this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Me personally? I've become much less tolerant of sexist humor. Back in the day, cracking a joke at women's expense was pretty common when I was a teen. As I've matured and become aware to the horrific extent of toxicity and bigotry pervading all tiers of our individualistic society, I've come to see how exclusionarly and objectifying that sort of 'humor' really is, and I regret it deeply.

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[–] [email protected] 240 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

As a millennial, we grew up with the phrases "that's gay" and "that's retarded" (which meant the same thing) and obviously we had to learn to phase those out.

While I never once meant "that's disabled" or "that's homosexual"... We obviously don't say that stuff anymore.

[–] [email protected] 128 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I witnessed something at work a few weeks ago, that caught me off guard. One of the managers was asking for a favour off one of the lads in work, it's a blue collar job so it's never been PC, "Carl, need a favour, can you do such and such" "Can't sorry Steve" "Go on lad don't be gay" "Steve, I've been taking cock for the last 25 years and you asking me to stop for an extra hours work won't stop me"

Everyone around just creased up laughing.

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I learned these real quick in the workplace as a young adult, around a coworker with a mentally disabled child, and with a coworker who was gay. The abstraction is what made using such crude language easy. As soon as I knew someone affected by the words, I snapped out of it.

Abstraction, come to think of it, is what permits a lot of bad behavior.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

I still say "That's pretty gay" but only for things like rainbows or LGBT bumper stickers.

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[–] [email protected] 112 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Oh god I've got so many.

My latest one is remembering that you can't really fight fire with fire, unless you're being extraordinarily strategic about it. Attacking bigotry for instance, simply makes it stronger, as it feeds off strife and fear themselves. Remembering why Michelle Obama said when they go low, we go high. Not out of any great preference, but out of a lack of viable alternatives in her situation.

You can't actually "fight" it. You can exclude it. You can corral it. You can trick it into running itself off a cliff. But you can't actually destroy it by combating it directly, because it feeds off the combat, just like Trump does. You have to outmaneuver it.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Like the black musician who befriended all those kkk members and got them to retire their hoods and leave the kkk. It wasn’t by been mean and condescending he was very nice to them.

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[–] [email protected] 105 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I was totally headed down the alt right pipeline. Throughout highschool I was depressed and lonely. I lost my faith which sent me to the online atheist community which ran out of content, so they started attacking feminists/sjws. I also just distrusted women because I got molested as a child by one and no one took it seriously. This had primed me to just eat up all the content from the MRA/antifeminist crowd. The youtube algorithm, which at the time was absolutely unhinged, pushed me to racist content which I just parroted because I didn't know any better. I didn't understand why things were the way things were, but I was taught who to blame.

What saved me was getting friends. These friends shattered my preconceptions, which sent me to the library, which got me talking to more people, which got me reading more. By the time I finished high school I just became utterly incompatible with the person I used to be. I couldn't take back the things I said to people, but I could join their protests and speak up for them when I heard some heinous shit being said.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I watched a few Jordan Peterson videos out of curiosity, and I will also watch some Joe Rogan clips as well for the same reason. For a while, I was bombarded by alt right YouTube videos. It's so crazy to think just a few clicks can lead you down that path. I was older when I watched so it, so I could obviously discern their real message, but if I was a younger man it would be harder. The algorithm almost seemed to slowly introduce more and more extreme views.

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[–] [email protected] 87 points 1 year ago (22 children)

I no longer describe anything as 'lame' or 'retarded' or 'spaz' or their variants. It makes me sad ableism is so ingrained in even the most inclusive spaces even though the same argument has removed the use of 'gay' for the same reasons.

I also avoid dark or dry humour unless I'm confident the people I am talking to know it's absurdist and not a serious opinion. I don't always succeed at this.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I honestly don't think it's ableism. Languages evolve and retarded doesn't mean a mental condition it literally means "dumb". Most people don't even know "lame" is related to a movement conditions and if you did a statistical analysis 99% of use cases are not related to the "original meaning". People are just ignorant of how language works, especially since English is a global language.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Yeah, people made the same arguments about 'gay' and 'fag'.

