those other contexts are the original meaning, applying it to child abuse is the newer application
This. For the longest time it had a neutral connotation and it just meant that someone was being mentored and specifically supported with an eye to bringing them in to a higher position. Child grooming was adopted to describe adults manipulating children to make it easier to commit child abuse and has a genuinely legitimate use in that context. And then a couple of years ago the :frothingfash: fash picked up the old "All Homosexuals are P*" lie and started leaning in to it hard, turning "groomer" in to a
dogwhistlefog horn for Fash beliefs.My guess without doing any etymology research is that the term fell out of fashion around the same time it came to be used in the sense of "child grooming", and hasn't been widely used in the last decade or two, so many people are likely encountering it in the wild for the first time.
Shill is a red flag for me. I used to be a /pol/ posting reactionary and "shill" was often a stand-in for the k-word for Jews. Usually it was in conjunction with the JIDF, the made up "Jewish Internet Defense Force". "Merchant" is another one.
True, but I'm just highlighting how it can be used as a dogwhistle too.
I use it all the time to describe, well, shills - Formally a person who is paid to support or endorse a product while pretending to be a neutral bystander, although these days lots of people do it for free. I tend to use it in the sense of "X is shilling for Y", ie someone is supporting a product or group or whatever in a way that is dishonest about their motives, or in a way that is pathetic considering they're not getting paid.
I had actually thought it was from Yiddish but apparently the etymology is unknown and it entered the lexicon from carny trade talk about a century agoOne
One that does put my eyebrows up is "Shyster". It doesn't necessarily mean a Jewish lawyer, but if someone's not from the East Coast and knows "Shyster" it puts my neck hairs up. Apparently there is no anti-Semitic etymology to it and it probably derrives from the German word " Scheißer", ie shitter, one who shits. I'm not even sure if it's widely known or used by fash. But it puts my hair up.
Shills, i.e. paid internet posters, are pretty easy to spot. Just look for anyone who posts in defense of the powerful. Especially when you've just delivered a stinging indictment of the powerful. Anyone who replies "Biden is a good guy, see?" is probably being paid. Or a bot. Either way, super sus.
removed
Lol, I guess it’s not that benign since it’s removed here. But d*generate is one that I see unquestioned out in the wild too often
I think most people are just totally unaware of the origins---I sure was until I spent a bit of time here. It's become common parlance in gaming/need circles as a term of self-reference in the same way weeb has, so I see people who have never set foot in 4chan using the term that way (usually in the shortened form). Definitely a red flag for me if I see it used as a genuine insult, though, since it comes off much more sinister.
Dogwhistles in a nutshell.
I believe it was also used in Letterkenny in the form of "D*gens", so it's likely a bunch of people picked it up there with no other connotations except funny Canadian people.
also used occasionally in some furry circles in a similar way
not exactly a "reclaiming" but like as a "fuck you, we don't care what you call us" thingthe origins are from maths by way of poorly balanced magic the gathering formats, dammit.
Yeah. Even if they're not a N*zi it's a good indicator that they're terminally online and probably involved in chan culture or some mutation of chan culture.
Normal
Nothing normal is ever good and people who pine for a return to normalcy are usually everything-phobic
I like the word ape. It's a fun word, typically applied to myself. I am an ape and proud of it :monke-kawaii:
”Free speech” has been this for a while.
”Authoritarianism” became especially bad during COVID.
Psychoanalysis, subconscious, complex, archetype, collective unconscious. Anything associated with Freud and Jung. Many people outside the brain doctor profession still believe that they were serious researchers and that their conclusions are valid and useful.
FEEEEEEEMALES from anyone who isn't a biologist of some kind.
State's Rights. It's not benign but some people are ignorant of the connotations so there's a very small amount of ambiguity in it's use.
"Useful Idiot" is another one that often turns out to be tied to anti-communist brainworms
Definitely love getting the "but how was your relationship with your father?" treatment when I'm trying to explain a "woke" concept. Is there anything more condescending than armchair psychoanalysis?
"Nooo, he just has really interesting guests on!"
The guests: :frothingfash:
"elites"
Sometimes it's clearly somebody talking about well-connected political families or capitalists, but usually it means somebody believes Jews control the world.
This word is the peanut butter I use to feed class consciousness to chuds
Idk, I'm pretty sure dogs can learn how to spit out their medicine from within the peanut butter.
The philosophical ideology that most elitist organisations have fostered for themselves across history - the belief that they as a group are intellectually or spiritually superior to the common man and therefore have both the divine right and the responsibility to be our rulers.
Honestly, pretty much everything I hear about from securely employed people and business owners about job searching. Even if I didn't know what their position was before, it's very revealing and I almost instantly know what their politics are.
Probably similar for comments about the homeless.
“Humans” most of the time you can just say people
This one's interesting. It's hard to explain, but ironically when people refer to others as 'humans' it can seem oddly...dehumanizing? Like, they're recognizing their status as a human but not their personhood.
