Are you scared of being canceled?

Nah. I was cancelled a long, long time ago.

Not in a public way, like Twitter rising up, but I'm a white man, and of a certain age, and I feel like everybody thinks it's OK to fuck me over now. I'm not sure that's progress.

I'm NOT. THAT. SIGNIFICANT.

If the silly, mostly straight wokesters I work with knew my thoughts on the Gender Identity Movement and coerced vocabulary, I'd be canceled. I play along.

My horrible 25-year old upstairs neighbor (who I have had a long dispute with) came down the other night and knocked on my door and I know she was secretly recording me (audio) and baiting me and trying to provoke me into going full male Karen. I was very restrained. Two years ago I would not have been so savvy.

My sister's etsy shop got shut down because of something she wrote on facebook about women's rights that TRAs took offense to. They also posted her email and home addresses on twitter and sent her death threats.

Before that happened, I really didn't think this would be an issue.

No.

Next stupid question.

I'm kind of on the fence. I could never see myself making bigoted remarks or screaming at some barista for running out of oatmilk or whatever. But I'm slightly paranoid about getting into some petty spat, having it filmed and then having someone use it against me. Like the scenario r5 mentioned ( which he smartly avoided). It just seems it's too easy to destroy lives and reputations by filming a one sided video. What's that saying about a lie being spread around the world before the truth puts on its pants...

Once again,Im comforted by the fact that I have never in my entire life given a flying fuck what anyone thinks about me. Let them try,they will be very disappointed.

R9 I think in this day and age it's less about caring what people think and more about possible job loss.

Well then,since Im retired I REALLY dont give a fuck R10 !

I turned down a leadership position where I would be managing a team that was primarily of color. It's really depresses me that things are what they are but there is just way too much liability these days of cancellation without question.

No- not remotely.

R12 the attitude would have eventually been “why this white motherfucker in charge? Tanesha say he called you _____”, if you didn’t bow down to all the demands.

No. I think if you aren’t a public figure then as long as you don’t have a PROLONGED public dispute with someone or post on social media under your real name or do something where you actually deserve it (I think the dog park woman in Central Park deserved it), you are safe. But I’m willing to forgo most of social media. Many people aren’t.

It’s possible, but highly improbable.

Like R11--retired, so not anymore. But if I were still working, I'd worry about it. And being sued, etc.

MR LOCKWOOD!! Yippee!!

“The foul odor of moral rot and decay” = pretty much all of Newport

People who think or who are scared of being cancelled are afraid that their dirty little racist/sexist/homophobic/xenophobic secret is going to be revealed to the world. If you are none of those things, you're not worried about something so trivial, you're just living your life.

I play along at work and it is starting to make me dislike work even more. I just don't give a shit what people think of me. But I work for a California company and it's all about being woke and I can't lose my job because no one wants to hire a 55 year old white man these days. Maybe I'll start my own thing and work for myself and I can stop pretending to buy into some of it. Some just feels like nonsense to me. I don't like being told how to think.

R18 made me mad, I think heard em call me a _____

This Christian was cancelled

r18 has apparently never heard the term "frivolous lawsuit."

[quote] the attitude would have eventually been “why this white motherfucker in charge? Tanesha say he called you _____”, if you didn’t bow down to all the demands.

Totally and especially in very progressive areas, this is a very real possibility. It's just not worth it.

People who aren't racist don't think about this stuff. Period. If you're thinking about this, then you know what you are. It's kinda sad.

R24 sure, Jan. Whatever makes you feel superior.

Yes, R24. People who are woke don't think about this stuff.

To be canceled, people have to care you exist to begin with.

OP lives in terror of a woke black person speaking to him.

R24 That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Racism has many shades and degrees. Don't believe me? Listen for yourself you knucklehead.

The old wrong-thinkers need to get out of the way. They're blocking the path of the new correct-thinkers.

R24 thought about it enough to stop in and post a few times…

What’s their agenda? To make sure accusations are never questioned?

No OP because my family, friends, neighbors and coworkers are all sane people who never talk let alone wrap their lives around all the BS that people on Twitter and The View . . . go on and on and on about. They would roll their eyes if anyone started talking this nonsense

Good for R32 who has sanitized her life

Thank God I have a life R33 that doesn't involve petty, self-involved, insufferable and pretentious SJW. The person who cuts my hair goes on about all the doom and gloom and gets herself so upset as slaps the comb against the palm of her hand as she's making her points. I see her once a month but couldn't be around someone who gets themselves so upset every day. I've always avoided toxic coworkers who live to hear themselves complain about the job. Have a happy life. BTW these people never affect change

Nobody who uses woke or sjw as a pejorative has an ounce of credibility.

and a select few get to decide the words phrases and media that is acceptable and credible to them and R35 is proving that point. It's like the people who want to browbeat you into seeing Bros. They don't converse they lecture/preach.

