I hear what you’re saying, and I get it. The internet is a stuffy place. I’m not very funny here on Tildes despite being decently funny in real life. I think it’s important to note that the...
Exemplary
I hear what you’re saying, and I get it. The internet is a stuffy place. I’m not very funny here on Tildes despite being decently funny in real life.
I think it’s important to note that the frustration you’re feeling is matched by a similar frustration in others — ones who are commonly the butt of jokes.
I’ve been both gay and online since the 90s, and gay jokes and particularly people being called “fags” were considered top tier humor for years, maybe even decades in some places on the internet. It was still common parlance on reddit in the early 2010s! I never liked it, despite trying to be “in” on the joke multiple times, because the jokes always fundamentally came at my expense.
Saying that openly, or pushing back against it, however, meant I was a stick in the mud and was ruining someone else’s fun. I don’t want to be a killjoy! I want people to enjoy themselves! I appreciate laughing as much as the next person.
But there’s also a huge distinction between laughing with and laughing at. A lot of people didn’t realize that their fun was predicated on making fun of people like me because they didn’t ever really consider how those “jokes” would come across to people like me. I wasn’t a part of the audience they were considering and, if they did, it didn’t matter because I wasn’t the “norm” and thus was treated as an outlier.
Being treated like that gets really old, really fast. It evokes the same frustration you feel when you have to pause about what you might say. You’re vigilant to what you can say about other people; I have to be vigilant to what others might say about people like me.
I think that both of those frustrations erode away at valuable aspects of ourselves. Nobody wants to have to look over their shoulder at every utterance, wondering if it’s going to get them into trouble. Meanwhile, nobody wants to occupy space where people mock them, openly and repeatedly, as a source of entertainment.
We all have some darkness in us, and humor is often a way of addressing that darkness. It doesn’t always mean it should be shared though, and it doesn’t mean that the value we derive from it doesn’t necessarily devalue others in the process. I don’t want to take away your enjoyment at all — I want you to be happy and fulfilled and engage with your individual darkness in healthy ways.
But I also want people here to not have to deal with slights against themselves. Are some people here on Tildes going to read your post and find it equally funny? Probably. However, are some here going to read it and it will be yet another slight against them? Almost certainly. Does someone’s right to be entertained override others’ right to dignity?
Yeah, the part of this post where he's like "I've noticed that women have quite a bit more more freedom to play around with misogynic ideas" particularly grinds my gears. Like... yeah, no shit....
Yeah, the part of this post where he's like "I've noticed that women have quite a bit more more freedom to play around with misogynic ideas" particularly grinds my gears. Like... yeah, no shit. It's obviously different when the victims of something like misogyny or homophobia or transphobia or racism make those jokes about something they personally experience than when a white cishet man does. And it seems to me here that OP isn't willing to delve into why they found this particular joke funny -- they simultaneously insist that it isn't funny and that it cracked them up. Which is it? As someone born and usually perceived as a woman, I don't actually think it's a particularly offensive joke*, as someone else mentioned it could practically be part of a Who's Line bit, but OP perceived this as a horrible joke but doesn't actually delve into what caused them to react that way and why "horrible jokes" are funny sometimes more generally. As a result the main post and ESPECIALLY many of the comments feel like just whining about how "nobody's allowed to tell jokes anymore".
*fwiw, even though the joke itself isn't that bad imo, I think having it as the title of an active post on Tildes with no easy way to tell that it's not actually a discussion of that topic but rather a meta-discussion about humor before clicking the topic is bad and the title should be changed, because this site is already dominated by men and if I were a woman looking at this site for the first time seeing that title would make me immediately nope out and discount this site as a whole.
I couldn't agree with you more. I'm not even a woman and this title and topic engagement having gone on for 16 hours unchecked is making me question if tildes.net is a community that I want to...
*fwiw, even though the joke itself isn't that bad imo, I think having it as the title of an active post on Tildes with no easy way to tell that it's not actually a discussion of that topic but rather a meta-discussion about humor before clicking the topic is bad and the title should be changed, because this site is already dominated by men and if I were a woman looking at this site for the first time seeing that title would make me immediately nope out and discount this site as a whole.
I couldn't agree with you more. I'm not even a woman and this title and topic engagement having gone on for 16 hours unchecked is making me question if tildes.net is a community that I want to engage in. I have sent an email to the admins just because I want to know for sure that they agree with this title being allowed.
It's obviously different when the victims of something like misogyny or homophobia or transphobia or racism make those jokes about something they personally experience than when a white cishet man does.
OP seems to be missing that the humor of a woman making a joke at her own expense is that it engages with irony, the unexpected, and is self deprecating. All of those elements on their own can be a form of comedy. None of those elements are present here. OP is just giving voice to an intrusive thought they had, instead of labeling it as an intrusive thought. This further normalizes it to OP. I can only imagine that the engagement received over the past 16 hours has further normalized it. This means you will be more likely to voice the next intrusive thought you have regarding women.
