This Weekend's Most Active Threads

Today I'll look at the most active threads over the weekeend. The thread with the most replies and second highest number of views was titled, "Why are Northern Kids Flocking to Southern Universities?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster links to an article in "Town and Country" magazine that documents increased interest in universities located in the southern United States. I haven't read this 15 page thread other than skimming a few pages, but from what I've seen, the thread could easily be confused for a Loudoun County School Board meeting. It is full of complaints about Covid restrictions and "woke indoctrination" in northern schools. I find it hard to believe that students are choosing colleges based on whether a vaccination is required or not, but this thread would convince you that this is among the most important factors. There seems to be a number of posters in the college and university forum that are heavily invested in promoting southern schools and threads such as this appear regularly. To be sure, universities in the South have their detractors as well, many pointing to abortion restrictions as a reason to avoid such schools. I also noticed a number of posts in this thread suggesting that the the growth in interest in the southern schools is a result of them being less competitive for applicants. Also, just like almost every thread about education these days, this thread somehow got diverted into a discussion about Asians.

I'll combine discussion of two threads since they were on almost the same topic. Leading the weekend in number of views was a thread titled, "Naomi Biden wedding dress" and posted in the "Beauty and Fashion" forum. A thread titled, "Naomi Biden and fiancé have White House wedding, but did you know they also live there?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum was ninth in number of views but third in number of replies. As is obvious from the titles, both threads are related to the wedding of President Joe Biden's granddaughter Naomi, who was married this weekend to Peter Neal.

The political thread is focused on reports that Naomi Biden has been living at the white housse with Neal since August. This is supposedly a huge political scandal because it is at taxpayers' expense. Moreover, it is considered a moral travesty because an unwed couple has been cohabitating. As an early response pointed out, this is really more of a gossip topic than a political one. Most of the responses either "whatabout" Trump family members while others point out that presidents and their families are required to cover their own personal expenses so the the amount of taxpayer money involved is not clear. Frankly, I really think this is getting into tan suit territory but given the breathless takes by some in the thread, you would think the couple was keeping top secret documents in their room.

The fashion thread is only marginally less gossipy with lots of complaints about Naomi's makeup or whether or not she looks scared. Knowing that you are about to have 10 pages of nit-picking on DCUM would cause anyone to have a bit of fear I think. On the other hand, many posters applaud the bride as beautiful and have considerable praise for her. For reasons I don't quite understand, many posts compared Naomi to various celebrities and then the validity of those comparisons was debated. The British Royal family somehow made its way into both threads. Similarly, various members of the Trump family were brought up.

A thread in the "Money and Finances" forum titled, "How to pay for college: specific scenario" was third in number of views and fourth in number of replies over the weekend. The original poster explains that a relative paid for the first year of her child's college costs but the family doesn't have funds for the subsequent three years. She wants advice about loans. Most of the replies suggest federal student loans as the best option. However, after it was revealed that the child attends an out-of-state school, several posters suggested tranferring to an in-state public university. The thread is 11 pages long and I only read a few posts here and there, but it looks like many posts criticize the original poster for not doing a better job saving for college. The horse if pretty far out of the barn in that regard, so I am not sure how such posts are helpful. There is also quite a bit of back and forth about whether retirement savings should be used for college. Generally, DCUM posters are against that but that opinion is not shared by all posters in this thread. This type of thread is good for identifying posters who are out of touch with current college costs. They always weigh in with advice that the student get a summer job. Unless your summer job is establishing a cryptocurrency exchange and bilking your customers out of billions of dollars, there is not much hope of putting a dent in out-of-state tuition with the salary from normal summer employment.

Finally, another thread from the "Political Discussion" forum was popular this weekend. Fifth in both number of views and number of replies was a thread titled, "Bombshell: NYT story suggests Alito is the leaker of Dobbs decision". The original poster did a terrible job with the initial post in this thread, not linking to the article or providing a summary. Thankfully, first poster to respond embedded several tweets that provided a good gist of the story. Most of the thread is either conservatives trying to undermine the credibility of the story and its main protagonist or liberals claiming the article is sufficient to require Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to resign. Moreover, since the article does not explicitly link Alito to the leak of the draft Dobbs opinion, conservatives make considerable mileage claiming the thread is fake news. The thread is another sad example that in today's politics, nothing matters. Posters simply line up on their team's side and blast away at the other side. Facts are really not important. Making matters worse in this thread, a considerable amount of time is spent inventing hypothetical scenarios in which roles are reversed and then using those invented situations to declare political opponents to be "hypocrites". Yes, the imaginary actors in your invented story acted in an inconsistent manner. Game, set, match. Victory to you.