If you are even thinking these thoughts, you are therefore guilty of thoughtcrime!

You [italic]will[/italic] be reported!

R36, stop using right-wing culture war buzzwords.

The only acceptable comedy is the type that makes white people feel terrible about themselves and educates men about consent. I have always maintained that if you find yourself laughing at stand-up comedy, it probably isn’t sufficiently progressive.

and they want to control you and what you say and do as R38 demonstrates.

Or you can stop be a culture warrior for fascists.

R39 is Titania McGrath

OP scared of people who've worn out the letters B-O-R-I-S on their keyboards as s may on DL have apparently done.

[Quote]How any of you can watch less support anything this turncoat has been in amazes me. She may not be directly responsible for Trump but the way she trashed Hillary in 2016. She is a cunt forever and I will never watch her again.

Talk about holding a grudge and charged language. It's all Susan Sarandon's fault. They're in love with their own vitriol.

[Quote}I also have real problems with the fact that they cast a straight actor who is not very fat, and [who] used prosthetics to represent fatness, in the film. I think it allows people to talk about that character as an object in a way that wouldn’t be possible if it were an actual fat person who you had to look in the eyes.

Is there anything these cancel culture vultures don't have a problem with?

[Quote]Or you can stop be a culture warrior for fascists.

I retired from a creative field in 2020, feel like it was just in time. With the new hypersensitivity, I’m sure I would eventually have offended somebody.

when I become famous I'm going to freeze and deactivate my social accounts; I'll pay someone to go through them and remove any Joan Rivers jokes that I liked.

I’m definitely more aware while working with POC. One supervisor used to always use the expression ‘not my circus, not my monkeys.’ I used to cringe because half the team was black and already thought she was racist due to other things she’d said. She was super liberal too, but didn’t see that certain things she said could be taken different ways. My aunt had a high level position as a manager for the city and a couple times when she critiqued someone’s job performance they accused her of racism, even though race was never mentioned.

My aunt worked for City Hall wich is 80% black and she said she only lived for retirement. She said the drama was never ending,and racist was thrown around like "coffee" or "pens" . The very day she was eligible,she was vapor.

No and neither is Lyle Menedez.

I wonder if his students are among those who feel the Menedez Bros were not given a fair trial

R50, my aunt worked for the MTA and she retired a few years ago. She couldn’t wait either, she said she couldn’t imagine just starting out. Since she retired it’s gotten even worse, so she got out right in time.

I'm scared about cancelling because that thread talking about the 'Non-binary Twitterer' complaining about 'Brokeback Mountain' has just disappeared in the last five minutes.

I work in Higher Ed, absolutely I am.

I’m terrified of it

I was in higher education and I feared cancellation and it happened and life has gone on.

Look on the bright side: it was a ticket out of Salem Village that didn't involve water, fire, or the rope.

Oh god yeah, although obviously not on some massive nation- or even statewide level. I've always been a little wary of whether some of my past naughtiness could come back and mess things up for me. One good thing to remember is that just because you don't think there's a camera mean there isn't a camera!

R57 do you want to give any general details? Was it a stray comment or something?

I'm tenured, so no.

R59, R57 here. I am a male and had a disabled mentally ill non-traditional female student become fixated on me and then start acting out in class; the more boundaries that I tried to construct, the more aggressive she got (she self-identified as a borderline). Lots of complaints about accessibility, disrupting class, picking fights with classmates young enough to be her children. Wanted to be my friend and see me outside class. Suicide threats at the end of a given class. She wrote fanfic about her and I and our life together and turned it in instead of her midterm exam. I flat out told her to drop the class (having received no support from the administration). My program director didn't give a shit but the activist-minded provost decided my actions in handling this woman were not on-brand and my contract wasn't renewed. I don't mind being canceled as an academic; it's like being kept from boarding the Titanic. As a PhD, I was always happier as a researcher/writer and I've rediscovered and reconnected with that. The academic realm had been really bad for me (I'm relatively cute and have a personality and sense of humor, which were being sapped from me) and it was a blessing in disguise.

[QUOTE]People who think or who are scared of being cancelled are afraid that their dirty little racist/sexist/homophobic/xenop - hobic secret is going to be revealed to the world. If you are none of those things, you're not worried about something so trivial, you're just living your life.

Ok, R18, let me tell you my story. Maybe a decade ago, in a Facebook discussion (yeah, I shouldn’t, but 10 years ago…), I said that quite honestly, I didn’t see a problem if female survivors of domestic/sexual abuse wanted a group that was only open to women born as women. No-one with a penisMaybe you think I should’ve been cancelled forever for saying that.