Is what OP is missing just an outlet for our intrusive thoughts? Engaging in intrusive thoughts makes them more common and should not be normalized.
I tend not to modify the titles of self posts like this one, but I've given an attempt at a new title to frame it in the discussion being had. I'm open to suggestions if this still doesn't feel...
I tend not to modify the titles of self posts like this one, but I've given an attempt at a new title to frame it in the discussion being had. I'm open to suggestions if this still doesn't feel like it matches the community ethos here on Tildes.
I am a female user on this site that used to participate on this site more in the past. I noticed a trend of topics dealing with women's issues continually being locked due to the below scenario....
Exemplary
I am a female user on this site that used to participate on this site more in the past. I noticed a trend of topics dealing with women's issues continually being locked due to the below scenario.
Woman says this is an issue and in comes a deluge of male users saying it is not. Due to this site tilting more to a male crowd, the female voices are silenced out and a heated debate occurs.
Seeing that happen repeatedly and having my and other's personal experiences diminished as women on this site has increasingly made me feel unwelcomed on here at times. This thread is exactly one of those "baited" threads intended to stir up those emotions and there is no sincere discussion to be had. This simply comes across as whining at being unable make crude jokes about women because it upsets us and invalidates our feelings.
If I was a new female user to this site and saw its popularity along with normalization of 4Chan, I would leave. Changing the title doesn't change what was already established in the commentary of this thread; some men just want to tell mean jokes about women and are upset that the majority of society outside of the darkest corners of the internet rejects them. Instead of listening to the minority saying "this bothers me" and trying to learn and understand, they instead want to push it.
Yeah I'm also troubled by all the comments to that effect. But mods like mycketforward can't delete posts or comments, only change titles and tags and the like. So I'll take changing the title as...
Yeah I'm also troubled by all the comments to that effect. But mods like mycketforward can't delete posts or comments, only change titles and tags and the like. So I'll take changing the title as better than nothing -- at least it makes it clear what the post is actually discussing even if the bulk of the discussion is still people whining about how no one should judge them for making edgy jokes and browsing 4chan.
Looking back at my comment, my anger may have been misdirected at the mods. I understand they are limited with their tools and I appreciate mycketforward updating the title to help steer the...
Looking back at my comment, my anger may have been misdirected at the mods. I understand they are limited with their tools and I appreciate mycketforward updating the title to help steer the conversation towards something better.
Instead I think there is a valuable discussion to be had by Deimos and the mod te regarding misogyny on this site. It's not a persistent issue, but threads like this serve as reminder that there are attempts to normalize it. After dealing with Reddit and leaving it due to that behavior being accepted, I am of the opinion that it should be treated like cancer. The smallest attempt to make it discussion worthy in threads like this serves as a signal fire to other despicable people to openly discuss it due to normalizing it. It's like the Nazi bar analagy; if you allow just one to participate then they begin to all feel welcomed and now you're the defacto Nazi bar.
Women's rights are on the decline in this country. We are having to fight legal battles just to assert we deserve to live, if we suffer from a miscarriage we may be criminally charged, no fault divorce is being questioned in several states, and so many other issues that makes me want to holler! Like we already have enough to deal with; why are there groups that are so desperate to punch down on us just so they can have a laugh at our expense?
It would be just as well to remove it entirely. I'm very surprised that this thread has been allowed to remain. I'm already seeing the normalization of websites like 4chan in these comments, and I...
It would be just as well to remove it entirely.
I've noticed that women have quite a bit more more freedom to play around with misogynic ideas. Sometimes a bit too much, I think.
I'm very surprised that this thread has been allowed to remain. I'm already seeing the normalization of websites like 4chan in these comments, and I was just not expecting that on Tildes.
I'd like to expand on this a little. There really is no other way in the world that you can potentially make a joke to up to 7-8 billion people at once. IRL you wouldn't make certain jokes around...
I'd like to expand on this a little. There really is no other way in the world that you can potentially make a joke to up to 7-8 billion people at once. IRL you wouldn't make certain jokes around strangers, or around mothers/fathers, or around ESL speakers...yet here and anywhere on the internet, you speak to people from all places and all walks of life, and even many different times and eras (depending on how long your joke lasts) all at once!
In many ways, there simply isn't a form of humor that's appropriate for that audience.
Gonna link an Instagram reel here, a comedian I enjoy even though most of his comedy is super dark and very fucked up talked about something similar here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0hlN4RAdms/
An edgy joke told by two different people can be very different in how funny it is depending on who the person saying it is.
