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.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
https://nypost.com/2024/01/19/sports/sports-illustrateds-entire-staff-told-they-are-getting-laid-off/
Sports Illustrated is no more.
Now go woke, go broke is a simple and shadenfraude explanation, but I don't think it tells the full story. And with recent full wokeness on the swimsuit edition - well I doubt that it endeared the core audience more. And this year is already full with disney flops and victoria's secret epiphany that people like hot women.
Media in US is in trouble. While I hold the opinion that wokeness hastened their demise, probably it was inevitable. And the US journalistic class has a monoculture problem. There was obviously no one that knew how to run a media property targeted towards red bloodied males. To write films in Disney that are alluring to non CRT degree holding single women.
We are in a money is tight period - and the people that hold the reigns of the biggest media conglomerates have no idea how to sell to huge part of the audience.
I'd only ever heard of Sports Illustrated for their "swimsuit issue", and if the magazine relied on sales for their softcore porn version issue, then what market did they have, anyway? People are switching to online sources for everything including news and hobby coverage, if they want fapping material they can get a lot saucier and more in line with their particular tastes online, they can even commission it or get AI to draw it for them nowadays!
So if nobody is reading it for the articles or the possibility of seeing tits, isn't the demise inevitable? I think the "get woke, go broke" issue was a last desperate grasp at relevance, but it didn't help: the kind of people who buy the swimsuit issue for the cleavage and high cut thigh suits aren't interested in trans/fat/DEI issues when it comes to getting off, and the kind of people who write and read this aren't interested in sexist misogynistic mainstream soft porn.
From the link you posted:
I believe there was briefly a period where this group was trying to force themselves to watch football. It was part of some culture war thing I can’t exactly remember. The NFL was doing something annoying, normies stopped watching, and this sunset started trying to signal that they would fill the gaps. This of course failed.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link