DCUM Weblog

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Pitt Jolie FINALLY reach divorce settlement" and was posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. The thread is about actress Angelina Jolie and actor Brad Pitt finally reaching a divorce settlement after an 8-year legal battle. The couple were only married for two years, separating in 2016 after an alleged physical altercation during a flight on a private aircraft. My immediate reaction upon seeing that this thread was the most popular of the previous day was to hope that it is not a sign of things to come. Threads about celebrities are my least favorite, and I really hope that this does not foreshadow a year dominated by celebrity threads. This thread is pretty true to form for celebrity threads. Such threads attract posters who are extremely obsessed with the celebrities in question, who generally believe that they have a full grasp of the facts, and who have little tolerance for anyone who disagrees with them. In this case, the divide between Jolie fans and Pitt supporters is such that both groups were able to read the same account of what was said to have occurred on the airplane and come to completely opposite conclusions. Pro-Jolie posters argued that Pitt attacked Jolie and their children. Pitt-backers contend that, actually, Jolie first jumped on Pitt's back. Whether Pitt "hit" or "punched" Jolie is hotly disputed, with some posters pointing out that Pitt was not described as doing either. Rather, he was accused of pushing Jolie into a wall, perhaps in an attempt to get her off his back. The role of gender in the dispute was repeatedly brought up. When some posters criticized Jolie, one poster reacted by saying, "Look at you women, tearing a woman down. Shameful." Another poster argued that "Hollywood is a misogynist rapist town." Both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services investigated Pitt due to allegations of child abuse, but both agencies cleared him. Nevertheless, for some posters, this was just more evidence of how biased the system is against women. This is not the end of the legal disputes between Jolie and Pitt. The couple is still engaged in legal action over a vineyard that they jointly owned. Much of what is known about the divorce proceedings actually came out during the vineyard dispute. Some posters argued that it was the prospect of more information damaging to Pitt being released as part of those proceedings that motivated him to finalize the divorce now. Several posters predicted a quick resolution to the vineyard legal action in order to prevent more details that would reflect poorly on Pitt from being released.

Last year on New Year's Day, I thought that I had a great idea. Instead of writing about the previous day's most active threads, I would discuss the top 10 most active threads of the previous year. Out of curiosity, I wondered what I had done the previous year and looked at my previous January 1 post. Wouldn't you know it, I had written about the previous year's top 10 most active posts. So, my new idea was not, in fact, new. My memory was, however, questionable. This year, I have the awareness to know that writing about the top 10 most active threads of last year is not a new idea. However, I can now argue that it is a tradition. I will also follow the tradition of these posts by starting at the bottom of the list and working up to the most active thread of the year.

The tenth most active thread of 2024 was titled, "ECNL forcing Brave & Union Partnership" and posted in the "Soccer" forum. I originally wrote about this thread on February 21 of last year. At that time, I had a very dismal view of the thread because it had been started with nothing more than a rumor and quickly deteriorated into exchanges of snark and insults. Moreover, the soccer forum had proved to be the source of considerable headache, and this thread did not appear likely to reverse that trend. The topic of the thread was a rumored merger being forced by the Elite Clubs National League (ECNL) — a national kids’ soccer league — on two of its member clubs. Eventually, this rumor turned out to be true, and the thread reached 332 pages before posters seemed to have lost interest. Little did I know then, but soccer topics would routinely appear among the most active threads throughout the year.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "How to fix our crisis" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The "crisis" in question pertains to the U.S. education system, which the original poster believes is failing on many levels. According to her, the SAT is not rigorous, American students are dropping out of STEM programs "like flies", and students are not graduating with the skills needed to compete for entry-level jobs. This is a 19-page thread full of fairly dense posts and, as such, not easy to summarize. Two things the thread demonstrates are the acute politicalization of education and how data can be manipulated to support an argument. Almost immediately, posters associated the original poster's argument with recent statements by failed businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who has similarly argued that American culture has accepted mediocrity instead of striving for excellence when it comes to education. When a poster described a comedian who had joked about "MAGA friends", a poster immediately assumed that this was a rebuke of rural White kids, and one poster instinctively posted about alleged deficiencies among urban kids, presumably meaning Black and Hispanic children. It is not clear why posters made the connection between "MAGA friends" and rural White students or even why remarks about MAGA attitudes about education are considered derogatory. After all, it was President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump who famously said that he loved the "Poorly Educated" and attacks on higher education have been a hallmark of MAGA ideology. While many posters preferred to support their arguments with data, there was considerable disagreement about how data was used. For instance, some posters referred to data showing that American students lagged behind those of other countries as evidence that the American education system is failing. On the other hand, posters suggested that if the U.S. data was limited to the performance of White and Asian students, the U.S. performance would be near the top. This, the posters argued, showed that the U.S. education system was clearly capable of producing high-performing students. If true, however, this data does show the inequality in our system. Similarly, some posters refused to accept that the U.S. education system is failing or suffering from significant problems. Other posters agreed with the original poster that there is room for improvement, but there was little agreement about what exactly should be done. The original poster proposed that calculus be made a requirement for high school graduation. Many posters objected to this, arguing that, for most people, calculus has little value. The original poster also proposed not awarding high school diplomas to those who failed to meet the increased graduation requirements. It is not clear to me that the original poster's proposals would actually increase the education level of American students. Rather, it would probably just create a larger number of individuals who lack a high school diploma. A better strategy might be to ensure that calculus classes, as well as classes necessary to prepare for the course, are widely available as options for those students who want to study the subject.