Gonna link an Instagram reel here, a comedian I enjoy even though most of his comedy is super dark and very fucked up talked about something similar here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0hlN4RAdms/
Full video of the podcast episode, for those who want to watch it: Anthony Jeselnik | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #466 (19m22s timestamp for the part shown on Instagram) I'm a big fan of Anthony...
I'm a big fan of Anthony Jeselnik as well, and Theo Von too... though for totally different reasons. Jeselnik is insanely dark, smart, and clever, but Theo is a lovable, goofball, idiot. ;)
p.s. Relevant to this topic, here's a comment that I made about another comedian, Daniel Tosh, a few weeks ago too:
A while back i wondered what happened to tosh. I assumed he said something so outrageous that he couldn't find work.
Nah. Tosh has made so many outrageous, obscene, irreverent, offensive, politically incorrect jokes over the years that I think at this point he's relatively immune from that leading to his career coming to an end. Especially since the difference between Tosh and most other "edgy" comics who make similar kinds of jokes is that you can tell Tosh is actually joking. He isn't being hateful and merely hiding that behind his jokes, and it's obvious that nothing he says is truly mean-spirited or intended to hurt anyone.
I feel your pain. I sometimes come across something that is both terrible and hilarious, and I want to share that feeling with someone. But doing that online doesn't give them enough context about...
I feel your pain. I sometimes come across something that is both terrible and hilarious, and I want to share that feeling with someone. But doing that online doesn't give them enough context about who I am to make that joke, and because you don't know everyone who is seeing it, you don't know whose "line" you might be crossing.
Sadly, I think one of my problems is that my sphere of real life people that can appreciate something like that is too small. I'm very glad for Tildes because at least it's a place where people will click in and read what's behind such a provocative headline.
For what it's worth, if we're going to compare women to anything, it should be turtles because they will almost certainly outlive us.
Sorry, sorry, we were just talking about this, I know, sorry
For what it's worth, if we're going to compare women to anything, it should be turtles because they will almost certainly outlive us. go all the way down!
Sorry, sorry, we were just talking about this, I know, sorry
Is it really necessary to be able to make crude jokes about women when there are several other non oppressed groups who deserve that type of humor? Perhaps the reason why you are already lacking a...
Is it really necessary to be able to make crude jokes about women when there are several other non oppressed groups who deserve that type of humor? Perhaps the reason why you are already lacking a space that openly discuss those types things is because they often lead to being out of control and full on misogynistic.
I get the premise of where you are coming from, but after dealing with Reddit and being harrassed and stalked on that site due to similar behavior going unchecked, this is a no from me dog. I'm not trying to be a Debbie downer or rain on your parade, but as a woman I am frankly tired of seeing that type of humor because it leads to normalizing more disgusting behaviors. Punch up and not down if you want to make a dark joke. Maybe if the internet was a better place with better people, I would think differently.
Just like in real life, online you also need to "read the room". I'm someone who makes dark and edgy jokes (though I don't like punching down, I find it cheap and harmful), but even in real life...
Just like in real life, online you also need to "read the room". I'm someone who makes dark and edgy jokes (though I don't like punching down, I find it cheap and harmful), but even in real life there are people I wouldn't make certain jokes in front of. Either because I know they wouldn't appreciate it, or because I don't know them well enough to know how the joke will go down. The internet is just a bigger room full of strangers to me. If I won't make a dark joke in front of real life strangers, why do it online?
What you're talking about reminds me of every time I saw yet another goddamn "disclaimer" on the posts of Reddit. Honestly it's getting to the point that, to me, it feels like the same energy as...
What you're talking about reminds me of every time I saw yet another goddamn "disclaimer" on the posts of Reddit.
Honestly it's getting to the point that, to me, it feels like the same energy as having instructions on things like toilet paper and cutlery.
Since you can't know who will be seeing/using your joke/product, better to be safe than sorry and put any and every single kind of disclaimer, hint, warning, obligatory self-doubt, etc on it.
Humans are NOT meant to be lumped together in such giant groups, and it shows... horribly. We just aren't ready, evolutionary wise.
Trying to "tame" the English language with "more inclusiveness" is a defeatist agenda which isn't going to take us anywhere. Firstly, let's start with accepting the realism that there is a dark...
Trying to "tame" the English language with "more inclusiveness" is a defeatist agenda which isn't going to take us anywhere.
Firstly, let's start with accepting the realism that there is a dark side or aspect in every human. Except that rare 1% tribe of saints, savants, etc., most humans who you'll consider average will have some dark aspect, pushing some button will provoke in them a primordial anger or frustration that needs venting right away, through whatever means possible.
It's also debatable how much of that dark side is due to past experiences which may or may not be justified using present day scale of morality and ethics.
