Wednesday's Most Active Threads

Yesterday's most active thread — first in number of views and second in number of replies — was titled, "Yes, we love our families. But: Petty Vents 2022" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster doesn't really explain the purpose of the thread, but I guess that is implied by the title. Based on the original poster's telling of her Thanksgiving trip to her parents home, the original poster is a perfect guest yet her mother is inexplicably upset. Apparently, the biggest issue causing family discord is pillowcases. The original poster said "petty vents" in her title and this and the few replies that I bothered to read live up to that description. I have no idea how this thread managed such popularity. I really couldn't force myself to read more than one or two posts in this thread which, if it were a Netflix series, would be labeled as a "slow burn". But, frankly, "burn" might be giving it too much credit. "Slow smoldering" maybe?

Keeping in the theme of family drama — and also maintaining the theme of "slow burn" — was the thread that was second in number of views and first in number of replies. Titled, "Why does MIL make fun of everything?", this thread, like the previous one, was posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster complains that her mother-in-law makes fun of everything and provides two examples. The first example involves paper towels and the second toys that her husband and children share. Again, I really can't bring myself to put too much effort into reading this thread. A few replies that I noticed on the first page attempted to explain the mother-in-law's behavior and some offered ideas for how to address it. A couple of posters fixated on the paper towels while others tried to tell them that the paper towels were not the point. Nevertheless, as best I can tell, paper towels and napkins received nearly as much attention as the mother-in-law and the topic is still being debated on page 8 of the thread. While most posters agreed that the mother-in-law's behavior would be irritating, I noticed some posters defending her. As is always the case in this sort of thread, someone reminded posters that they should appreciate having family because not everyone does. That admonishment was not well received by posters who appear to view Thanksgiving as a holiday best celebrated by pillorying relatives.

Second in number of views and fourth in number of replies was a thread titled, "Another mass shooting in Virginia" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The thread is about the shooting to death of six people in a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia. With mass shootings happening with distressing regularity, threads such as this have taken on a common pattern. Posters express sadness and hopes that something could be done to stop such shootings, but have skepticism that anything will change. There are a handful of posters who frequent all such threads to make the point that mass shooters are almost always male. They made an early appearance in this thread and, without much being known about the shooter other than his being a man, that topic was given considerable attention in the early pages. The other certainty about threads about mass shootings is calls for gun control. In turn, they always receive responses from gun proponents whose tactic these days is to focus on mental health. Another recent trend is for opponents of gun control to criticize the mere existence of threads about shootings. One poster in particular posts in every shooting thread accusing the original posters of being gun control lobbyists. This poster clearly considers any discussions about shootings to be part of an organized campaign against guns and prefers to have DCUM ignore shootings. Other posters have proposed that threads about shootings be segregated into their own forum. Personally, I hope we don't reach the point where mass shootings are ignored and if the existence of such threads is irritating to gun proponents, I consider that a good thing and a reason to have even more such threads.

Finally, a thread that was fifth for the day in both number of views and number of replies is titled, "DH keeps turning off the heat" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster explains that her husband turns off the heat when they go to bed. This makes everyone in the family other than the original poster's husband uncomfortably cold and leads to coughing and irritation. The initial reaction by many posters was to sympathize with the original poster and to criticize her husband. However, the original poster had noted that she keeps their thermostate at 72 degrees which many posters considered too hot for sleeping. As a result, the thread was basically taken over by disputes over what temperature is most appropriate. There seems to be general agreement that cooler temperatures are better at night — and programmable thermostats are proposed as a good solution for adjusting temperatures at bedtime — but posters are all over the place when it comes to daytime temperatures. Some posters considered the original poster's preferred 72 degree setting too cold while others considered it too warm. Posters got so fixated on temperatures that they forgot about the dispute between the original poster and her husband. Nobody even bothered to tell the original poster to get a divorce.