Retarded was the word of choice medically in the 60's - 80's for people with developmental disabilities. It derives from the Latin word Tardus which means slow or late.

Languages evolve, but the euphemistic treadmill is ongoing. The word 'cretin' derived from the word 'Christian', the person who coined it intended it to mean that people with cognitive impairments were still people worthy of respect. And now it's just a straight up insult. Similar with 'idiot' and 'moron'.

And these days you can look at wojaks which use physical differences like drooling or missing half a head or being physically unattractive in unconventional ways to indicate ignorance or stupidity.

Every word that people use to try to describe people with disabilities respectfully becomes a slur. That's because of ableism. It's just not talked about much.

More on this topic for anyone interested in the euphemism treadmill: https://humanparts.medium.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-mentally-retarded-e3b9eea23018

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Im really trying hard to stop calling shit retarded. im 40 dammit its just what we always said :(

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 1 year ago (7 children)

In the 90s, anything bad was "retarded" or "gay". Those don't really fly anymore.

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Gay people. When I was much much younger I remember telling a friend that while I didn't have a problem with people doing their own thing, I still didn't like gay people. My friend said I hope when you have kids they're gay. Guess what happened and how I feel about it now. I was such a dumb ass. When my kid came out to me I wept for joy at their bravery. I don't take hard stances on my opinions now and try to remember that my perspective isn't ultimate or necessarily right. There's always a chance that I'm wrong.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 year ago (13 children)

I was raised in a fundamental christian extremest environment and stuck with it for 30 years. I'm now a card carrying atheist.

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

Used to use the word 'retarded' to describe people doing dumb things. Then I realized that not only was it hurtful to people with Down Syndrome - it was inaccurate ... as a person with Down Syndrome would not do the things I was attributing to the phrase.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I take my coffee black, like my men. A line from the movie Airplane. My wife made me quit saying it, that servers today don't know the movie, and so it's just creepy instead of funny now. :(

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Surely they know it's a joke

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Growing up in the 90s, we would always say things were 'gay' even though we had nothing against homosexuals. It was just the thing to say. Yeah, definitely should not have been saying that.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I used to be a full on incel, it's an easy hole to fall into if you hate yourself. I had to take a good look at myself and realize that I was the problem, and now I'm a far happier person

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I don't have any regrets about making dead baby jokes when I was much younger, but definitely won't be making them now with an 8 month old daughter.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've done ny best to shake out ableist, racist, and other harmful speech.

We may be able to speak freely but we are all held accountable for the words we say

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, I hit my teens at the turn of the millennium. Saying "gay," and all it's synonyms, was just an everyday thing. I watched the movie Waiting the other day and was surprised at how they dropped the word faggot almost immediately and repeatedly, until I remembered that's how people talked 20 years ago. It definitely made me think about how if you dial the clock back 60, 70 years, the N word was probably just as commonplace, and society has done a great job of getting rid of that. So I suppose I have hope that we can continue to wipe out hateful speech, we just need a minute.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (14 children)

I practice meditation quite seriously, but I stopped telling people I'm spiritual. I really am not interested in ghost stories, gods and angels at all.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago (28 children)

I used to use “gay “ or “ retarded “ as negative adjectives, I no longer do because using someone’s being in a negative light is really mean, and I try not to be mean.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Racism.

While I was never into it myself thankfully, I let it pass a lot in my family. Being in university changed that though, it just feels too uncomfortable to have my family say racist shit in front of me while I have so many people of color as friends. I still struggle to call out their transphobia though but that is due to my own identity issues.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In my early life I was raised in Kansas fundie hell. I graduated to 4chan. To call me racist would have been an understatement; "proud white supremacist", more like. (LOL I used the term "race nationalist" then)

Perhaps my proudest personal achievement has been unraveling that disgusting tapestry of who I was.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago

I used to play extreme music some 15 years ago and by God 80% of our humour was variations of calling each other f*gs. It's quite sad cause we didn't have an ounce of préjudice in us we were just wankers with dead end jobs and shit guitars. We met up with the boys a couple months ago and reminisced there was a lot of cringing...