After taking a week off, I was not sure how to get back to blogging today. One option was to just ignore the last week and start with a discussion of the most active threads over the weekend. The other choice was to look at the most active threads during the entire time I was off. For better or worse, I have chosen the second option. The most active thread during that time was the one that I have already discussed about the murder of the UnitedHealthCare CEO. After that was a thread titled, "Why is Blake Lively so overrated?" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. Let me preface this discussion by admitting that I am probably the least qualified person imaginable to discuss this topic. Frankly, I have no idea who Blake Lively is and could not pick her out of a police lineup if my life depended upon it. I understand that she is an actress, but I am not aware of any role that she has played. I may very well have seen her in a movie or show, but if so, I don't remember it. In fact, were it not for this thread, I am not sure that I could correctly identify her gender given that "Blake" can be a male name. What I can say is that this thread was started in September of 2018 by a poster who believed that Lively has "a weird looking face" and is a bad actress. After three pages, the thread died and sank into obscurity until it was revived just over two years later by a poster who claimed that Lively's biggest accomplishments were getting married and having children. After five posts, the thread returned to obscurity. Then, two months later, it was resuscitated by a poster complaining that Lively's "eyes are small". The thread then returned to hibernation for over a year, being awakened in March 2022 and then taking another year and change off. It was not heard from again until May 2023, at which time it received only a few posts. It was then zombied in August 2024. When the thread was revived in August, it was 8 pages long. Today, it is 95 pages. I understand that most of the new interest is the result of a lawsuit that Lively filed against Justin Baldoni, accusing him of sexual harassment. However, that lawsuit was not mentioned until page 28, so there were 20 pages of fairly recent discussion even before that occurred. Threads like this that are nearly 100 pages in length present a particular challenge to me. I wouldn't read a thread of this length even if the topic interested me, and this topic doesn't. As a result, if there were a lot of complaints about it, I would probably just lock it rather than devote the effort necessary to moderate it. But, as it happens, there have not been a lot of complaints about this thread. Instead, there was a thread started in the Website Feedback forum suggesting that the entire thread consisted of nothing but "PR bot vs PR bot spam". Apparently, "bot" is used in a rather unorthodox sense to refer to people rather than automated posts. At any rate, I noticed one anti-Lively poster who posted 27 times, another poster who posted 26 times, and a pro-Lively poster who posted a whopping 87 times. I suspect that these are actual humans with too much time on their hands rather than paid public relations professionals. I must admit, however, that the suggestion that Hollywood public relations firms would find DCUM discussions worth influencing is rather flattering, if somewhat unrealistic.

Yesterday's most active thread was again the one about the shooting of the UnitedHealthCare CEO that I've already discussed. After that was a thread titled, "Not enough office space: safe from RTO?" and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. This is the second day in a row that one of the most active threads has been about federal employees being forced to return to the office. In that thread, as well as several previous threads on this topic that I've discussed, the fact that many federal agencies have reduced office space has come up as an obstacle to returning to the office. The original poster directly addressed that aspect of the issue, saying that her agency was among those that reduced office space and now doesn't have enough for all employees. Moreover, there is no funding to acquire more office space. She wonders if this will make her safe from return-to-office policies. Most of those responding do not think the original poster will be protected. As always in threads of this sort, there are a number of posters who are positively drooling at the thought of federal employees being forced back to their offices. The more painful this is and the more disruption it causes in the employees' lives, the better such posters like it. The idea that federal employees might also be forced like sardines into cramped places without desks is enough for such posters to almost need a cold shower and a cigarette. Many of the responses in this thread were very eye-opening for me. It seems that many federal employees have already gone through returns to the office in which there is no longer a sufficient amount of space. I learned a new term, "hot desk", in which employees scramble for available desks and lose them even if they get up for a meeting. Several posters report that they now work in open environments with desks side by side and face to face. With no privacy, many of the posters say that they have to take telephone calls in their cars. One poster says that her husband, unable to find a desk, works nearly the entire day in his car. Posters who work in the private sector say that this arrangement is increasingly common for them as well. As many posters point out, this situation is not really a bug, but rather a feature. The incoming administration is hoping that federal employees will be incentivized to quit. Some posters report that they did exactly that rather than put up with the insufficient work spaces. Some posters assure the original poster and those like her that she will adapt to such an environment and that she shouldn't be discouraged. Indeed, other posters say that they have adapted. That might require sound-cancelling headphones, constant movements to quieter places for taking calls, or the aforementioned working from their car, but they make it work. The more cynical among us, which most definitely includes me where this topic is concerned, would argue that one of the main motivators of return-to-office policies is the need to fill commercial real estate which otherwise is in danger of collapsing. If agencies are not expanding space, that problem is not going to be addressed. Office building landlords will probably need to trek to Mar-a-Lago in order to convince President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump that the federal government needs more office space.

