This is my own opinions and my own pet peeves, but honestly after seeing a post unironically titled “Democratic cum guzzling” I’m kinda just done.
This applies irrespective of content, good or bad. If someone wrote the best theoretical work since Lenin but wrote it with these terms, I’d still be miffed that I had to read it.
1.Sexual things
I’m not a puritan. In fact im very sexual [probably part of why I have such an interest in the French Revolution]. But goddamn do I hate the normalizing of terms related to it being used in an argumentative sense. “Getting clapped”, “glazing,” [note:although hearing “stop glazing me Zohran” was hilarious], cucking/getting cucked, “democratic cum guzzling,” etc.
It feels just like we’ve returned to Roman times and being a bottom is the worst insult known to man [although there’s probably a tinge of homophobia/misogyny to it to, because it’s the internet. (Not necessarily in communist spaces but definitely outside of them).
It’s not a personal thing either, I just find it really immature an unsubstansive.
- News argument terms like “blasts,” “slams,” etc.
This applies mostly to the news, but goddamn do I hate these terms. They mean nothing but they’re basically used anytime a person of interest says anything less than “I will personally beat you do death.”
“China SLAMS new US proposal”
“Trump BLASTS lawmakers”
Those two words get used so much in news articles and I hate it so much. Like before it’s just so immature. I can read a news article without some headline telling me how x person is DESTROYING their opposition or whatever.
- “Based” and “___-pilled”
I know its hypocritical, because I do used Based a lot. But honestly it’s just really boring, and I think im gonna stop using it. Also I don’t like 4-chan. This isn’t as serious as the other ones, I just wish we had better words. [Also based? Based on what?]
That’s all. I really did just need to get this out. I think for me I just really don’t like being treated immaturely, so a lot of this stuff grates me because it treats me as some form of child who needs to constantly be hyperbolic and has no sense of maturity.
I’m over “treats” just being a catch-all term for literally anything people enjoy.
I’m also over people stealing aave and it being rebranded as “internet speak”.
I saw someone refer to healthcare and housing for usians as treats once. I feel like the term has lost a lot of its meaning.
Lmao never have I seen words lose meanings and become bastardized so quickly like I have these past five years
Some people really said that “cake” and “sweets” are “high level treatler” because apparently medieval people did not have cake or sweets.
How does one even come to that conclusion smh
They think those weird tiktok food trend things is what the average person eats. Of course in Maoist China/Soviet Union they only ate flavorless gruel and that is good - given that this person also clowned on flavorless european food, I guess flavorless gruel is also not good? Babyleftist who wander through each contrarian hot take du jour are truly remarkable.
I also hate the pornification of daily conversation. I feel like being online in your own bubble a lot allows people to stop functioning in their thinking and blurt out obscene stuff all the time.
Also, being viewed as a puritan because you do not want to talk in sex terms a lot is just dumb. I’m not a puritan either but to me that means not sexualizing everything and being free within my own sexuality and body. Not having coworkers saying ‘cucked’ all the time, or talking about their dicks.
It’s wierd for me because I genuinely have friends and do hobby work with pornography and kink communities [I dont mention it much here for obvious reasons but it’s pertinent in this case].
You would think that I would like this type of stuff, but I dont. I actually have a lot of respect for sex [per se, I can’t come up with a better way of phrasing it rn]. I think it’s interesting and can lead to a lot of exploration psychologically and socially. But I don’t think we’ve really “moved on” from puritinism, it just appears as a different form [maybe?]. Or perhaps it’s like two alcoholics. One drinks in flasks and constantly covers up their drinking, while being a member of a prohibitions group. That’s the culture of yesterday. The culture of today is one that stumbles back home and trips in the door smelling of bear and whiskey, and fully admits they’re an alcoholic but ignores all the problems that comes with it. Sex isn’t a poison like Alcohol but otherwise I hope my point is coming across here.
