Needles & Grooves

Gotcha! I thought it may have had something to do with all the cancel culture talk that’s sprinkled all throughout the forum.

Cancel Culture is a dumb buzzword for the natural consequences that come with saying or doing something terrible. A phrase created by people who are afraid and angry that they can't say or do whatever they want without fear of reprisals for their horrible decisions and actions. And that's all I gotta say about that.

Agreed. It’s still a term that’s been culturally adopted. The problem is that it carries negative connotation when it doesn’t need to. The same as how the term “socialist” is some sort of naughty word, it’s not.

We can say it’s not necessary to have a term for natural consequences but then you get into “why don’t we just call it Lemon Juice, Gin, Tequila, Triple Sec, Vodka, Rum, Cola instead of a Long Island?”

Attack the meaning, not the term. The term is already adopted, there’s no going back on that end.

Buzzwords are nearly always problematic because they allow bad actors to simply attack the word without addressing or taking responsibility for any of the actions therein. They simply gaslight and ascribe whatever meaning they see fit to the buzzword and twist and distort it into whatever suits their needs at that time. I hate buzzwords.

Not to get too meta, but isn’t the term buzzword itself a buzzword? I dislike them as well but efforts in avoiding them is futile, I’d rather take a “damn straight they were cancelled, they did it to themselves” approach than to take it as an opportunity to get into the origins of language adoption, it just makes me (personally) feel pompous.

I feel this. I really hope my absolute favorite artists don't turn out to be terrible people because I would be devastated. I think I'm safe with John Darnielle

I mean the term "buzzword" can be defined as a tangible thing, the words that it represents cannot. And that's my problem with them. long Island Ice Tea is a label/name for a tangible thing, a thing with a set amount of ingredients that make up said thing. A buzzword is a single word that attempts to distill down a million different situations and causes and effects into a single word...

...it's only use is to make a wide ranging situation easier to discuss by not having to explain said situation and instead just using the word.
But that doesn't work, you can't take shortcuts with this stuff.
You have to address the facts of the individual situation you're discussing and can't simply use a single word to represent something as dense and wide ranging as racism, and sexism and homophobia.

But it serves the purpose of the bad actors wonderfully that these terms exist because it allows them to rail against the term instead of the individual situations, which is very easy to do when you don't have to actually deal with any facts, just a dumb word. It does a disservice to everyone involved in the fight to have these terms in wide use.

Hmm, I guess I did have other things to say about that...

I see, it does seem to trivialize and downplay something that is more complex and serious. At what point is the juice inside a fight against a buzzword not really worth the squeeze?

I think of the word “bitch” .... eventually it got adopted by women as an endearing term when put into context. The Long Island iced tea comparison wasn’t fair, but the word “bitch” may be a good example. At what point do we just embrace the term and fight against the connotation not the word itself.

Like yeah, you were CANCELLED, dumbass, now what. I dunno, maybe I’m too much of an aggressor.

The term is lazy, buzzwords in general are lazy and they allow the offending parties to avoid addressing WHY they've faced repercussions for their actions by simply pointing at the word and screaming "This is what's wrong with the world."

We're basically on the same team here, and I get what you're saying. But I just think that in allowing people to use blanket terms like this it makes it more difficult for anyone to have a proper discussion about the reasons behind it. I come from a media background, I hate lazy reporting. Buzzwords are lazy reporting.

Oh yeah, absolutely on the same team. I don’t like “buzzword” terms either and I wish they didn’t exist. The only difference I see is that I view efforts in thwarting them once they’ve caught on futile. Can you think of an instance in which a buzzword has been killed without just naturally fading away from relevance? Arguing the term instead of the merit is a waste of energy, imho.

I don't want anyone to argue against the term, all I want is people not to use it. I agree arguing against the term is pretty much futile at this point, but it's really simple to just not use it and force people to confront the actual individual issues and instances rather than the word. Don't give them the chance.

I avoid most of this problem by simply not listening to men.

Unrelated but related, I saw a post where it said “Protect Your Daughter” and then it was crossed out and said “Educate Your Son” below it. I liked that.

Why not both?

@Melt Face Molly Drop definitely both, but I love the intention behind it. Along those lines, the best bit of advice I got from reading a bunch of parenting books, blogs, journals, etc. was “Remember, you’re not raising a child. You’re raising an adult.”