Yesterday's most active threads returned to a more familiar situation in which several were threads that I've already discussed and will skip today. That included the most active thread of the day, which was about the school shooting in Wisconsin. The next most active thread was titled, "GA & MLS NEXT Form Strategic Alliance" and posted in the "Soccer" forum. This thread was a bit of a challenge for me to decode due to the alphabet soup employed throughout the thread to identify various soccer-related entities. For those, like me, who do not speak "soccerese", I can translate the thread's title thusly: "Girls Academy and Major League Soccer NEXT Form Strategic Alliance". "Girls Academy" is a girls’ soccer league consisting of a nationwide network of girls’ travel soccer teams. "MLS NEXT" is a boys’ league that is associated with Major League Soccer that, if I understand correctly, is aimed at developing talent for the professional league. Based on my very rudimentary research into these two leagues, this does not appear to be the first time the two groups have announced an alliance. As such, many of the first responses were that this is not a big deal and is nothing new. You really have to have pretty arcane youth soccer knowledge — something that I lack —  to understand this thread. But what I think is behind the interest in the thread is the potential impact of this alliance on another soccer league. That league, Elite Clubs National League or ECNL, is currently the home of many Girls Academy clubs. Many of these same clubs apparently have MLS NEXT boys’ teams. As such, they may be caught between ECNL and MLS NEXT. There may also be clubs in the opposite situation who have Girls Academy teams and ECNL boys’ teams. The concern seems to be that ECNL may suffer as clubs switch to MLS NEXT. While many posters believe that this is a realistic concern, other posters scoff at the idea. One argument that I thought made sense — though, again, I really know nothing about this topic — is that Girls Academy and ECNL are focused on a development path that leads to college soccer teams, while MLS NEXT aims to develop professional talent. Right now, women's professional soccer is not all that attractive — at least according to some posters in this thread — and the emphasis on college is more appealing to girls. A thread about ECNL's plans to change the age cut-off for which teams players should join has been among the most active threads for months. That issue also comes up in this thread with some posters arguing that Girls Academy will not adopt the same changes and, therefore, will be more compatible with MLS Next. Or, maybe the opposite is true. I was repeatedly confused by the discussion in this thread, so I could very easily have things backwards. The bottom line appears to be that, in many cases, this announcement will change nothing. But, in other cases, clubs may have to make a tough decision, and there are strong arguments in favor of multiple choices for that decision.

For the first time in a long time, none of the top 10 most active threads were ones that I previously discussed. That almost made me feel that something is wrong. The most active thread was titled, "SMU? Really?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. As I have been saying in recent blog posts, we are now in the college admissions season and will have many threads such as this one dealing with admissions decisions. The original poster says that her son applied to Dartmouth University during the early decision round and was turned down. He is now considering Southern Methodist University, and the original poster and her husband are worried about job prospects from a non-elite college and find the choice very disappointing. Unfortunately, the original poster is a troll. Almost immediately after starting the thread, the original poster began posting replies using different personas. Mostly, the original poster posed as a third party responding to the original poster and fluffing SMU as a great college and Dallas as a liberal bastion in conservative Texas. The original poster defended herself from criticism from other posters and, in turn, posted criticism of others. The personas used by the original poster changed, sometimes having a son, sometimes having a daughter, sometimes claiming to live in Dallas, and sometimes claiming to live somewhere else. Looking at other threads started by the original poster — which I subsequently removed — it appears that the original poster has been following this pattern from as far back as August. Since then, the original poster has undergone racial transformation, gender changes, had children who experienced gender changes, and considered a baffling range of colleges. Just yesterday, the original poster started a second thread titled, "Reed v Swarthmore". Strange that a student planning to commit to SMU is also planning an early decision strategy (presumably for next year) for those two schools. Based on the IP addresses used by this poster, my guess is that the poster is a college student who is currently home for winter break. If so, it is sad that trolling DCUM is the best way the individual has found to spend their free time. As an anonymous website, DCUM is very easy to troll. It really takes no talent. However, as this poster shows, if you do it long enough, you will eventually be caught. Perhaps that doesn't matter, but hopefully, the karmic effect of a significant number of people simultaneously thinking you are a loser will have some impact.

