Want to wade into the snowy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid.

Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned so many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this. A lot of people didn’t survive January, but at least we did. This also ended up going up on my account’s cake day, too, so that’s cool.)

  • CinnasVerses@awful.systemsEnglish
    4·
    13 hours ago

    I miss when Patrick McKenzie was just sharing an American’s view on Japanese culture and reminding devs that names are not always Firstname Lastname in the Latin alphabet and ‘just’ paying yourself twice the average local income from your business is not a failure. The following is deep twitter pundit brain for a rich white man in Chicago who has lived most of his adult in Japan and SoCal referring to social programs for poor brown people in Minnesota:

    I think journalism and civil society should do some genuine soul-searching on how we knew—knew—the state of that pond, but didn’t consider it particularly important or newsworthy until someone started fishing on camera.

    Edit. I also like the HN response which explains that private companies have few responses to fraud except refusing service, but the State of Minnesota can arrest fraudsters, command third parties to provide evidence about them, and send them to prison, so the People of Minnesota require strong evidence before it uses those powers.

    • istewart@awful.systemsEnglish
      6·
      12 hours ago

      I knew nothing about, and had no opinion on, daycare facilities in Minnesota run by Somali immigrants, before Trump-supporting media entities decided to make the topic an astroturf issue. On the other hand, I had plenty of experience with people whose worldviews had been severely warped by such coordinated media campaigns. Mr. McKenzie should take some time to reflect on this.

      • CinnasVerses@awful.systemsEnglish
        4·
        10 hours ago

        Yes, I think the people who should have opinions beyond “the state government found some fraud and is investigating further cases” are people who live in Minnesota and have connections to daycare or immigrant communities. Its notorious that the NYT repackages stories by reporters in smaller orgs (or randos on social media) and puts its own spin on them! They don’t have a specific editorial line on social services in the Midwest, just instincts.