Reddit (soon to be) Dead

[touchingcloth]

Yeah he's a bit of a knob really. Ultimately right about what he's on about but has the air of a grim pua edgelord who unironically appears to use phrases like 'gargle my balls'.

I needed to replace the battery in my phone, and was tossing up between the authorised and unauthorised options, as I've used them both in the past and they each have their issues.

I went with unauthorised in the end, partly due to having that video recent in my memory. €40 cheaper, and I just have to deal with an alert icon warning about the non-original part. Is there a simple way to remove the warning? Of course not.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Tangential but I reckon the best bullshit social media discourse is 'cooking food from other cultures is cultural appropriation'.

best example of this i remember is some cook posting pics of tourists from the USA failing to eat mexican and central american food correctly and dropping it everywhere, folding everything in burritos, all that. in a funny 'white people, smh" sort of way. then a while later images from that were picked up by people making 'white people eating mexican food is cultural appropriation' posts. when his point was originally that white people dont eat it enough and get mystified by real food when they see it. the way it started as a guy making a reasonable point (and promoting his business) through good natured ribbing and that being turned into this is the law, you all most obey by internet police as soon as it migrated across platforms.

[touchingcloth]

Cultural appropriation is a weird one. Eating jerk food is fine, having Bob Marley records is fine, wearing dreadlocks is fine, but some sort of line is crossed by the time you're dressing up as Trisha and saying bumblesquat kiss me bogles, irie.

Isn't culture just a massive spectrum, and a key element of culture is appropriation? Memetic drift, innit.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Cultural appropriation is a weird one. Eating jerk food is fine, having Bob Marley records is fine, wearing dreadlocks is fine, but some sort of line is crossed by the time you're dressing up as Trisha and saying bumblesquat kiss me bogles, irie.

Isn't culture just a massive spectrum, and a key element of culture is appropriation? Memetic drift, innit.

Music's an interesting one and probably depends on how 'serious' or authentic you are. Basically Average White Band can pass for actual funk to the point of fooling American funk artists (although Don Cornelius still thought they were appropriating or getting boosted more than they deserved to be) but someone like sting or culture club doing faux reggae is frowned upon.

Often the ire is at the mechanism of course, I remember a black garage artist I an interview stressing they didn't have a problem with Daniel Bedingfield and thought he'd made a good song but felt it did better than stuff they considered better because the industry felt it easier to promote.

David Rodigan speaks actual patois if he's djing which would probably be considered rum if he hadn't spent about 40 years djing reggae and won sound clashes in Jamaica and stuff.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

think it comes down to social status and consumerism, specifically the way that frontier/overlaps between those two things manifest differently in different online communities. if its consumerist and good for GROWTH then its not problematic cultural appropriation and its good, but if its something linked to status to be fought over in whatever community, then it might be. and you'd be 'telling us who you are' by enjoying it.

at first cooking and fashion came up because going out and looking smart are two ways young, college educated people express themselves and enjoy their social status. it was never about furniture or paintings because those are things older, richer people would enjoy. then a decade or so on everyone had aged it became something you associate with arguments about musical theatre, expensive holidays, wedding ceremonies and interior decorating and what elements of those were good and authentic and which were bad and corrupted. doing a tea ceremony with your young daughter because she wants to learn about asian culture? cultural appropriation. going on a big holiday to japan and buying a lot of japanese clothing and wearing it, spending wildly? not cultural appropriation. small time childrens author writing in an ethnicity they're not? cultural appropriation. disney have a new minority superhero every month for woke points and ragebait? authentic expression of identity.

also a backlash because 90s - early 00s was peak political correctness and it was actively cool to have cosmopolitan cultural tastes. you were probably a tory fuck if you didnt have at least one world music album. so naturally status around fashion meant the pendulum swung eventually back to STAY IN YOUR LANE and BE AUTHENTIC. out went fiction and music by others, in came nonfiction and theory about the other. the biggest cultural shift ive lived through i think. honestly think its one of the things thatll mark millenials and zoomers out as reactionary, conservative to future generations in the same way thoughtless use of slurs, calling stuff 'foreign' or other parochial habits that mark out boomers as running of fumes and received wisdom. its not something thatll last forever and i cant see a particular reason why a future generation would be kind to us about it.

