seen the game played have been in all-male groups. It definitely gets played in mixed-sex groups, but people tend to stay safer with the nominations and stick to celebrities. The way it was played in my social circle, it was normally three "good" choices and the fun bit was distinguishing between which hotties were marriage material and which were only good for a good time.

I realise the other complexity with mixed-sex groups is that there are usually couples present. Asking someone to marry/shag/kill when their SO is in the room is potentially offensive to the SO - although again sticking to unattainable candidates like celebrities makes it less so. I have the type of marriage where I can joke with my wife about the bangability of female public figures, but my impression from my occasional dumpster dives of /r/relationshipadvice is that many people don't. And even then if the woman was ingroup, I would let her raise the issue and not me.

You jest, but I genuinely fail to see the appeal of the game as presented. Are all those memes about psychopathic genocidal Anglo-Saxons real?

It's a bit like a Trolley Problem (You think "fuck, marry, kill" was bad? They teach this stuff at universities!) meant to present you with 3 unappealing options, and give you only one easy out. The appeal is seeing someone squirm, getting over their initial disgust, and watching them trying to figure out the least bad option. I suppose you can also do it with 3 people someone really likes, and watching them choose who's getting put down.

I suppose it's more funny when "fuck" and "marry" are the unappealing choices. All the examples I've heard present three fuckable/marriable people.

If you think that's unacceptable you've likely never held a blue collar job. "Who'd you do?" is about as timeless and enduring a topic of smalltalk as "Who'd win in a fight?"

Perfectly normal human behavior shouldn't be a fireable offense. Even in pearl clutching America.

There's a big difference between what's appropriate at blue collar jobs and what's appropriate at white collar jobs.

Sure sucks that what I'm skilled at decides whether I get to be a human being or not.

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If you think that's unacceptable you've likely never held a blue collar job. "Who'd you do?" is about as timeless and enduring a topic of smalltalk as "Who'd win in a fight?"

People would read magazines with topless women during breakfast at the last blue collar job I had. But then, it had a serious gender split - warehouses were mostly guy spaces, a lot of the admin stuff was done by women so it might have just escaped notice.

I'm actually slightly curious whether there'll be some HR reckoning or if the union old-timers who apparently have enough seniority to NGAF will die out first.

Yes absolutely. That's a normal, fun conversation for adults to have.

No it is not. It is completely degenerate and not a suitable thing to discuss with others. Bodily functions are generally something we keep to ourselves, no different to how we don't announce whether we're going to do a Number 1 or a Number 2 every time we excuse ourselves to visit the toilet. I'd lose respect for someone who brought such a topic up even in private.

Your society is oversexed to an extreme degree, but because a lot of the overt sexuality agrees with the standard hetero paradigm Westerners (even conservative ones) are content to let it pass. However when you get displays of Queer sexuality that are if anything less intense than the Hetero ones seen as completely unremarkable there is an outrage by the conservatives about societal decay.

Physician, heal thyself!

  • -14

Bodily functions are generally something we keep to ourselves, no different to how we don't announce whether we're going to do a Number 1 or a Number 2 every time we excuse ourselves to visit the toilet.

LOL. In coarse (and generally all-male, though not always) company "I've got to take a shit" or "I've got to piss like a race horse" are perfectly acceptable ways to excuse oneself to visit the toilet. It's only in overly-refined company that such things are considered rude.

However when you get displays of Queer sexuality that is if anything less intense than the Hetero ones

Saying that drag queen story hour is less intense than anything is pretty rich.

But sure, I'll bite the bullet. It's a fair trade. I will fund drag queen story hour, I will hand out fliers, I will work the concession stand, if it means we stop jumping down people's throats and threatening lawsuits for every little joke and off-color comment they make.

Gay, straight, I don't care, whatever. I just wish everyone would stop having such a stick up their ass about everything all the time.

DQSH doesn't even need to be sexual if done in a certain way, the same way that nudity doesn't need to be sexual. Two people passionately kissing though is definitely sexual.

I maintain that DQSH is less inherently sexualised than a man and a woman in skimpy swimsuits kissing. The latter though is fine to show to 10 year olds on TV/Netflix and completely normalised, but the former is a massive travesty according to modern western "conservatives".

Ideally I would have none of them, but to get "your rules applied fairly" we need both.

One is normal and needed to propagate the species whereas the other is abnormal and lessens the propagation.

More comments

If this be degeneracy, make the most of it.

a) You're not blue collar

b) I don't even believe you.

Are you defending people’s right to discuss which governor you’d most want to have sex with in the workplace?

Sure. Why not?

Let’s say it happened as alleged. Clearly the world didn’t end. Fox News was able to keep on operating as usual. No one died. What’s the big deal?

Acceptable? Maybe not. Something that anyone should complain to HR about? No. It is at best a minor issue if it is relatively one off.

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