What did happen is that someone I didn’t know started messaging me privately, making threats. That he’d searched for me online, knew who I was and who my husband was. That ‘wouldn’t it be terrible for your husband’s career if [that individual] started to publicise what I’d said. That he knew where I lived, what my dog was. That maybe I should apologise, say in the group how wrong I was, or things could get bad. His attitude was utterly sanctimonious and threatening.

I told him he was a nasty little bully and a blackmailer, and that he didn’t frighten me. That it was disgusting to threaten my husband’s career over my comment. That he was denying both me and my husband agency. And that I had a lawyer ready (I didn’t, but he didn’t know that). But that's what cancelling someone is about: not dealing with major or powerful ‘offenders’ 99% of the time, but bullying ordinary people with marginally different views. It’s so often not the big homophobes/racists that they go after. So fuck your ‘only if you have a dirty little secret’ idea, it’s more often about dictating language and denying your right to a slightly different view.

No. I simply don't care. And I don't post bullshit all over social media so even if I did care there would be nothing there.

That's what you think, R63, but the coming generation is VERY devious about changing the meaning of words.

What was considered innocent then is now considered evil.

Oh yeah I've been canceled. I've been called a racist because I wasn't buying what Obama was selling. Now of course everyone is saying what I said back in 2008.

What were you saying in 2008?

Oh that he dropped by the Senate to ask for directions to the White House. That he had a paper thin resume of community work in Chicago. That people voted for him because he was black and that was racist. That white people voted for him so that they can feel post racial and that was racist too. Post racial was the cringe term liberals used back then. That he was a right-wing fan of Reagan as he said so himself. That he said he was going to make the Republicans work with him and that I'm not into magical thinking. That he got a Nobel even before started his job. Etc etc.

I'll stop here r66.

[quote]But I work for a California company and it's all about being woke and I can't lose my job because no one wants to hire a 55 year old white man these days. Maybe I'll start my own thing and work for myself and I can stop pretending to buy into some of it.

This is it. It seems that at least half of my white, middle class, middle-age friends have taken the plunge and have their own businesses today. Some are succeeding very well. Small business culture is very dynamic today, similar to in the early '80s. Big industries have become toxic, miserable places to work.

[quote] he got a Nobel even before started his job

That was bizarre.

[quote] Now of course everyone is saying what I said back in 2008.

Girl you are not unique lmao. You aren’t unique now you weren’t unique then.

When in diverse company I have to remind myself not to use familiar family sayings like so and so is a gone coon.

I am. I sometimes feel “marked for death” and I know, honestly, I may not fall upward or land in another job as prestigious as mine. I try to be mindful and not engage in any polarizing rhetoric.

On the idea of striking out on one’s own for more autonomy, I don’t think that I would be able to pull that off. Consulting, executive coaching, advisory work looks much harder to monetize than it might seem. Creative content, and maybe technical domains, maybe be easier to freelance. But a broad management role is hard to map out as an independent business model.

So many of my friends are struggling (many smarter and better educated than I am), even without a canceling “event” that displaced them from an organization. I think it is a hard time to lose a job right now, any job, but especially one that has stature and/or a public profile. If that happened to me, I’d simply disappear. Probably Europe or New England.

I don’t know which of you old bitches need to hear this but you can’t be canceled if you’re a nobody. Nobody’s canceling retired gays.

When did being gay get you excised out of being a minority. Back in the day, I felt a (if not necessarily reciprocated) camaraderie with POC or any "underdog" for that matter. Being a gay white male is pretty much the same as being a white straight male. My counter is that gay men, world wide, have been oppressed by every race, creed, and religion, especially POC communities.

I am biding my time until the pendulum [italic]really[/italic] swings back the other way and "canceling" will have no power.

R64 I still don't care

Elon got Twitter now, it’s only a matter of time until these loons have no place

Don’t forget Barry Obama was a homophobe who had to be pushed to support gay marriage by Joe Biden.

Miss Barry was funnily enough well know for her dicksucking exploits.

Yes, constantly. I work in Human Resources and it's a minefield. I'm very careful with my words and even received feedback that my language is too sanitized and I don't use enough "real talk."

Real talk is dangerous, though. I had a Zoom meeting with a trans employee (MTF) and after exchanging greetings, I responded to the question "How has your day been?" with "Oh man, it's been a hectic one so far but we (the HR team) are getting a lot accomplished." That was considered a micro-aggression because I said "man" even though it's just a colloquialism/wasn't directed at the employee.

Then I had a routine phone call (nothing disciplinary) with an employee who has a disability and out of the blue he began recording the call with no discussion as to why. I said I didn't consent to being recorded (a legal must in my state) and that was also a micro-aggression.

The pronouns are confusing; some are he/they and some people are so confused they just refer to everyone as they. Sometimes I'm lost for a few minutes thinking there are multiple people involved in an HR issue until I ask more questions and realize it's just one "they."