And it's not as if humanity hasn't tried to tame that dark side, that's exactly what it has been doing since like past several centuries. Taming it by imposing additional linguistics rules over and above establishing norms of communication is a quite recent phenomenon since last decade or so. But at this time, it needs a thorough introspection on whether this has made even the slightest difference on that "dark side" aspect? Or has it exacerbated it further, so that instead of getting vented through foul language, it is being vented through other means like passive aggression?
That's most definitely not true, and is very easily proven to be the case. Obscenity laws, and censorship of obscenities, have existed/occurred in almost every country going back many many...
Taming it by imposing additional linguistics rules over and above establishing norms of communication is a quite recent phenomenon since last decade or so.
That's most definitely not true, and is very easily proven to be the case. Obscenity laws, and censorship of obscenities, have existed/occurred in almost every country going back many many decades, centuries, and even millennia (See: Obscene Publications Act 1857 from the UK, and going back as far as the Code of the Assyrians [~13th century BCE]). And similarly, Blasphemy laws go back just as far.
Some, maybe the majority, of the darkness in humanity is a product of environment. But there's definitely nature in there too. Aggression, for example, isn't a maladaptive mutation, it's baked in...
Some, maybe the majority, of the darkness in humanity is a product of environment. But there's definitely nature in there too. Aggression, for example, isn't a maladaptive mutation, it's baked in to many genomes for a reason.
It's increasingly maladaptive in modern society, or at least when it happens in an obvious way, but I don't want to digress down that rabbit hole.
Nature or nuture, no one is free from darkness. I don't believe there is some small percentage of saint like people who have no sin (so to speak). That's a myth that can easily be debunked by looking into the lives of any of the popular saint like people from the last couple 100 years. Invariably they are weird and dark and little twisted just like everyone else, sometimes moreso.
We just prefer less nuanced stories, they're mentally restful :)
Thank you for posting this, it gave me a good chuckle. I enjoy dark humor. The reason I decided Reddit was the place for me, was a front page post with the most horrible jokes, jokes I would never...
Thank you for posting this, it gave me a good chuckle.
I enjoy dark humor. The reason I decided Reddit was the place for me, was a front page post with the most horrible jokes, jokes I would never dare to tell myself. But most had me wheezing and crying laughing.
There’s always a time and place for jokes like that, but it has to be made clear beforehand. Just blurting out some sexist joke isn’t funny, but when told in a thread where people are shocking each other with jokes, it suddenly can be funny. Maybe no surprise I loved The Aristocrats.
I’m a Chan site veteran since around 2004, and while you’re right that those sites have been hugely influential and frankly hilarious, the tone on them is notably different now than it was pre...
I’m a Chan site veteran since around 2004, and while you’re right that those sites have been hugely influential and frankly hilarious, the tone on them is notably different now than it was pre 2014ish.
Back then, it was well understood that everyone there was intentionally being an edgy asshole, and very few people were ever being sincere about anything, the racism and bigotry included.
Since that time, it’s very clear that more and more people who actually sincerely hold those beliefs, and even worse, spend their time making sincere posts about them on those sites have been attracted to them.
It can be funny when a 16 year old leftist/libertarian anti establishment nerd says something intentionally edgy and outrageous. Much less so when a 40 something die hard Christian neofascist who actually believes those things and treats it as super serious business does.
I want to start my reply to you by saying this: I hate everything about this post and this thread on tildes.net absolutely everything. I'm trying to be honest and upfront about that, because it's...
Exemplary
I want to start my reply to you by saying this: I hate everything about this post and this thread on tildes.net absolutely everything. I'm trying to be honest and upfront about that, because it's definitely going to be apparent in anything I reply on this topic, which I'm frankly trying not to engage in much.
Back then, it was well understood that everyone there was intentionally being an edgy asshole, and very few people were ever being sincere about anything, the racism and bigotry included.
Since that time, it’s very clear that more and more people who actually sincerely hold those beliefs
I want to point out what you allude to here: the change is not necessarily that everyone there was intentionally putting on an act. The change is that we have realized that there are individuals there who are sincere. What has changed is that we were young and naive, and we were engaging in a game that enabled people to push our boundaries, and push societies boundaries to be more in line with their own. This is not a mentally healthy activity. I am in therapy currently, and the starting focus of that has been my inability to recognize and maintain my own personal boundaries in my life. It is not the fault of internet culture that I am this way (part of therapy is in fact not placing blame, but focusing on how I can change my own reactions and maintain my boundaries) but it is part of the spectrum of experiences that have made up who I am.