[FeederFan500]

I have never quite got a grasp of Reddit, the aspect I don't like about it is that top ranked stuff goes to the top so it rewards saying the right thing rather than an interesting thing. However it is useful for the collective fans of X to go "hey guys check this new thing out related to X". Only plus side of the mobile site pushing you to the app is that I prefer old.reddit anyway.


I'm still unsure what to think of cultural appropriation generally. Dressing up as another culture as entertainment seems offensive as it treats a group as 'other' but I am instinctively against any group claiming a monopoly on something in culture. As a default position it seems to be that a minority gatekeeping something is ok, and a majority gatekeeping something is bad.

For example, I can remember Iggy Azalea being criticised for aping hip hop but not supporting black communities and was therefore benefitting unfairly from black culture without giving back like contemporaries. I'm sure any black artists who were successful and pulled up the drawbridge would also be criticised, but I don't think it would be argued that they shouldn't be releasing hip hop music full stop, probably on the basis that their upbringing was authentic and part of the struggle. (And would that mean that well-off minorities would be appropriating culture and so on?).

[Sebastian Cobb]

Snip

Yeah true. I think when it comes to minority voices twitter is very American at its core as well. 'black twitter' is generally good and interesting but it reveals an very American mindset at times, for instance when they were calling appropriation on people using #sayhername against Brianna Ghey, using terms like 'intellectual property' on a slogan that's as old as the hills anyway. A lot of British Black and queer activists were losing it.

[touchingcloth]

Is going out-out for St Patrick's Day a cultural appropriation?

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Is going out-out for St Patrick's Day a cultural appropriation?

i wanna pour one out for this, the most golden trolling topic of all time. the trick is not to raise it on its own in direct relationship to st patricks day or cultural appropriation, but to slip it under the door when people are talking about obnoxious drunk students or complaining about americans

it is infallible, 100% chance of stinking out anything, dead skunk in a can, brain repellant

Yeah true. I think when it comes to minority voices twitter is very American at its core as well. 'black twitter' is generally good and interesting but it reveals an very American mindset at times, for instance when they were calling appropriation on people using #sayhername against Brianna Ghey, using terms like 'intellectual property' on a slogan that's as old as the hills anyway. A lot of British Black and queer activists were losing it.

black twitter was amazing at its peak, but i always thought the belief shared in some circles that 'black twitter' was somehow the first ever national scale, cultural voice for black americans was as honkingly racist as you could get. it also brings home how divided america is, when you realise that there are some people who didnt think realise there were black interest magazines, radio, tv stations, etc. before the internet opened their eyes. up there with George Lucas calling his WWII movie "the first ever black led action movie" ... kinda never felt like there was much crossover between 'black twitter' as a thing and activists like m*kki k*ndal and sh*un k*ng and m*chael h*rriot and other hacks who try to present themselves as its official spokespeople

[Kankurette]

it's weird seeing MK being touted as an activist when I'm old enough to remember when she was Karnythia on Livejournal, and called a funeral home because she thought some woman was lying about her baby dying.

On the subject of black Twitter, I remember rows between black Americans and black Brits over Adele wearing a Jamaican flag bikini and bantu knots during lockdown when Notting Hill Carnival was cancelled. The Americans thought it was offensive, the Brits - some of whom were of Jamaican descent themselves - argued that it wasn't because Adele is from Tottenham, grew up with black people and lived in a very multicultural environment, and regularly went to Notting Hill Carnival. The black experience isn't universal. Like, fried chicken and watermelon might be a stereotypical 'black food' in the US, but it isn't elsewhere. I don't think it is here, is it? (This is also why I miss Gal-Dem.)

Is going out-out for St Patrick's Day a cultural appropriation?