The unconscious bias trainings are all outrageously bad, regardless of whether they are canned or "live" over Zoom. They are also unintentionally offensive to just about everyone but we're constantly pressured to do them more often and with accompanying workshops.

I'm 15 years into this career and the thought of having to tip-toe around for another 25 years is horrifying. I'm looking into retraining as are a lot of HR people. Most of us want to be fair and inclusive for employees but at the same time things have gone too far ( we just can't say anything without getting fired/igniting a mob).

Have to agree, there are so many people out to find offense wherever they turn. Some of the most troublesome I've had the misfortune to encounter are white, middle-class 20-sonetging girls with the pronoun "they"

You'll be leaving the inmates to run the asylum, R80, but I understand.

Thanks God I live on Balkans, but in US I would be.

You are proclaimed racist on DL if you don't think Michelle was the most beautiful first lady ever.

Cancellation can also happen in academia for other non racial reasons. We had some animal rights activists threaten our university because people were doing research online with no animal testing involved. The protests went rogue and terrorized the veterinary science employees at their church and blew up a professors car. Happened in 2011. A principal investigator that I worked with for years (I ran his lab) always cried when he had to put an animal down and those animal rights terrorists put him on their web site as a person they wanted to harm.😢 Of all of the people that don’t care if animals suffer out there, why target such a pure soul? It hurt him really bad. Not because of the destruction of the car but from the accusations of cruelty

[Quote] You are proclaimed racist on DL if you don't think Michelle was the most beautiful first lady ever.

That tranny? Thank God I'm dead!

I'll bet R35 has an ounce of weed.

Yes but not the way you mean OP, I am 71 no one in my family has ever lived to be 76, so I expect to be permanently cancelled in the next few years.

Oh R87 you'll set the new record!

There needs to be a stop put to this insanity. These lunatics are using this shit to lock in their job and not have to work, it’s basically blackmail.

No.

I've noticed a ganging up of young girls (I don't deign to call these bitches women) against men offices they take a dislike to for whatever reason -- but alpha males who aren't mindful enough, and don't kowtow to them are ready targets. Unlike men, these cunts will form a rough alliance for these takedowns, and the males find it very difficult to mount a counter-argument when it goes to HR. They're totally blind-sided. The accusations will be list of vague aggressions.

[quote]I've noticed a ganging up of young girls (I don't deign to call these bitches women) against men offices they take a dislike to for whatever reason

Yes, they are usually hated by older groups of women peers though, who see them as entitled and parasitic.

And when the men are gone, that means the older women are next in line. A previous generation of ladies, I'm talking 30s/40s age group, actually had to work hard to get where they are today.

The older, more experienced ones monitor and look for the weakness in these groups they can exploit later for their own preservation, and when the time ripe they rip them apart in a way only one cunt can do to another.

To be honest, I think the tide's turning.

This is a mostly gay male board, yet we're constantly getting women coming here being anti trans and lecturing us. It never used to be like that.

R61 what an absolute horror show! I'm glad you haven't lost a positive outlook on life completely. Everyone is walking on eggshells in academia. In Germany, language is getting more fucked-up every day, which is a really nuisance. It's already included in new school books as well, because 2 percent of the population who control the printed media, the big publishing houses and the news on tv are sworn in on it.

German has a generic masculinum - similar to Italian. If you say you met your friends, you don't have to explicitly include female friends. However, it began with feminists wanting the female form to explicitly included. That was ca. 1990. It evolved slowly since then at first, to a silly asterisk in some uni material. The past few years saw an acceleration of the trend for all gendered words describing persons and it fucks up the flow of the language and doesn't make sense. Just one example: (I know that "teacheress" isn't a word in English. It's just included to show how German works. )

Die Lehrer dieser Schule (=the teachers of this class; pre-1990: including both sexes) - - > die Lehrer und Lehrerinnen (the teacher and teacheresses; official correct language by ca. 1995) - - > die Lehrer*innen (= teacher*esses; academic flyers in the late 90s, one official form in the news in state TV in 2022 - - > die Lehrenden (= the teaching ones; also 2022) - - > die Lehrpersonen (=the teach-persons).

The last is not a word and the before last is not the same as a teacher, just like a runner is not "a running one" because he might also be having dinner at the moment and still be a runner. 2 percent fuck up out language, in the news, in print, in every new school book. It's nuspeak, and everyone who objects is called alt-right. It's not just cosmetic because it is not a choice anymore. And to the stupid fucks who believe it's about not being able to say the n word anyone: No, it's definitely not about that. Everyone's language in every written sentence - and if you're in academia, every spoken one, too - is micromanaged. A language is a living thing and ours is currently being butchered.

^ Orwell prophesied this kind of dystopia back in 1948.