It feels just like we’ve returned to Roman times and being a bottom is the worst insult known to man [although there’s probably a tinge of homophobia/misogyny to it to, because it’s the internet. (Not necessarily in communist spaces but definitely outside of them).
Cucked as an insult, pretty sure that is straight misogyny. The implication being something along the lines that if a man is “allowing” “his woman” to be with other men, that’s some kind of emasculating trait that signifies weakness.
Instead, we can just call things what they are. Infidelity is infidelity and if someone is trying to forgive it and move on, or deal with it carefully for least negative impact on their children, that doesn’t make them weak; it’s a choice for their specific relationship and may be hard to understand from the outside. An open relationship is an open relationship and if a couple is agreeing to multiple partners, that’s on them as adults to agree to and contend with (hopefully with support from friends and family and so on, because monogamy or no, relationships can be hard).
Internet culture has also gotten weird in general when it comes to concepts of top and bottom, in my experience. Not in a way that is the above kind of issue necessarily, but more like people obsessing too much over whether they are a top or a bottom like it’s a personality trait rather than a sexual preference under highly specific consenting circumstances (even if buried under layers of irony, as some irony poisoned internet stuff is). I suspect it’s linked to the beta/alpha garbage that got proliferated from that debunked study of wolves in captivity that the study’s author itself wanted retracted; mixed with people who are already alienated and individualistic, so primed and ready to look at human dynamics in an oversimplified, almost cartoonish way.
I agree with your list. The sexual terms are so weird to me because the “sex positive” crowd uses it all the time & i thought sex positive meant sex was a good thing?
I fucking hate “based” as people use.it for the worst reasons & it means “i fully agree” at this point. I dont remember where based came from but “pilled” came directly from 4chan. To add, the template that looks like > statement > statement > statement is from 4chan too, & a lot of the (mostly ableist) meme templates that are poorly drawn stick figures are from 4chan. It’s honestly very disheartening to see how much of the internet absorbed 4chan culture considering how much of a cesspit it is.
The news argument terms, I feel like news publications picked them up from internet debate culture. YouTube annoys the shit out of me with their horrible thumbnails with caricatures expressions & then it feels like there always has to be a click baity title. I think this has a lot to do with the engagement algorithms unfortunately.
Based is a word that we can reconquer for our cause. The orgs and online communities that I am currently on use it as a way to praise the courage of publicly saying an antifacist or pro socialist statement.
As an example, there is a debate on how to handle drug traffickers and someone say that we have to hunt down the CIA and the DEA or to nationalize American owned companies. That is worthy of praise and based as a word could be used.
This is just my 2 cents but we need to push for harder radicalization with agitation and to normalize socialism in our countries. The situation is growing very dire in plenty of countries where fascist are growing popular thanks to American media.
Agree.
I think you’ve hit on a somewhat universal list for reasonable or semireasonable "people.
Post needs a quick edit to add in casual ableism to the hated terms.
Corrected, thank you!
Oh man yeah, I hate the “slams” stuff so much. It feels like a lot of journalism is just low effort bait now, instead of thoughtful and effective, but maybe the news has always been like that. I never really watched news channels on the TV, and I only read a select few newspapers that were local to me, and had good quality journalism.
I hate “consumed” for every goddamned thing. It will never not irk the shit out of me.
Well, I get your point. While it is true that in the internet people use slang left and right, some topics that are important and shouldn’t be taken lightly are often seen with those words. Here are some points off the top of my mind that are in favour and against them:
- It trivialises the topic and makes it easier for normies to interact with it. (Positive)
- It trivialises the topic, making it sound unrefined and flawed by speech only. (Negative) About 4chan, even trans people like me whom I’ve met online are absolutely wretched and have the most disgusting talking points and patterns of speech. But, based it very much considered the normie speech now of people in their late 20s and early 30s. The pilled thing too, for better or for worst. The news “arguments”, yeah, they are just awful and stupid. I agree 100% with you
deleted by creator
