The one I'll bring up, as an example of "not as political" but still harmful, is used by chuds, libs, and leftists alike as a throwaway putdown, insult, and thought terminating cliche.
"WHO HURT YOU?" :very-intelligent:
The damage it does to social discourse comes from further normalizing the implication that being hurt is a mockable thing that deserves ridicule and dismissal, and the other problem is that it makes sincere suggestions to actually seek actual help, stated in good faith, get lost in the haze of :reddit-logo: tier le epic takedowns.
My runner-up is "grindset." The entire concept is poison and seems to contaminate impressionable brains at an alarming rate. Motivating people to improve themselves and achieve things in a healthy way is harder to do when so much online discourse is chuddy grifters jerking themselves off while bullying people for not "grinding" hard enough, no matter that person's situation.
“Let people enjoy things”
Fuck you, let me enjoy shitting on liberals
Related: "To each his/their own."
Some people seem to assume it's profound wisdom from some ancient text but it's just a rich asshole family slogan and one time presented over the gates of a death camp.
:geordi-no: To each their own
:geordi-yes: To each according to their needs
I was tempted to mention that one. :side-eye-1: :side-eye-2:
If I hear it offline, I often follow up with "let people enjoy criticizing things" and that usually shuts them up.
My "scolding."
Your "criticism."
It's "letting" all the way down. :morshupls:
"authoritarianism"
There's nothing that's not political so I'm going whole hog into it
This was gonna be my suggestion too, it's one of the most thought-terminating words of the last few years. Whatever definition it once had has now been entirely boiled down to "When a foreign government does something that is against Western interests". You could be the most tyrannical regime in existence, you could bolt cameras and trackers onto every person, you could enforce arbitrary clothing standards, you could limit the mobility of every person in the country to be a tiny area for maximum control, but you would still not once be called authoritarian so long as western capitalists had unfettered access to your economy.
Tha Ultimate Liberal Racist, Hannah Arendt, and her consequences
Thoughts and prayers. It's the pure egoism of religious apathy. Moral posturing for demons.
Nothing can be done about anything and society can not be improved somewhat. Keep praying until you hit a miracle jackpot. :morshupls:
Not so much a slogan, but the labeling of anything that might improve people's lives as extremism, and calling for being reasonable, and sensible when what they're really calling for is the suffering of poor people.
I can't explain it well but hopefully, you know what I mean
Another one that bothers me is "You just have to look after yourself." and "You can't think about all the worlds problems or you'll go crazy" and other slogans made to shut you up and discourage direct action.
I just tell them there is no position more extreme than continuing down the current path
Conveniently, the "centrist" position for most things is to not improve society somewhat, because improving society somewhat is presented as extreme.
"It is what it is."
Want to get out of a conversation, especially a conversation that might lead to you having to do something? Drop a fatalism-bomb and walk away.
"I could (sic) care less" :so-true:
Or its counterpart, used to deliberately derail discussions, "WHO CARES/NO ONE CARES" :wojak-nooo:
I'd argue you're better off just saying you're not interested. Pulling fatalism is just silly.
ngl I use this all the time. Just don't have the energy for some convos
You could say this instead, and it'd cost even less energy and be less annoying:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUMUeZ1wLUQ
Sometimes people want you to say something but also they don't want you to say something of substance and this one is Old Reliable
"help you help yourself" usually used to justify not helping in anyway at all
"no such thing as a free lunch" twisting the conservation of energy into justifying selfishness
"a rising tide raises all boats" yet some boats always seem to get raised more than others :curious-marx:
"man up" and it's many variants
Also don't look at the cliffs over there where all the shipwrecks of smaller boats are
Clean Coal and the idea that the climate naturally changes over time, as if that absolves humans of responsibility. People die naturally all the time, says the serial killer.
Yeah, the phrase "human nature" has done a lot of damage in general.
Yes, the only form of social organization compatible with human nature didn't emerge until something like 500 years ago.
This comment took me out of it, whenever I read the word 'boys' I just go
If they weren't dummy thicc they wouldn't have alerted you while trying to sneak by. :the-more-you-know:
"I'm socially liberal, fiscally conservative"
wait shit that's political, let me try again in a minute
"BOTH SIDES" :so-true:
"NONPOLITICAL" :so-true:
Political in both cases, especially the latter.
"You need two wings to fly an airplane" :matt-jokerfied: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP
The bus only works if all the wheels are going the same way :galaxy-brain:
"Bazinga" didn't do much social damage compared to the show's misogyny normalizing ideology and its :my-hero: worship.
I don't think anyone says "bazinga" anymore except people using it as a way to summarize, well, bazinga behavior.
I'd say it's the summarization of the societal devastation it wrought in it's journey to pathfinding/wrecking the way for today's consumerist media landscape.
Then again we could throw marvel in place of the show and say that's a more accurate description. But shoulders of giants and all that.
South Park as a whole did long lasting, generations long societal damage in so many ways.