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Something rather cringe and obnoxious in hindsight was the over use of the word "ocd" It was quite common in media and in my circles for somebody to say "I'm so ocd" when referring to some perfectly normal thing they do like tidying bookcases and organising things.

It's pretty cringy now and I'd never say it now. I feel bad for saying it... but hey personal growth I guess. I was in school/college at the time too so it was a long time ago. There were a lot of things that were common at school that I used to say that are definitely not pc nowadays and I accept that. I don't pretend to be a perfect and morally righteous invidual. I have flaws as much as the next person

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Grew up in the 80s and 90s. As progressive and openminded as I thought I was then...holy shit there are a lot of words and phrases I won't touch any more because they sound archaic, racist, mysoginistic, or hateful today. Back then they were perfectly acceptable everyday things no one would bat an eye at. It does make me happy that at least in this small arena we seem to have made progress as a society.

(Should add that this is from a US perspective)

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I graduated high school in 2004. So many slurs back then. So uncomfortable with them now. Good riddance.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Nothing. Everything is still funny in the right or wrong context.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I worked with someone who takes care of their older brother.

I don’t use the word “ret*rd” as a dig at someone anymore.

I honestly never used it as anything but playful banter but that word invokes a lot more meaning than I ever intended.

I know that now.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (6 children)

smoking. growing up in the 80s, everyone was smoking - in bars, restaurants, airplanes, even hospitals.

everyone I knew, their parents smoked tobacco or chewed tobacco. I started smoking myself, around 16 or so, as did all of my friends & even people I didn't associate with. it was just part of the culture - and yes, I was aware at the time that it was a dangerous activity, but kids are stupid.

and then around 15 years ago or so everyone stopped or switched to vaping. now I really only see homeless people smoking. it's quite the culture shift.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Misogyny in books. I was reading a Morse book. He described the woman of a couple from dyed hair to hammer toes but had no physical description of her husband whatsoever.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (28 children)

I never realized how frequently I called things “lame” until I said it in front of a coworker paralyzed from a motorcycle accident. Hopefully he understood, but it just took that one glance telling me he heard it for me to stop. To try to stop.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago

Putting people down and using ableism as the punchline in a joke/retort/comment

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago

I played Modern Warfare 2 at 16. That's all I need to say. Not proud of my early internet years

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (11 children)

I know it's controversial, but moving away from "guys" when I address a group and more or less defaulting to "they" when referring to people I don't know.

They was practical, because I deal with so many students exclusively via email, and the majority of them have foreign names where I'd never be able to place a gender anyways if they didn't state pronouns.

Switching away from guys was natural, but I'm in a very male dominated field and I'd heard from women students in my undergrad that they did feel just a bit excluded in a class setting (not as much social settings) when the professor addresses a room of 120 men and 5 women with "Guys", so it just more or less fell to the side in favour of folks/everyone.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

For a brief period in elementary school I used to think that's it's okay to litter - and not by example of my parents (they're fine) but rather because everyone else was doing it.

I'm not proud that I was doing it, but I'm glad that I quickly grew out of it - so much that it now makes my blood boil seeing someone on the street littering (almost to the point of me wanting to slap them across the face).

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I'm not as naive. There usually is no simple solution to complex problems and when someone suggest one it's almost always wrong by definition. It's a messy world and sometimes the right thing to do sounds counter-intuitive

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've become less and less tolerant of antisocial behaviour, like littering or being rude to people at the forefront of businesses (bus drivers, cashiers and the like). It's not easy to step up and publicly shame people but I'm getting there.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

Quite a few. I grew up in a conservative, racist family. It took me a long time to unwind the problematic casual phrases I grew up with. I'm not proud of it, and I occasionally cringe looking backwards. I realize now the tremendous weight and damage those phrases could do. Now I just try to be better day by day, and to make sure I don't perpetuate those damaging habits in my own children.

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