And Michel Houllebeque's recent dystopian novel called 'Submission' prophesied—

[quote] "Muslims don’t care much about economy …they care about the birth rate and education …To them it’s simple—whichever segment of the population has the highest birth rate, and does the best job of transmitting their values wins! If you control the children, you control the future!"

Some cancellations by the enlightened are accompanied with bricks and clubs

R91 If you have been with an organization for 20-plus years (or dedicated to a career) that means you have worked your butt off to get there. If you have been around forever then you know every generation brings something new, the next generation brings something completely different.

These cunts mentioned at R91 believe they can get everything they want in life by exhausting everyone around them. They get virtually an unlimited pass for minor discretions, and more than they should for moderate ones. I have seen the way they criticize, disrespect, and even bully their superiors. And HR staff know the bullies' first instinct is to seek validation on social media.

Unfortunately, social media is crumbling. Words on stone walls lasted 10,000 years, books 1000 years, cinema 100 years, tv 50 years... People will soon have way more important issues to deal with in life, like surviving to give much of a shit about a person's point of view on social media.

[quote]My sister's etsy shop got shut down because of something she wrote on facebook about women's rights that TRAs took offense to.

Tina, bring me the Sure Jan gif!

I never understand when people apply the term "Orwellian" to the so-called left wing 'agenda'.

It much more applies to how the right wing act. We're seeing it in the US now... a move to ban abortion nationwide, moving onto banning gay marriage if they can, promoting God-fearing Christians and the nuclear family over the "homosexual deviants", still lots of racism and 'othering' those they view as less than them.

To me, "Big Brother" has always been the totalitarian aim of the right wing to assert their will over everyone else. Yet people pissed off at a bit of gender neutral language act like they're in danger of being dragged off to The Ministry of Love to be vaporised. Maybe try and read Ninteen Eighty-Four before using the term Orwellian.

[quote]The protests went rogue and terrorized the veterinary science employees at their church and blew up a professors car. Happened in 2011.

That actually sounds like the incident from 2009, and the group who was harassing the professor turned out to be Negotiation is Over, which SPLC has deemed a hate group. NIO is run by a woman named Camille Marino and she's targeted a lot of professors over the years, although she finally did time for harassment and assault several years ago, and you don't hear much from her anymore. Even her social media has been dead for years.

She's a COVID denialist now and I don't think you can lay this at the feet of liberals or leftists.

As ghastly as the right wing are, the left are more insidious. The left dislike free speech far more than the right wing, because the right wing have enough media vehicles to get their message across. Look at the terrifyingly Orwellian speech NZ's ghasty leftist pinup Arden gave to the UN advocating a further global suppression of free speech if you want to know what the left wants.

Dear R99, you seem to think we're teenagers. I reckon half the people in this thread read Ninteen Eighty-Four years ago.

[quote]When in diverse company I have to remind myself not to use familiar family sayings like so and so is a gone coon.

In this thread and the BLM thread, your spelling makes it obvious that you're not even American, so dial your shit back, bitch. You're not a black American who calls people who deserve it "c**ns." You're a rightwinger from Britain or Australia or something, just playing make believe again.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

See Marsha P. Johnson and Stonewall for illustration

[quote] Are you scared of being canceled?

Yes, the Datalounge thread here about the Maine students has just disappeared.

This thread below will disappear soon.

What r99 wrote.

Speaking of "cancelled", once my annual subscription to the DL expires, I won't renew, and I've been here for over 20 years.

The Repug, right-wing invasion of the DL and their cancellation of the long-time, better DL, is complete.

And spare me the fucking nonsense about "left-wingers" not wanting to read divergent, or opposing views. I certainly don't know everything. I know that if you don't know your opponent's argument you can't or don't know your own.

But the right-wingers here are just plain old ignorant, Trumper, bigots, with nothing to offer as a defense of their "positions" and I refuse to be among their kind.

Thank you, DL. you've given me many, many hours of laughter, knowledge and, at times, tears, in a good way.

[quote] I won't renew…

Where will you go, R107?

R99 Ah but if you leave, you're giving them what they want. The more vocal the right wing get, the more vocal I get in return. If they think they're ever silencing me and those like me, they can think again.

R102 Maybe you read Nineteen Eighty-Four so long ago you've forgotten it. That's the only explanation that makes sense if you think the left is Orwellian.

The grifters have taken over the movements from BLM to metoo

R109 the far left absolutely wants to control thoughts, as do the far right. They’re basically the same.

R111 But the thoughts are more forgiving on the left.

The far left: Gay people should be treated equally and with respect.

The far right: Gay people should be put to death and purged.

you've all got big opinions behind your screens. fact is, you're all pussies.

And judges you

I just don't want to lose my million dollar endorsement deals.