I'm starting with the third most active thread over the weekend because the first two were ones that I've already discussed. This thread was titled, "UVA ED on Friday at 5 pm" and posted in the "College and University Discussion". As I have written in the past few blog posts, we are now in the college admissions season and there will be several threads of this nature. This thread was about the University of Virginia's early decision admissions decisions. As frequent readers of this blog will have read many times, early decision is a type of admissions that limits students to one application and requires a commitment to attend the school if they are accepted. Because colleges know that applicants are serious and almost certain to attend if accepted, early decision is often a student's best chance of being admitted to their preferred college or university. The original poster of this thread posted early in the week saying that the University of Virginia would be releasing its results on Friday at 5 p.m. Even before the results were released, a collection of statistics about early decision applications was provided. If there is one thing the DCUM college admissions fantasy league participants love, it's stats. As such, posters quickly obsessed over this data. Moreover, it was notable that at this point in the thread, most of the posters didn't appear to have kids who were current applicants. Rather, the thread was full of posters who, for whatever reason, are simply interested in college applications statistics. Just after 5:00 p.m., posters who did have children applying began posting their results. Almost immediately, the thread devolved into a debate about football because one of the applicants who was accepted was a football player. One poster was particularly upset that a "football player" had taken a coveted UVA spot from another student who might have gotten in on academic merit. Another unwelcome aspect of threads of this sort is the influx, or at least the suspected influx, of trolls. There always seem to be posts claiming that a student was accepted with very low stats and other posts claiming a student with extremely high qualifications was rejected. Such results do seem to have some regularity due to the coin-toss nature of admissions, so these could be legitimate posts. However, many posters are certain such posters are trolls. Frankly, I don't care enough at this point to check. Moreover, maybe I am just in a bad mood or something this morning, but far too many of the posters in this thread seemed overly invested in their kids' colleges. Posters referred to colleges as "our" school and talked about how "we" will be doing such and such in college. When a parent of a student who was rejected wrote, "We are moving on to the next school with our head held high!" a poster responded saying, "Unless you and your child share a head, you should probably dial it back...". After this, the thread deteriorated even more and I gave up reading it. While there were posts about students being accepted and others rejected, that was not always a clear focus of the discussion. What is clear is that almost everyone believes that they were discriminated against for one reason or another.

I am starting with yesterday's fourth most active thread because the first three most active threads were ones that I've already discussed. This thread was titled, "I am talking to a lot of Democrats who want Trump to succeed." and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster says that he has friends and family who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris but who now want President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump to succeed in implementing his agenda. The original poster further says that they are hoping that those who voted for Trump will learn a lesson. He also indicates that many of these individuals are business people and professionals who will benefit from expected Trump tax cuts. The idea that Trump voters have "f'd around" and now will "find out" has been popular from the minute the presidential election results were known. The irony of the election is that Harris was popular among well-educated, generally affluent voters while Trump gained support from working-class voters. Many think that Trump's proposed policies will fall hardest on those less educated and less well-off individuals. The better-off Harris voters believe that they can survive Trump's policies while his voters will suffer. The reality is that Trump's support included many from the working class, but it also consisted of many among the most wealthy in the country. Indeed, Trump has picked a record number of billionaires for top spots in his incoming administration. The view among many Harris voters is that those wealthy individuals will now proceed to essentially loot the country and create policies that benefit themselves. While I understand the motivation to hope that Trump voters get what they asked for, I am not sure that it is actually a good position to take. On a moral level, some of Trump's policies will likely result in tremendous human suffering. While some of those who will probably feel the pain are likely Trump voters, many are not. We shouldn't support suffering for anyone, in any case. Not even for our political opponents. But even on a practical level, we must hope that Trump's worst ideas are not implemented. Trump critics are correct that Trump probably won't succeed in lowering the cost of eggs, and well-healed Harris voters probably won't mind. But in other respects, Harris voters won't be so isolated. There is an expression that a rising tide raises all ships. The corollary is that a lowering tide will ground a lot of ships that were otherwise thought to be safe. We might be able to absorb rising egg prices, but we can't escape a polluted environment, crumbling infrastructure, or a collapsing government. If Trump's proposed Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is successful in his war against vaccines, our children and grandchildren will suffer just as much as those of the working class. This is not a time for emotion, but rather when rationality is most needed. Let's support Trump in those few cases where his policies are likely to improve our country, but in other cases, we must oppose him regardless of the satisfaction of seeing his supporters suffer might bring.