The Most Active Threads of the Last Week

On Sundays I look back at the most active threads of the previous week, skipping any that were mentioned in the daily updates. A thread that was second in number of views and fourth in number of replies for the week was titled, "Elon Musk lights fires under the butts of Twitter's primarily WFH team" and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. I've noticed over the years that DCUM attracts posters who have an almost singular obsession with a very specific issue. They view nearly everything through the prism of that particular fixation. The original focus of this thread is a good example of this phenomenon. Of the hundred different aspects of the Elon Musk/Twitter story, this poster chose to focus on Musk ending working from home for Twitter employees. There is a small contingent of posters, of which the original poster of this thread appears to be one, who hate working from home and can't wait for every single employee to be forced back to an office. Strangely, other than the subject line, the original post didn't say anything about working from home.

Because the original poster himself appeared to ignore the subject of his own thread, very few replies dealt with Twitter employees losing the ability to work from home. Instead, the replies were wide-ranging, commenting on the various problems affecting Twitter and aspects of Musk's personality. As events developed during the week, the thread naturally addressed them as well. Social media in general, but Twitter especially, encourages the "hot take" industry in which certain personalities feel a need to be an expert on every topic. As a result, last week's expert on trans-Pacific shipping container availability and its impact on pricing is this week's prognosticator on Ukrainian advances against Russian forces and their likelihood for continued success during the muddy season. We see a bit of this on DCUM but it is particularly visible in this thread where every poster is suddenly an expert on Twitter with insight into Musk's personality that easily exceeds that of his therapist.

Coming in at fourth in number of views for the week and fifth in number of replies was a thread in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum titled, "I see a lot of advice on here to never remarry. But what plans are you making for old age?". This thread commits one of my pet peeves by having an extremely long title. At least the original post has a decent amount of text because it is especially irritating to me when a 20 word title is followed by only one or two words in the body text. But, being a man of some inner fortitude, I was able to overcome my personal issues with the title and see what the thread was about. I initially thought the original poster would be someone who is single and not planning to remarry and seeking advice to help in her own preparations. But, it appears that is not the case and, instead, the original poster is simply asking out of curiosity. Among the first replies are many criticizing men as unreliable, untrustworthy, and likely to abandon a sick spouse at the first opportunity. While this may be true for men named Newt Gingrich, it is not necessarily true for all men so there was some pushback to those posts. Some posters offered substantive and helpful responses that addressed the topic of the thread, but generally the thread turned to a discussion of the financial obligations surrounding marriage and the pros and cons thereof.

I almost hesitate to bring up the thread that was third in both number of replies and number of views for the week because I hate this type of thread. Titled, "Words and phrases I irrationally hate: add yours" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum, the original poster lists what are basically alternative terms for eating and hunger as words or phrases she hates. Personally, in both food and words I like variety so I struggle to understand the original poster's problem with creative language. My issue with this type of thread in general is that they invite negativism. For everything that someone doesn't like, there is someone who likes it and will probably be offended. Moreover, this type of thread invites those who for whatever reason, want to be as offensive as possible. Admittedly, this specific thread which is really only insulting words is not as bad as some of the genre. Moreover, I get that the purpose of the thread is mindless distraction. The participants are not exactly trying to split an atom. Still, the thread definitely gives me the impression of old men (or old women) yelling at clouds.

One shortcoming of the methodology I use for ranking threads is that only threads created within the time period being discussed are considered. In other words, only threads created the previous day are listed in the top threads of the previous day. If a thread is created earlier, but gains a lot of attention later, it may have a number of views or replies exceeding the "top" threads for the day but not get included in my list of the most active threads. This was the case with a thread titled, "Race in college admissions is back in front of the Supreme Court Oral Argument on Oct. 31 (Monday)" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. This thread was created on Oct 29, but didn't gain a lot of traction until later. But, when it did, it completely caught on fire and has now reached 102 pages in length, making it the most active thread for the past 30 days. Since it is still growing, it will likely hold that position for some time. Strictly speaking, it should not be included in this update because it was created last week, but I think it does deserve mention. As the title suggests, the thread is about oral arguments before the Supreme Court on cases involving race-conscious admissions policies. The thread diverges from that specific topic to include general discussion of affirmative action and the educational achievements of various groups.

Threads dealing with affirmative action or, indeed, almost any topic related to race tend to be problematic. Such threads cause racists to come out of the woodwork to denigrate the intellectual abilities of Black students and other minorities. Surprisingly, this thread seems to have escaped that nonsense for the most part (though, at over 100 pages I can't be sure no such posts exist). One of the cases being considered by the Court involves alleged discrimination by Harvard University agains Asian students. As a result, the thread attracted quite a bit of both pro and anti-Asian posts. Both are troublesome as neither positive nor negative stereotypes are generally helpful. Nevertheless, this thread is rife with both types of posts despite many posts being reported and deleted. Much of the discussion dealt with the SAT exam and it history, effectiveness, and current use by universities. The debate over whether relative SAT performance reflects Asian test-prep obsession or low Black intellectual ability is never-ending and rarely elucidating. At one point the thread was taken over by a troll posting racist posts and sockpupeting equally-racist replies to himself. When I removed the posts, the troll responded by posting names of my family members and warning that they could be deleted just as easily as a post. I have to wonder just how terrible this guy's life must be that posting racist posts is of such importance to him. Can you imagine taking the time to research the names of someone's family members and post a threat against them simply because your racist post was deleted? That's dedication.