I'm just mad nobody cares about St Andrew's Day. St David's Day is easy to remember cos it's 1st March, St George is our guy and St Patrick = WHEEEEY LET'S DRINK GUINNESS. I guess people focus more on Burns Night as the Scottish Day.

Speaking of which, AyeForScotland also often gets Americans asking him if it's cultural appropriation or offensive for non-Scots to wear kilts. He must be sick of it by now.

[Sebastian Cobb]

i wanna pour one out for this, the most golden trolling topic of all time. the trick is not to raise it on its own in direct relationship to st patricks day or cultural appropriation, but to slip it under the door when people are talking about obnoxious drunk students or complaining about americans

it is infallible, 100% chance of stinking out anything, dead skunk in a can, brain repellant

black twitter was amazing at its peak, but i always thought the belief shared in some circles that 'black twitter' was somehow the first ever national scale, cultural voice for black americans was as honkingly racist as you could get. it also brings home how divided america is, when you realise that there are some people who didnt think realise there were black interest magazines, radio, tv stations, etc. before the internet opened their eyes. up there with George Lucas calling his WWII movie "the first ever black led action movie" ... kinda never felt like there was much crossover between 'black twitter' as a thing and activists like m*kki k*ndal and sh*un k*ng and m*chael h*rriot and other hacks who try to present themselves as its official spokespeople

Oh yeah it's all a load of shit like BET and I dunno, Pam Grier never existed.

[touchingcloth]

Speaking of which, AyeForScotland also often gets Americans asking him if it's cultural appropriation or offensive for non-Scots to wear kilts. He must be sick of it by now.

You can take his life, but you can never appropriate his cultuuuuuuuuuuure.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

it's weird seeing MK being touted as an activist when I'm old enough to remember when she was Karnythia on Livejournal, and called a funeral home because she thought some woman was lying about her baby dying.

yes. a lot of the first wave of 'sjws' basically started on livejournal versions of k*wifarms and used social justice/intersectionality as a way to make it seem righteous. mk's harassments were legendary, as were her bragging about fire arms and pro gun rants. it wasnt just calling a funeral home, iirc, it was at least a years worth of hounding.

it amazing to me that so many of these people are russia russia russia now when they first got followings during the dying years of livejournal. mk is the most galling example to me because she clearly just woke up one morning and invented a new personal history for herself as an activist and people just went with it. even though she was largely targetting the exact same people as she did before.

[Kankurette]

It's like the 'antis' who send CSEM images to people they deem 'problematic' for writing fanfic of underage characters or whatever. Btw, I mean actual CSEM. Not drawings.

Winterfox/Requires Hate/Benjanun Sridangkaew is another one. Pretends to be a social justice activist and hides behind being Thai as an excuse to be horrifically abusive to anyone she deems 'problematic'. She's from a rich and powerful family who were, among other things, responsible for a hotel fire. There's a whole load of information out there. But she's very good at saying the right things. Same with Ana Mardoll, and the big reveal about him working for Lockheed Martin and the amount of people who defended him really showed how shallow a lot of these people's beliefs really are. The life of one white American trans man is worth the lives of thousands of nameless people in Iraq or Palestine.

[Cuellar]

now apply that logic to why everything political online ends up as democrats v republicans, which reddit has been a hub of for years. the front page of imgur is 50% obviously astroturf political memes at all times

reddit is pure astroturf arse. i wish someone would look at tumblr circa 2012/2013 because i remember being weird, like that post about it being classist to criticise mcdonalds because mcdonalds have wifi and the thing that kept going around about how whoppers were the perfect nutrition and hating processed food was bigotted for some reason

Yeah but the guy from She Blinded Me With Science was saying that about beefburgers yeeears ago, that's old news

[Sonny_Jim]

Bizarrely Monsanto had a strong Reddit astroturfing campaign, any post about how Round Up gives you cancer or even vaguely anti-GMO was immediately set upon by an army of 'Achkually' twats.  I'm not sure I see much of an intersection between 'people who use Monsanto products' and 'people who use Reddit', but apparently they saw enough overlap to chuck some money at it:

https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2017/may/monsanto-paid-internet-trolls-to-counter-bad-pub/

[touchingcloth]

Is a bad pub like that crooked house?

