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  • Albanian_Lil_Pump [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    In my opinion, it seems like it. Those who were unmasked assumed I didn’t want to interact and would leave me alone. There are maybe 1-2 people with masks per semester, and they usually didn’t want to interact with me. I’ve forgotten my masks a few times last semester and other people became more sociable towards me

    • FuckYourselfEndless [ze/hir]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      The Smile as a Class Marker

      As is well-known, teeth are a class marker. The working class is far more likely to have bad teeth. Even the CDC understands this. From “Disparities in Oral Health“:

      About 40% of adults with low-income or no private health insurance have untreated cavities. Low-income or uninsured adults are twice as likely to have one to three untreated cavities and 3 times as likely to have four or more untreated cavities as adults with higher incomes or private insurance.

      . . .

      So the demand to take off your mask “because I want to see your smile” is a demand that you enable yourself to be classified by (social) class, and possibly be deemed not dateworthy, not trustworthy, and definitely not worth being hired. (Of course, this varies by context. In the airline context, I would imagine bad teeth would translate into poor service and a less-than-happy seatmate.) And now the brief interlude with Bourdieu–

      https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/10/let-me-see-your-smile-as-ugly-power-trip-and-classification-struggle.html

      Entire article's amazing analysis of this phenomenon. From class, submission to hierarchy, and gender discrimination. Masks fuck up a lot of the disgusting coding class society's been injecting into people for centuries.

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      IDK if it's because of who I am (guy who posts a lot in our chats and leaves my dms open for people who need help with projects) but even wearing a mask I still talk with a pretty big number people on campus. I agree with the numbers though, I've made an effort of counting how many people use masks as I walk on campus and I estimate it's between 7%-18%. Could be cultural difference too, I'm not in the US where I know masks were politicized and are a prickly subject.