I'm not scared of being canceled for anything I say or do. I am insecure about my income and financial stability because of how openly discriminatory the working world has become, and I am afraid of how this may change my nature. My boss told me point blank a year ago that "we have too many white men here." It was chilling to me as a white man who has been in my position over a decade. He is not white and it felt like a threat, and it threw me into great distress, both worrying about my job security and also finding myself in the disturbing position of having to think of myself in a racially oppositional way, which I never had done before. I understand that being put into others' unfair situations is how we develop empathy. I'm disturbed that people are moving toward and testing out openly discriminatory practices in the workplace with full security that they are free to do so. People will wield that power knowing they can get away with it. We are now on the precipice of firing a person or not hiring a person explicitly because he is a white man being socially sanctioned, if not legally, and this is the wrong direction for us to move toward. It will explode this country and we will have the civil war that some people fear we will and some people want us to have. White people still are a majority and even when white people become a minority, it will be a sizable one, and people are not going to acquiece to open discrimination. This feels very bad to me, both personally and in a greater sense. I hope the pendulum swings back toward the center and we get closer to true equality and away from hiring and promoting because of identity and not hiring and firing because of identity. This is scary to me.

[quote]This is a mostly gay male board, yet we're constantly getting women coming here being anti trans and lecturing us. It never used to be like that.

I've asked a few of these trolls why they're even on DL and they never answer, of course. Earlier on some thread there was a guy calling all of us "liberal retards" and "communists," for example. Why did he even come to DL in the first place? Why does he think it's his board and not ours? I've never understood that.

Are you scared of women’s pussies?

I got cancelled and made a fucking career out of it.

Fuck the do-nothing Twitter wokescolds

R18 Is your hymen still intact?

R18 & people like him/her/them will be the very first to start bitching & moaning at the top their lungs about cancel culture when she/he/they drop a comment or opinion they feel is & meant as utterly innocuous & someone in the mob comes for their heads. When that happens, and it will, they can continue to blather on about all the secret homophobes, racists & sexists they're suddenly sharing a bed with.

FF R18 and “cancel” them

no, OP, only an idiot would be "Scared".

R123 perhaps you’re thinking of “scarred”… perhaps

R117 this is the only site that allows people to say anything they want. Yahoo shut down their comment section

I believe in slavery and worse but I know I can't say it on Facebook. Just don't say anything political unless you are radical leftist. White people bad. Brown people good.

[quote] Are you scared of being canceled?

Yes I am. That thread "Jon Stewart calls out red state transphobes" from yesterday has been cancelled.

I’m incredibly mild mannered and do all I can to avoid being the center of attention or ever making a scene, so I don’t think I’m at serious risk of ever being unmasked in a viral “Karen” video.

That said, I have a few close colleagues who are they/thems despite presenting clearly as a him or a her. It’s fine talking one on one with any of them, because nobody seems to take offense at being called “you”. The more fraught thing is having a conversation that concerns one of these folks with a third party. I think that this whole agender phenomenon gained traction so late in my life, it’s really hard to shorten the synapses in my brain when trying to form a sentence about a person who is clearly male but doesn’t want to be called by the usual pronouns. I end up going out of my way to avoid using pronouns altogether when talking about the they/thems. It’s usually pretty conversationally awkward for me, and I’m sure whoever I’m speaking with picks up on the fact that I only refer to John as “John”, or only ever speak about John as part of a collective where they/them is grammatically appropriate.

I honestly don’t care what other people do — if you want to be called them or xhe or Madame Zelda, that’s your business and I’ll do my best to keep it in mind and refer to you as such. Nevertheless, it’s really hard to reprogram my middle-aged brain to use new situation-based grammar. I make an effort, and any screw ups are genuinely not mean-spirited or willful misgendering. This is actually something I actually stress about a bit, that I’ll be found to be a serial pronoun offender.

[quote]But the thoughts are more forgiving on the left. The far left: Gay people should be treated equally and with respect.

The far left's embracing of trans is hardly loving and accepting of gays.

You mean that I never wasn’t!????!?

Whether as an old white man or a beautiful white Karen, YES.

My friend is a professor at a Tier 2 graduate school. The students are about 22-23 and they will dispute facts and look to revise history. They also will send him emails telling him what and how he should teach. He panics every time a student emails and he is the most mild mannered, relaxed, & I dare say woke teacher.

I'm 41, so far enough out of school that times have definitely changed,, but still hold a vivid memory. In college, we went to class, maybe we were late or disrespectful to a professor we didn't like, but the teacher was the one with the power. They told us what we were studying, how we were going to study it and if we had a problem with that, either drop the class or fail. As a problematic and outspoken gayling student, faculty and administration always took the teachers side. It's been less than 20 years and now the teachers are literally terrified of the students. The inmates are running the asylum now.