Especially with sites like 4Chan, there has from the beginning been a normalization of sexualization of minors, often starting with anime characters but also with things like the jailbait subreddit. Again, this is not healthy. While you and I may have healthy boundaries about this sort of thing, there are countless people who have never thought about it before, then find out it's a subculture that makes posts freely, and may start to feel normalized to it existing. People who feel that jailbait topics are acceptable need help. In the least talking to a licensed mental health expert who can help them see the harm in their views. Normalizing that is not healthy. Another example is leaked nudes, events like "the fappening", and revenge porn. These things all have a victim, they are harming someone. People who engage in these harmful behaviors should be told that it is not okay, that there are resources to help them stop, but instead they can go to a certain corner of the internet and play the hero. And we all laugh about it because it's a funny joke that we're playing at.
Allowing people who actually believe in these things to engage with us, even if we are "only playing at it" while they just showing us the beginnings of what they actually want to express is giving them an outlet while not encouraging them to get the help they need.
Again, I hate everything about this thread. It is well beyond my personal boundaries, and I do not personally think that a title like "Are women pets or display items?" should not be allowed on tildes.net in any context other than an unbiased news report quoting that line. It's not harmful to someone who has a fully formed opinion and healthy boundaries, but to others it certainly can be harmful. I can't imagine what any women who are on tildes.net thinks about this all being allowed and the ensuing conversation receiving so much engagement.
I'm not sure I feel that your reply to me is being made in good faith. You singled out my use of the word hate, and seem to have used it to draw a connection to me being like a Nazi, and the...
I'm not sure I feel that your reply to me is being made in good faith. You singled out my use of the word hate, and seem to have used it to draw a connection to me being like a Nazi, and the "right" being a minority? When I never mentioned the right, or liberalism, or cancel culture, or righteousness, or fighting bigotry. You seem to have assumed all of these things about my reply from the context. And in this context it seems to be that you may be defending a title written by a cis white male that is belittling a literal minority and calling it humor, while suggesting there should have a safe space to say these things just because they're funny.
If the title listed your racial minority specifically instead of women, and specifically said it was written by a white female, would you feel differently?
I am hopeful that there is both some miscommunication and misunderstanding here on both of our parts.
I'm not angry. I'm not angry this post is here. I do hate it, I do hate that it is getting so much engagement and the title has not been addressed. It makes me feel that I am not welcome in this community as a man who wants to give women the freedom of their voices, and I worry it will make women feel that they are not safe to express themselves here, which sucks. I personally want the female perspective here, and I'd much prefer they don't have to pretend to be male to not be harassed or belittled.
I hear what you’re saying, and I get it. The internet is a stuffy place. I’m not very funny here on Tildes despite being decently funny in real life.
I think it’s important to note that the frustration you’re feeling is matched by a similar frustration in others — ones who are commonly the butt of jokes.
I’ve been both gay and online since the 90s, and gay jokes and particularly people being called “fags” were considered top tier humor for years, maybe even decades in some places on the internet. It was still common parlance on reddit in the early 2010s! I never liked it, despite trying to be “in” on the joke multiple times, because the jokes always fundamentally came at my expense.
Saying that openly, or pushing back against it, however, meant I was a stick in the mud and was ruining someone else’s fun. I don’t want to be a killjoy! I want people to enjoy themselves! I appreciate laughing as much as the next person.
But there’s also a huge distinction between laughing with and laughing at. A lot of people didn’t realize that their fun was predicated on making fun of people like me because they didn’t ever really consider how those “jokes” would come across to people like me. I wasn’t a part of the audience they were considering and, if they did, it didn’t matter because I wasn’t the “norm” and thus was treated as an outlier.
Being treated like that gets really old, really fast. It evokes the same frustration you feel when you have to pause about what you might say. You’re vigilant to what you can say about other people; I have to be vigilant to what others might say about people like me.
I think that both of those frustrations erode away at valuable aspects of ourselves. Nobody wants to have to look over their shoulder at every utterance, wondering if it’s going to get them into trouble. Meanwhile, nobody wants to occupy space where people mock them, openly and repeatedly, as a source of entertainment.
We all have some darkness in us, and humor is often a way of addressing that darkness. It doesn’t always mean it should be shared though, and it doesn’t mean that the value we derive from it doesn’t necessarily devalue others in the process. I don’t want to take away your enjoyment at all — I want you to be happy and fulfilled and engage with your individual darkness in healthy ways.
But I also want people here to not have to deal with slights against themselves. Are some people here on Tildes going to read your post and find it equally funny? Probably. However, are some here going to read it and it will be yet another slight against them? Almost certainly. Does someone’s right to be entertained override others’ right to dignity?