[13 schoolyards]

Winterfox/Requires Hate/Benjanun Sridangkaew is another one. Pretends to be a social justice activist and hides behind being Thai as an excuse to be horrifically abusive to anyone she deems 'problematic'. She's from a rich and powerful family who were, among other things, responsible for a hotel fire. There's a whole load of information out there. But she's very good at saying the right things.

I remember Requires Hate from the ancient days of various SFF blogs where she used to run riot in the comments sections. There was a really extensive expose / takedown a decade or so ago that went through everything she'd been saying (which turned out to be largely attempts to stifle the careers of people she saw as rivals) and the various names she'd been using, which you'd usually think would be enough to nuke someone's career forever... but this is the internet, so of course not

[touchingcloth]

I remember Requires Hate from the ancient days of various SFF blogs

https://sff.co.uk/ ?

[Famous Mortimer]

Small Form Factor (relating to PCs)

Clearly this person really hated, or liked, the Raspberry Pi

[JesusAndYourBush]

20 mins ago I got an email from reddit giving the opportunity to buy shares. Gotta be a US citizen to be eligible though.

[touchingcloth]

Small Form Factor (relating to PCs)

Sanfrancisco Friend Forever.

[13 schoolyards]

Clearly no film buffs here: https://www.sff.org.au/

(not really)

[Sonny_Jim]

20 mins ago I got an email from reddit giving the opportunity to buy shares. Gotta be a US citizen to be eligible though.

Worth a punt I reckon, but not being septic I don't have the opportunity.

[falafel]

Just a general question, why are there so many acronyms these days rather than just new words? Linguistically it seems a bit exclusive.

I always thought when IDAHO got more inclusive (a good thing) they should have just called it something else instead of turning the acronym into a stroke symptom.

[Noodle Lizard]

20 mins ago I got an email from reddit giving the opportunity to buy shares. Gotta be a US citizen to be eligible though.

I'm a US citizen but apparently I'm not on Reddit enough to get the opportunity :(

It'd probably be good for a quick turnaround when it finally goes public, but I dunno about longterm. I remember Roblox plummeted not long after going public.

[Mister Six]

best example of this i remember is some cook posting pics of tourists from the USA failing to eat mexican and central american food correctly and dropping it everywhere, folding everything in burritos, all that. in a funny 'white people, smh" sort of way. then a while later images from that were picked up by people making 'white people eating mexican food is cultural appropriation' posts. when his point was originally that white people dont eat it enough and get mystified by real food when they see it. the way it started as a guy making a reasonable point (and promoting his business) through good natured ribbing and that being turned into this is the law, you all most obey by internet police as soon as it migrated across platforms.

Is all of this shit still a thing? It was driving me loopy c.2016 until I sacked off a ton of mental (ableism! Self-crit now!) Facebook groups. I'd assumed it had faded as the weirdos in those groups grew out of reactionary bollocks and were replaced by new idiots talking different guff.

[Cloud]

It's a hell of a shame.  It used to be such a useful site that I'd add "Reddit" to the end of most Google searches.  The API thing killed a lot of that.  Then you have generally hanging out and chatting there and with the exception of CasualUK (most of the time) it's become a shithole of toxicity

[touchingcloth]

I've not posted much on Reddit, and when I have it's been short questions or answers.

I've been downvoted every single time. Is that like the "first blood" people used to do with newbies' Karma on here, or is posting short questions and answers rather than talking about the size of Gamergate's tits just incredibly gauche on there?

Is there a way to see who downvoted you so you can ask them what you've done wrong? Half of the comments on there seem to be people saying "I got downvoted for this? OK...?"

[Sebastian Cobb]

It's a hell of a shame.  It used to be such a useful site that I'd add "Reddit" to the end of most Google searches.  The API thing killed a lot of that.  Then you have generally hanging out and chatting there and with the exception of CasualUK (most of the time) it's become a shithole of toxicity

The difference between big/default groups and niche stuff is like night and day.