I really don't get Gen Z. On one hand, they have these freedoms to do, say, and live basically how they want. 2+1 = 4 if they say so, yet they are so rigid, punishing, and puritanical on the flip side. It's like freedom living in self imposed bondage, I don't get it at all.

R133 it really is a weird loop with them. It’s like they have all the freedom but it scares them so they had to put these restraints up so they wouldn’t go overboard.

R133 They're a generation of kids who have been given dictatorial power their entire lives, and when they come together into the world, they are in a constant struggle with everyone else to control everything. We have peopoe like this now, who have always been given everything they demanded and who have faced zero consequences in their lifetimes. Donald Trump is a prime example of how they behave in the greater world when they believe they are granted the power to control everything. But Donald Trump is one person in a million within his generation, whereas among Gen Z, personalities like his are more like one in 50.

R135 I’d say it’s more like 1 in 20, or 10 maybe higher

They will be like Trump as they age. They'll storm into workplaces at entry level and bully older people, who will move out of the way as they bulldoze their ways to the top. They will expect equal power as they come into the working world, and once they get power, they will take all they can get. When the next generation comes into the working world with Gen Z in control...god help them.

[quote]whereas among Gen Z, personalities like his are more like one in 50.

[quote]They will be like Trump as they age. it.

Donald Trump has nothing to do with it.

How lazy to keep falling back on Trump as some kind of reference point for all our ills...including entitlement issues concerning Gender Z of all things.

^ Gen Z

Agree, Gen Z has nothing to do with Trump and they are not analogous. Trump is the type to bully, lie, and cheat his way to the top - he's agressive. A very Boomer type of mentality. Gen Z victimize themselves, tattle, and try to get ahead through passive aggression, jumping on bandwagons that they know nothing about and holding others to impossible purity tests thought nobody, not even themselves could pass.

It's not a lazy comparison.

Donald Trump is a prototypical example of someone who has been handed dictatorial control over everything in his life, and who he is today is the result of that. He was given his businesses by his father, he bought his way to a Wharton degree, he bullied huge banks into giving him loans he didn't deserve over and over, he rewrote reality for half of the country, and he has never been held accountable. He's beyond the law. He has been accused of raping 25 women, and those abuses are because he knows he has unchecked power without consequence.

Putin didn't grow up that way but he negotiated himself into that state of being and now all hell is breaking loose around Russia as a result.

When people are given total control without consequences, they turn out like that. Parents who let their children dictate what happens inside the home and schools and colleges that force faculty to do the same create similar monstrous personalities. It is necessary to look at Trump as the end product of a lifetime of being given carte blanche to control everyone around you. When young people get into the working world, they will arrive with this kind of mentality. They are a generation that gets adults fired with a tweet or a TikTok. They really do have real-world power and they've sociopathically learned to wield those powers. I can easily imagine young people who won't work hard getting their critical bosses fired with online accusations and rapid advancement—without learning anything along the way—due to fear of their power.

It's real even if it sounds stupid to you. Our culture has turned into a passive-aggressive wargame instead of a merit-based culture that values education and working one's way up. People bully their ways into opportunities, invoking whatever marginalized status is available to them, and any criticism as in Trump's world is a witch hunt with the critic out to get them because of their identity.

Maybe it's the endless privileges that could make Gen Z similar to Trump. Even if it's not financial, it's the parents always telling you that you are always correct, special, and the best. In which case, this falls squarely on the shoulders of Gen X parents, which seems to be the bulk of DL. These terrors and workplace dictators are all in their early to mid 20's which would make their parents in their early to mid 50's. DL - why and how did your generation raise such batch of entitled assholes. I thought Gen X was all about being cool and not giving a fuck.

R140 ‘s take us how I see it as well. trump is a different animal altogether flaunting the privilege that Gen Z scorns and shames.

I don’t disagree with r141 either, but there is quite a difference in how trump presents himself to the world versus your average bullying Gen z’er.

Trump worked his way up to the Presidency but his behavior is not unusual among the CEOs of this world.

The etsy story is true. You are allowed to sell "Kill Terfs" badges and products but if a TRA complains to etsy that a shop owner said men should stay out of women's toilets on their personal twitter account, their shop is closed immediately.

Joke all you will but it happens all the time.

r145 etsy also allows destroy all men but not destroy all women.

r142 Nope. Gen X is just law abiding... they can't so little as leave their tweens on the front lawn alone without the threat of law enforcement and social workers.

I agree with R133 I've recently returned to higher education and the power shift from teachers to students is unbelievable. These poor Professors walk on eggshells to not offend.

The reason it's getting harder not to hate people is because, in the world of social media, so many people post every thought they have on social media. Before it existed, people still had lots of controversial thoughts but they either kept them to themselves or shared in person with people they knew in real life. So all the hateful bullshit was there, but we didn't know about it as much. Now people post everything, then a million people have to comment on it and fight back and forth, then it branches off into sub-fights and re-tweets which get commented on back and forth, and soon one single comment has resulted in thousands of people feeling hatred towards other people. Why is all this necessary?

