• Activity
  • Votes
  • Comments
  • New
  • All activity
    • Showing only topics with the tag "politics.usa". Back to normal view

    20. The return of non-PC language in the US mainstream

      ~talk Ask
      I don't know how appropriate this topic will be or how uncomfortable some users will be addressing it. But I noticed a switch online in the usage of previously determined slurs. When I was a child...

      I don't know how appropriate this topic will be or how uncomfortable some users will be addressing it. But I noticed a switch online in the usage of previously determined slurs.

      When I was a child in the '00s, it was pretty common for people to say the "r-word" as well as refer to things as "gay" whenever they meant stupid or bad. I remember ad campaigns to stop the latter from occurring (one commercial featuring Hillary Duff and another featuring Wanda Sykes). But both of those things went away as we got deeper into the 2010s.

      The Obama and, especially, the Trump years were marked by increased progressive language. I do think the turn was in 2016 when using these terms became widely unacceptable. Even two years earlier the hit song Fancy by Iggy Azalea featuring Charli XCX contained the lyric: "That my flow r***** each beat dear, departed."

      I think a lot of the hyper-political correctness of 2016 and onwards was a response to the Trump presidency. I think people on the progressive left felt the need to be hyper-vigilant about that. Once the Biden administration happened these rigid beliefs began to relax.

      I'll use a few examples of this shift involving a network TV show, to take this conversation into a more concrete real world. Saturday Night Live.

      Shane Gillis, a very non politically correct comedian was hired as part of the cast of SNL in 2019. Lorne Michaels hired him to appeal to a more conservative crowd or to at least not be so catering to its liberal demographic. Gillis, who is largely not a conservative, was caught in a scandal following his casting news. Clips from his podcast surfaced of him making fun of Asians and mocking their accents. Gillis was shortly fired.

      Fast forward to this year: Shane Gillis hosts SNL. Not only that, in his opening monologue he says the r-word.

      Another SNL adjacent example. Matt Healy, lead singer of the 1975, appeared on The Adam Friedland Show podcast. The podcast, originally called Cumtown, is known for its non-PC humor. Healy participated in jokes making fun of Ice Spice and laughed at the host's more racy humor. Scandal surrounded Healy, who was dating Swift at the time, and he was essentially "canceled." Except, he was immediately the musical guest on SNL not long after the scandal (they were the musical spot for Jenna Ortega's episode). If this was 2019, The 1975 likely would not have been invited to be the musical guests, and/or the host of the episode (in this case Ortega) would have been pressured by her PR team to make some sort of post disavowing their inclusion. This didn't happen. In fact this year Jenna Ortega criticized political correctness herself

      The last SNL example I wanted to give was in Ariana Grande's recent episode a joke was included where Grande calls someone a pathetic little gay guy, followed by her saying "I meant gay as in stupid and bad" which was very well received on all corners of the internet.

      So what happened here? My perception might be warped since in late 2022 I began using the subreddits r/redscarepod and r/theadamfriedlandshow where this type of humor and the usage of these terms was already normal. So it was a little odd to me when these began gaining steam in the outside world.

      If it really was just a response to Biden's presidency I feel like we would now be returning to the hyper-political correctness of the 2010s during Trump's administration. But that doesn't seem to be happening.

      Maybe political correctness fell out of style, and that will be the case for another five to ten years when it becomes fashionable again.

      43 votes

    45. American election mental health thread

      ~health.mental Text 445 words
      I posted my own thoughts here, TLDR: I am afraid and catastrophizing and thinking very black and white and spiraling quite a bit and I'm not even American. Click to view it copy/pasted They have...

      I posted my own thoughts here, TLDR: I am afraid and catastrophizing and thinking very black and white and spiraling quite a bit and I'm not even American.

      Click to view it copy/pasted

      They have sweeped the election and are now in control of the house, the senate, the supereme court.

      I'm a Scandinavian but I am very afraid for the queer community over there and for us here - American politics has far reaching influence on western countries. If the right wing wins the next election, they will take many pages out of the Republican book and likely roll back policies on especially trans people - the minister of equality already said "the rights of trans people should be limited".

      While Russia doesn't have the capacity to do much else than provoking NATO in terms of playing around on the Eastern European borders, we will definitely be seeing a lot more hybrid warfare in the next 4 years. I am very afraid for Ukraine because despite Zelensky's visit and meeting with Trump, they are a lot less likely if not guaranteed to receive way less support now because the Republican party as a whole is more isolationist than the Democratic party.

      This also means that while not under immediate existential threat, I don't think China is likely to turn down rhetoric nor "exercises" and border provocations regarding Taiwan. China has been building their military for years at this point, spending almost as much on it as the US when accounting for purchasing power. There has been speculation that they will be capable of launching an attack by 2030. I'm saying all this because Biden's promise about defending Taiwan probably won't be extended by Trump's government.

      Palestine and Lebanon is in more danger than ever. Israel will increase their aggression and more civilians will die through excuses that killing 1 terrorist hiding in a hospital is worth the lives of dozens of innocents. They will annex more of the west bank, settlements will increase, everything will be worse. Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan, you name it, can all become more aggressive and commit more and more crimes against humanity because the white supremacist isolationist American government will do nothing.

      And then there's all the other things that I don't know as much about. But homophobia, sexism, and racism has once again won. It has been legitimized. Human rights worldwide will suffer because of this, not to mention the disastrous consequences for our climate and environment.

      This is not meant to be another ~news thread.

      Please keep discussion in this thread to mental health only.

      How are you doing?

      What will the impact of this be on your life?

      76 votes

    46. Could we get a ~politics.us?

      ~tildes Text 62 words
      With the inevitablre result of the US election, for the next four years all media will be totally overwhelmed by one person. It'd be nice to be able to at least on Tildes shove all of that into...

      With the inevitablre result of the US election, for the next four years all media will be totally overwhelmed by one person. It'd be nice to be able to at least on Tildes shove all of that into one corner so it can be hidden.

      While Tildes is quite US focused, there is still a lot of us non-us people here.

      40 votes