Yeah, the part of this post where he's like "I've noticed that women have quite a bit more more freedom to play around with misogynic ideas" particularly grinds my gears. Like... yeah, no shit. It's obviously different when the victims of something like misogyny or homophobia or transphobia or racism make those jokes about something they personally experience than when a white cishet man does. And it seems to me here that OP isn't willing to delve into why they found this particular joke funny -- they simultaneously insist that it isn't funny and that it cracked them up. Which is it? As someone born and usually perceived as a woman, I don't actually think it's a particularly offensive joke*, as someone else mentioned it could practically be part of a Who's Line bit, but OP perceived this as a horrible joke but doesn't actually delve into what caused them to react that way and why "horrible jokes" are funny sometimes more generally. As a result the main post and ESPECIALLY many of the comments feel like just whining about how "nobody's allowed to tell jokes anymore".
*fwiw, even though the joke itself isn't that bad imo, I think having it as the title of an active post on Tildes with no easy way to tell that it's not actually a discussion of that topic but rather a meta-discussion about humor before clicking the topic is bad and the title should be changed, because this site is already dominated by men and if I were a woman looking at this site for the first time seeing that title would make me immediately nope out and discount this site as a whole.
I couldn't agree with you more. I'm not even a woman and this title and topic engagement having gone on for 16 hours unchecked is making me question if tildes.net is a community that I want to engage in. I have sent an email to the admins just because I want to know for sure that they agree with this title being allowed.
OP seems to be missing that the humor of a woman making a joke at her own expense is that it engages with irony, the unexpected, and is self deprecating. All of those elements on their own can be a form of comedy. None of those elements are present here. OP is just giving voice to an intrusive thought they had, instead of labeling it as an intrusive thought. This further normalizes it to OP. I can only imagine that the engagement received over the past 16 hours has further normalized it. This means you will be more likely to voice the next intrusive thought you have regarding women.
Is what OP is missing just an outlet for our intrusive thoughts? Engaging in intrusive thoughts makes them more common and should not be normalized.
I tend not to modify the titles of self posts like this one, but I've given an attempt at a new title to frame it in the discussion being had. I'm open to suggestions if this still doesn't feel like it matches the community ethos here on Tildes.
I am a female user on this site that used to participate on this site more in the past. I noticed a trend of topics dealing with women's issues continually being locked due to the below scenario.
Seeing that happen repeatedly and having my and other's personal experiences diminished as women on this site has increasingly made me feel unwelcomed on here at times. This thread is exactly one of those "baited" threads intended to stir up those emotions and there is no sincere discussion to be had. This simply comes across as whining at being unable make crude jokes about women because it upsets us and invalidates our feelings.
If I was a new female user to this site and saw its popularity along with normalization of 4Chan, I would leave. Changing the title doesn't change what was already established in the commentary of this thread; some men just want to tell mean jokes about women and are upset that the majority of society outside of the darkest corners of the internet rejects them. Instead of listening to the minority saying "this bothers me" and trying to learn and understand, they instead want to push it.
Yeah I'm also troubled by all the comments to that effect. But mods like mycketforward can't delete posts or comments, only change titles and tags and the like. So I'll take changing the title as better than nothing -- at least it makes it clear what the post is actually discussing even if the bulk of the discussion is still people whining about how no one should judge them for making edgy jokes and browsing 4chan.
Looking back at my comment, my anger may have been misdirected at the mods. I understand they are limited with their tools and I appreciate mycketforward updating the title to help steer the conversation towards something better.
Instead I think there is a valuable discussion to be had by Deimos and the mod te regarding misogyny on this site. It's not a persistent issue, but threads like this serve as reminder that there are attempts to normalize it. After dealing with Reddit and leaving it due to that behavior being accepted, I am of the opinion that it should be treated like cancer. The smallest attempt to make it discussion worthy in threads like this serves as a signal fire to other despicable people to openly discuss it due to normalizing it. It's like the Nazi bar analagy; if you allow just one to participate then they begin to all feel welcomed and now you're the defacto Nazi bar.
Women's rights are on the decline in this country. We are having to fight legal battles just to assert we deserve to live, if we suffer from a miscarriage we may be criminally charged, no fault divorce is being questioned in several states, and so many other issues that makes me want to holler! Like we already have enough to deal with; why are there groups that are so desperate to punch down on us just so they can have a laugh at our expense?
It would be just as well to remove it entirely.
I'm very surprised that this thread has been allowed to remain. I'm already seeing the normalization of websites like 4chan in these comments, and I was just not expecting that on Tildes.
Probably. But that is definitely @Deimos's domain.
The change you made already makes it a lot better imo, thank you
I'd like to expand on this a little. There really is no other way in the world that you can potentially make a joke to up to 7-8 billion people at once. IRL you wouldn't make certain jokes around strangers, or around mothers/fathers, or around ESL speakers...yet here and anywhere on the internet, you speak to people from all places and all walks of life, and even many different times and eras (depending on how long your joke lasts) all at once!
In many ways, there simply isn't a form of humor that's appropriate for that audience.