In the old days the wisdom was that in polite society there were topics that were off limits for discussion in mixed company, with the "big ones" being politics and religion. People still had nasty divisive thoughts but were less prone to sharing them with the whole world, and it led to a more peaceful co-existence.

Just to lighten the mood a bit, this stuff has been around for decades.

See Magda's take on this from 1995. Just drop in at 1.35.

No, I am a minority and a gay man. I am near the top in the Oppression Olympics.

[quote] whereas among Gen Z, personalities like his are more like one in 50.

Greatly overstated. Most of that cohort are like anybody else. The issue is with the ultra privileged exercising that privilege against the "wrong-thinking" majority.

With increasing threat of global war, the West is potentially about to become increasingly militarized. If so, it will be especially the case in blue cities, with them being greater targets due to their financial and cultural significance. Free-thinking universities may even become militarized themselves in the case of a massive war breakout. It is really not a far-fetched scenario in the grand scheme of things.

Every truly great city has survived major attacks. Ultimately it builds character and resilience. People have to pull together if they want to survive.

[quote] Every truly great city has survived major attacks. Ultimately it builds character and resilience. People have to pull together if they want to survive.

Well, when chapstick and basically every item including Dawn dish soap is behind class walls formerly reserved for cigarettes and premium alcohol, you know things are dire.

[quote] being canceled

The thread about Vanderbilt University doing sex changes has just been canceled.

It's kept me from complaining in public, we had really bad service at a Wendy's and a few years ago I would have let them have it. But today I would worry about somebody filming me and posting it online and being known as a male "Karen".

My 12 year old niece was playing with a friend by the pond in their neighborhood with a neighborhood friend. Her friend ran back to her house to get something and was coming back, so my niece was waiting for her at the pond. A police car showed up at my sister's house with my niece sitting in back, somebody called the cops because they saw my niece alone.

They did write a report on it. My sister didn't argue with them, but when we were kids even younger than that we used to be gone all day until supper time in the summer and we got up to much worse things.

Today it's a nanny state.

[quote] The thread about Vanderbilt University doing sex changes has just been canceled.

Pathetic but unsurprising.

Just saw something I never before noticed. The WWs I received from that thread have also disappeared from my Notifications page.

We had a woman call my business, crying and upset, saying someone severely messed up her hair.

She went on and on, then revealed she was “just kidding” and wanted to make an appointment. The stylist that answered the phone gave her a swift rebuttal, refused her and promptly hung up. Her called ID had no history with the company.

I warned staff to be careful what you say on the phone- that it could be recorded by a TikToker creating manufactured drama for content.

I have no fears of such silliness. I've been retired for 15 years. I am extra careful who, outside my 3 true blue friends, my 2 godchildren, and the few family members I have contact with, to get close enough to me to try anything like that. Should someone try they'd do so at their own peril.

r160 that is strange, I wouldn't want her business either. It does seem she was trying to get a negative reaction so she could blackmail your company or expose you.

[quote]if a TRA complains to etsy that a shop owner said men should stay out of women's toilets

Why in the fuck are you tweeting at a company about your TERFy feelings? How does this "happen all the time"? Do you tweet at Tide about your opinions on the capital gains tax? Do you @ Wendy's your opinions on polyamory? Do you CC: Lipton every time you have thoughts about military spending?

She wasn't tweeting @etsy, somebody didn't like her tweet, noticed she had an etsy shop and encouraged their TRA associates to send her death threats and to harass etsy to shut her store (which they did because they are cunts)..

Yes. Mostly by the they/thems

What is a "TRA" when it's at home?

I'm old. I'm retired. I have money. I'm not a bigot or a racist or a fucking cunt to other people and I'm certainly not a TERF. I don't complain in fast food restaurants, mostly because I rarely set foot in one. If I believe that I have to make a complaint about something, somewhere then I'm polite and calm about it. A complaint doesn't give me the right to go off and lose my temper. It's just a fucking complaint, I haven't been shot. I usually let it go and contact the management if I really feel it's necessary but usually it isn't. I don't use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or the rest of social media. To the extent that anyone is "bulletproof" I am bulletproof.

Of all of it, my strongest suit is in not being a cunt. Really, it goes a long way towards not having other people hate you. Who knew?

Pity you didnt have that "we have too many white men here" conversation recorded R116. You may want to next time. You could sue the company to hell and back for racism and retire in deep comfort.

I've always considered this pronoun nonsense theoretical, but now realise that in a workplace with dropkicks who actually believe this stuff, one would have to have conversations while trying to recall who is called what! That mentally exhausting hurdle course would do my head in.