Wednesday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Twitch dead by apparent suicide: This is HEARTBREAKING!" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. The thread is about the death by suicide of Stephen "tWitch" Boss, a dancer, actor, and television personality. I had never heard of tWitch until I saw this thread but learned that he was popular due to his appearances on "The Ellen Show" and "So You Think You Can Dance", two shows I have not watched. I was surprised by the rush of posts expressing sadness and I don't think I've ever seen such an outpouring of grief due to a celebrity death previously on DCUM. It was strange seeing so many who had obviously been touched by this individual, but not being able to relate. Among the posts expressing surprise and sadness, were many discussing the dangers of depression. Mental health is something which our society struggles to address. While not as bad as it once was, many don't seek help due to fear of stigmatization and, for those who do want help, it is often hard to find or unavailable. Differing views of mental health were demonstrated in the thread when one poster asked why tWitch couldn't have stayed strong for his children and another poster asked if this would be said about someone who died from cancer or a heart attack. It is clear from the thread that many consider this to be a tragic loss and I am sorry not to have learned about tWitch earlier.

The second most active thread was posted in the "Food, Cooking, and Restaurants" and titled, "The worst Holiday Cookies". The original poster asks what kind of cookies posters dislike receiving. The original poster must be trolling because she lists one of the best cookies, "Peanut butter blossoms, the ones with the Hershey kiss smooshed on top", as her least favorite and then proudly claims to bake cranberry pecan biscotti and similar cookies. Clearly, this poster is simply trying to provoke me. I was happy to see that the Hershey's Kisses cookies have plenty of other fans and much of the thread is devoted to defending them. Moroever, several of those replying shared my antipathy towards the original poster's list of favorites. It might be surprising that there are 8 pages of posts mostly devoted to Hershey's Kisses cookies, but some things are sacred. A few other types of cookies also are disliked by some posters, but most of those are uncontroversial. Several posts in the thread were not about cookies but rather attitudes towards cookies with the original poster being criticized for snobbery. I can't help but think that the most notable impact of this thread will be an increase in the number of Hershey's Kisses cookies baked this year.

Third was a thread titled, "Who cooks - the host or the guest?" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster explains that her family is planning to visit her in-laws over Christmas. Her sister-in-law's family will also be joining them. Whenever the original poster hosts guests at her home, she takes charge of all the cooking and expected that her in-laws would do the same during this visit. Instead, she has been repeatedly asked to sign-up to be responsible for a share of the meals. Her husband has said that he would handle their share of the meals, but the original poster is still being contacted and asked to sign up. While a few people agree that the in-laws, as hosts, should be responsible for cooking, most find the sign-up process to be reasonable and understandable. Several posters pointed out that cooking for two guests is much different than cooking for two additional families. After the original poster mentioned that she has five children, this perspective became overwhelming. Support for the sign-up process was such that the original poster was persuaded and admitted to having been wrong. That didn't stop criticism from being leveled at her and she was chided for several more pages. There was a bit of discussion about sexism being displayed by those repeatedly contacting the original poster even after her husband had volunteered for the role, but that was mostly drowned out by the focus on the original poster. As one response said, this was the rare DCUM thread that supported a mother-in-law.

Another day another thread about masks. This one, titled "Peer Masking as a Reasonable Accommodation" was posted in the "VA Public Schools other than FCPS" forum. Apparently Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin previously issued an executive order prohibiting schools from requiring masks. In response, the ACLU of Virginia sued him on behalf of students who have disabilities that put them at risk if they contract Covid. This week, the lawsuit was settled and schools will now be allowed to implement peer-to-peer and teacher masking as an accommodation for students with disabilities that require it. The original poster asks whether her understanding of the settlement is correct — which it appears to be — and wonders about requests for accommodation from students with disabilities that make masking difficult. The poster doesn't want her children to be required to wear masks and appears to generally oppose accommodations for students with disabilities that affect other students. This discussion goes just as you would expect with arguments about the effectiveness of masks, about the current threat of Covid, about some posters' lack of concern about others, and with several posters arguing that the medically threatened students should simply stay home. The original poster analogizes medically-fragile students to students whose disabilities result in violent disruptions of classes. This seems unfair to both groups. Like so many similar threads, this one is motivated more by emotion than facts. Given that there are likely very few students whose medical conditions will require masking, most of those participating in this thread will not have to worry about it. However, that is clearly not stopping them from expressing their very strongly held views on the topic.