Gonna link an Instagram reel here, a comedian I enjoy even though most of his comedy is super dark and very fucked up talked about something similar here:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0hlN4RAdms/
Full video of the podcast episode, for those who want to watch it:
Anthony Jeselnik | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #466
(19m22s timestamp for the part shown on Instagram)
I'm a big fan of Anthony Jeselnik as well, and Theo Von too... though for totally different reasons. Jeselnik is insanely dark, smart, and clever, but Theo is a lovable, goofball, idiot. ;)
p.s. Relevant to this topic, here's a comment that I made about another comedian, Daniel Tosh, a few weeks ago too:
Thank you!!! I tried going through the podcast episode itself to figure out the clip, but couldn't find it and I don't listen to this podcast usually.
I feel your pain. I sometimes come across something that is both terrible and hilarious, and I want to share that feeling with someone. But doing that online doesn't give them enough context about who I am to make that joke, and because you don't know everyone who is seeing it, you don't know whose "line" you might be crossing.
Sadly, I think one of my problems is that my sphere of real life people that can appreciate something like that is too small. I'm very glad for Tildes because at least it's a place where people will click in and read what's behind such a provocative headline.
For what it's worth, if we're going to compare women to anything, it should be turtles because they will almost certainly outlive us.
Sorry, sorry, we were just talking about this, I know, sorry
Had a good 30 second laugh. But telling jokes like this is no way to get ahead in life.
Is it really necessary to be able to make crude jokes about women when there are several other non oppressed groups who deserve that type of humor? Perhaps the reason why you are already lacking a space that openly discuss those types things is because they often lead to being out of control and full on misogynistic.
I get the premise of where you are coming from, but after dealing with Reddit and being harrassed and stalked on that site due to similar behavior going unchecked, this is a no from me dog. I'm not trying to be a Debbie downer or rain on your parade, but as a woman I am frankly tired of seeing that type of humor because it leads to normalizing more disgusting behaviors. Punch up and not down if you want to make a dark joke. Maybe if the internet was a better place with better people, I would think differently.
Just like in real life, online you also need to "read the room". I'm someone who makes dark and edgy jokes (though I don't like punching down, I find it cheap and harmful), but even in real life there are people I wouldn't make certain jokes in front of. Either because I know they wouldn't appreciate it, or because I don't know them well enough to know how the joke will go down. The internet is just a bigger room full of strangers to me. If I won't make a dark joke in front of real life strangers, why do it online?
What you're talking about reminds me of every time I saw yet another goddamn "disclaimer" on the posts of Reddit.
Honestly it's getting to the point that, to me, it feels like the same energy as having instructions on things like toilet paper and cutlery.
Since you can't know who will be seeing/using your joke/product, better to be safe than sorry and put any and every single kind of disclaimer, hint, warning, obligatory self-doubt, etc on it.
Humans are NOT meant to be lumped together in such giant groups, and it shows... horribly. We just aren't ready, evolutionary wise.
There's a great video from Kurzgesagt that discusses this.
https://youtu.be/fuFlMtZmvY0?si=CzumducZDZmuvqXj
Trying to "tame" the English language with "more inclusiveness" is a defeatist agenda which isn't going to take us anywhere.
Firstly, let's start with accepting the realism that there is a dark side or aspect in every human. Except that rare 1% tribe of saints, savants, etc., most humans who you'll consider average will have some dark aspect, pushing some button will provoke in them a primordial anger or frustration that needs venting right away, through whatever means possible.
It's also debatable how much of that dark side is due to past experiences which may or may not be justified using present day scale of morality and ethics.
And it's not as if humanity hasn't tried to tame that dark side, that's exactly what it has been doing since like past several centuries. Taming it by imposing additional linguistics rules over and above establishing norms of communication is a quite recent phenomenon since last decade or so. But at this time, it needs a thorough introspection on whether this has made even the slightest difference on that "dark side" aspect? Or has it exacerbated it further, so that instead of getting vented through foul language, it is being vented through other means like passive aggression?
That's most definitely not true, and is very easily proven to be the case. Obscenity laws, and censorship of obscenities, have existed/occurred in almost every country going back many many decades, centuries, and even millennia (See: Obscene Publications Act 1857 from the UK, and going back as far as the Code of the Assyrians [~13th century BCE]). And similarly, Blasphemy laws go back just as far.
If there is a "rare" tribe of saints, it means that the dark side is a social construct. It is a product of our environment.
Some, maybe the majority, of the darkness in humanity is a product of environment. But there's definitely nature in there too. Aggression, for example, isn't a maladaptive mutation, it's baked in to many genomes for a reason.
It's increasingly maladaptive in modern society, or at least when it happens in an obvious way, but I don't want to digress down that rabbit hole.
Nature or nuture, no one is free from darkness. I don't believe there is some small percentage of saint like people who have no sin (so to speak). That's a myth that can easily be debunked by looking into the lives of any of the popular saint like people from the last couple 100 years. Invariably they are weird and dark and little twisted just like everyone else, sometimes moreso.
We just prefer less nuanced stories, they're mentally restful :)
Thank you for posting this, it gave me a good chuckle.
I enjoy dark humor. The reason I decided Reddit was the place for me, was a front page post with the most horrible jokes, jokes I would never dare to tell myself. But most had me wheezing and crying laughing.
There’s always a time and place for jokes like that, but it has to be made clear beforehand. Just blurting out some sexist joke isn’t funny, but when told in a thread where people are shocking each other with jokes, it suddenly can be funny. Maybe no surprise I loved The Aristocrats.
This just sounds like a Whose Line.. bit!
"Things you can say about your fish, but you can't say about your girlfriend"
I’m a Chan site veteran since around 2004, and while you’re right that those sites have been hugely influential and frankly hilarious, the tone on them is notably different now than it was pre 2014ish.
Back then, it was well understood that everyone there was intentionally being an edgy asshole, and very few people were ever being sincere about anything, the racism and bigotry included.
Since that time, it’s very clear that more and more people who actually sincerely hold those beliefs, and even worse, spend their time making sincere posts about them on those sites have been attracted to them.
It can be funny when a 16 year old leftist/libertarian anti establishment nerd says something intentionally edgy and outrageous. Much less so when a 40 something die hard Christian neofascist who actually believes those things and treats it as super serious business does.
I want to start my reply to you by saying this: I hate everything about this post and this thread on tildes.net absolutely everything. I'm trying to be honest and upfront about that, because it's definitely going to be apparent in anything I reply on this topic, which I'm frankly trying not to engage in much.
I want to point out what you allude to here: the change is not necessarily that everyone there was intentionally putting on an act. The change is that we have realized that there are individuals there who are sincere. What has changed is that we were young and naive, and we were engaging in a game that enabled people to push our boundaries, and push societies boundaries to be more in line with their own. This is not a mentally healthy activity. I am in therapy currently, and the starting focus of that has been my inability to recognize and maintain my own personal boundaries in my life. It is not the fault of internet culture that I am this way (part of therapy is in fact not placing blame, but focusing on how I can change my own reactions and maintain my boundaries) but it is part of the spectrum of experiences that have made up who I am.
Especially with sites like 4Chan, there has from the beginning been a normalization of sexualization of minors, often starting with anime characters but also with things like the jailbait subreddit. Again, this is not healthy. While you and I may have healthy boundaries about this sort of thing, there are countless people who have never thought about it before, then find out it's a subculture that makes posts freely, and may start to feel normalized to it existing. People who feel that jailbait topics are acceptable need help. In the least talking to a licensed mental health expert who can help them see the harm in their views. Normalizing that is not healthy. Another example is leaked nudes, events like "the fappening", and revenge porn. These things all have a victim, they are harming someone. People who engage in these harmful behaviors should be told that it is not okay, that there are resources to help them stop, but instead they can go to a certain corner of the internet and play the hero. And we all laugh about it because it's a funny joke that we're playing at.
Allowing people who actually believe in these things to engage with us, even if we are "only playing at it" while they just showing us the beginnings of what they actually want to express is giving them an outlet while not encouraging them to get the help they need.
Again, I hate everything about this thread. It is well beyond my personal boundaries, and I do not personally think that a title like "Are women pets or display items?" should not be allowed on tildes.net in any context other than an unbiased news report quoting that line. It's not harmful to someone who has a fully formed opinion and healthy boundaries, but to others it certainly can be harmful. I can't imagine what any women who are on tildes.net thinks about this all being allowed and the ensuing conversation receiving so much engagement.
I'm not sure I feel that your reply to me is being made in good faith. You singled out my use of the word hate, and seem to have used it to draw a connection to me being like a Nazi, and the "right" being a minority? When I never mentioned the right, or liberalism, or cancel culture, or righteousness, or fighting bigotry. You seem to have assumed all of these things about my reply from the context. And in this context it seems to be that you may be defending a title written by a cis white male that is belittling a literal minority and calling it humor, while suggesting there should have a safe space to say these things just because they're funny.
If the title listed your racial minority specifically instead of women, and specifically said it was written by a white female, would you feel differently?
I am hopeful that there is both some miscommunication and misunderstanding here on both of our parts.
I'm not angry. I'm not angry this post is here. I do hate it, I do hate that it is getting so much engagement and the title has not been addressed. It makes me feel that I am not welcome in this community as a man who wants to give women the freedom of their voices, and I worry it will make women feel that they are not safe to express themselves here, which sucks. I personally want the female perspective here, and I'd much prefer they don't have to pretend to be male to not be harassed or belittled.