Even the "manbearpig" (invoked by consumers whenever climate change is brought up) and "screw you, hippie" (whenever anyone cares too much about basically anything) and "vegan = lel vagina" (need I say more about this one?) messaging was internalized enough to continue to be invoked by its consumers, gen-x assholes especially.
ah but that's basically "shitty politics: The TV show", and an easy win for the "name some form of media that's caused a devastating impact to society" game lmao
honestly if you really try to keep the answer apolitical (lol) it actually becomes very hard to think of something.
I'm also gonna throw "Microtransactions" into the ring as something that's caused significant societal damage.
ah but that’s basically “shitty politics: The TV show”,
It's "centrist" and "makes fun of everything" (except the shitty libertarian ideology of its chud owners) which in the minds of far too many people means it's not shitty politics. I know it's an edge case because I said try to avoid direct political messaging, but the fact that it was "centrist" therefore "not political" by extension to its fandom was fuuuuucked.
“Microtransactions”
:only-good-gamer: should have held the line at Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion horse armor. :sadness:
I'm still holding the line at cd-keys and printed manual copy protection codes, like the Deserter in Disco Elysium.
Also "makes fun of everything" means that Mormons get made fun of for being silly and goofy and having dumb lore(Also goes for how they mock Scientology), while trans people get made fun of through
CW: Describing transphobic south park shit
Comparing them to surgically trying to be black, or a dolphin. Or the whole separate episode from that shit where trans women are mocked as literal macho men trying to brutalise cis women.
They'll superficially make fun of everything except their own empty superficial rich white nihilistic libertarian asshole ideology.
I'll give south park this: when they aren't trying to push an opinion trey and Matt can be really fucking funny. They're at their best when they're just being silly. Fun Times With Weapons and the Guinea Pigs 2 parter as well as Casa Bonita are some of the funniest things I've seen even still. They have shitty political views or when they aren't bad views they're presented really bad but when they try to be dumb as hell or kinda reach into how shitty 4th graders are an play with that it can hit really well.
The fact that South Park unironically peddles Eric Cartman as the good guy, multiple times.
Eric Cartman has become a role model for multiple generations of men, under the idea that evil is good and good is evil.
I've heard so many claims that Cartman wasn't supposed to be a role model or emulated, but he was a Rick Sanchez prototype and pulled in the same kind of admirers that emulated him and what he stood for (himself).
I used to date someone with a cousin that unironically described himself like that.
I got super pissed at him one night cause he kept insisting that "even nazis deserve free speech"
bootstraps cliche is class warfare and americans don't think that's politics so :shrug-outta-hecks:
any invocation of human nature if we're going even more detached. our existence is antithetical to natural selection. we are freaks of nature. even if there was a 'human nature', who the fuck are you to arbitrate it?
I usually tell "human nature" bazingas that dying from the consequences of drinking the same water one bathes and shits in is also natural.
I believe she means that with technology, cooperation, and progress, we as a species have not really been getting "weeded out" like natural selection involves. Basically anyone can live long enough to reproduce, and things that would be debilitating for an animal in the wild dont really exist for humans to the same degree. We can augment ourselves with prosthetics, medication, etc, to prolong our lives and functioning. Animals can't really do that. There's no point to saying something is human nature because we have essentially "outgrown" our natural selves, if that makes sense. Maybe I'm talking out my ass though idk im a dumbass with too much time to think about stuff like this.
“So brave”.
Its counterpart in a way was "U MAD." Same way of ostracizing people for not being apathetic enough.
Surprised at the lack of mention of the phrase 'virtue signalling'.
The phrase that explicitly damns any act that ever helped or intended to help anyone ever and makes the erroneous and implicit assumption that humans are all entirely, 100%, self-serving. Never do anything for anyone else ever because you're just virtue signalling.
I think virtue signaling was probably a reactionary term in it's inception and has done more harm than good, but still...I feel like there's still something to the concept. The problem is that like you said: it has ultimately come to refer to anyone who has ever even tried to do anything helpful or socially productive.
It would be more useful as a term for, as an example: people who make their avatars black and/or who kneel in protest that either implicitly or explicitly refuse to support actual policy like policing reform that might actually do something about the problem. See also: every corporation ever that pays lip service to social issues.
Agreed, but I'd argue that's something else, as the effective issue there isn't signalling one's virtue, it's being double-faced, or ultimately apathetic in any meaningful sense.
Good deeds can be done privately. And many do.
Recording yourself doing good deeds so that you can gain likes and comments for doing it, and broadcast that you belong in the "ingroup", that's virtue signalling.
I'm not saying that kind of action isn't exploitative and actually problematic, but nobody uses the term 'virtue signalling' for that. As a term all it's used for is condemning and dismissing any good deed whatsoever.
It's how right wingers project their completely cynical and transactional motivations onto other people, their shit is like 950% virtue signaling:libs-owned:
It sucks how it's used two contradictory ways that are both conveniently beneficial to the speaker:
"That's just my opinion" :so-true:
"That's just your opinion" :so-true:
