Monday's Most Active Threads

Sadly, I am required to once again write about the Sussexes. The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Has Harry Completely Lost his mind?" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. Today Prince Harry's book will finally be released so I suspect this will not be the last of these threads. The title alone in this case is enough to know which direction this thread will take and I simply can't motivate myself to read it. Within two hours of its creation, the thread had already reached 11 pages, at which point I locked it. This wasn't even the only Sussex-related thread created yesterday. I remain completely astonished about the popularity of discussing this couple. Most exasperating is the huge number of posts coming from those like the original poster of this thread who prefaces the first post in the thread by saying, "I don't care about Royals...". Clearly the poster cares enough to start a thread about them. The obsession, especially among the haters, is simply amazing. During the two hours that the thread was available, multiple posters posted over 10 times with one managing 25 posts. That's basically one post every 5 minutes. On top of the multiple threads per day being created about Harry and Meghan, posters are inserting the couple in to completely unrelated threads. Some posters appear to be viewing their entire lives through a Sussex prism.

Yesterday's second most active thread was posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids". Titled, "S/O to well mannered kids", the thread is a spin-off of an earlier thread. In this case, the original poster describes two occasions in which she offered to buy her child and a friend of the child a hot chocolate from Starbucks. In one case, the friend asked for a tai chai latte instead of hot chocolate and on the second occasion — involving a different friend — the child asked for a double-toasted croissant in addition to the hot chocolate. The original poster asks if this was rude behavior by her child's friends. Most of those responding don't think the children were rude and some even question the original poster's behavior. There is some disagreement among posters about whether children should be taken to Starbucks in the first place and whether children who go to Starbucks frequently enough to have specific drink preferences are spoiled. A few posters do understand the original poster's annoyance and think the children shouldn't have made their requests, but even in these cases the posters were often willing to excuse the children due to their young age.

In the endless saga involving "Commended Students" at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ), another thread on the topic was among the most active yesterday. This one titled, "TJ Commended Student Emails Released - Who is really responsible?" and, of course, posted in the "Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)" forum. This nearly 20 page thread initially focuses on emails related to the controversy. A quick perusal of the first couple of pages of the thread suggests that most posters believe the emails exonerate the school's principal and some think they make those complaining about the TJ administration look bad. By the third page, the thread has turned into another run-of-the-mill TJ debate thread in which the school's attitude toward equity, its admissions policy, and the demographics of the student body are disputed. As in previous threads on this topic, posters are divided over whether Commended recognition has any real value. Mostly the thread seems to be focused on the number of Asians at TJ with the percentage being used to demonstrate both diversity and a lack of diversity.

Finally, I'll look at a thread that was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. Titled, "really jarring coming back to the US after traveling to Asia for the last three weeks", the original poster describes her reaction to the state of US airports and trains compared to those experienced while visiting Asia. In Asia, the original poster found clean, modern trains, airports with efficient immigrations, customs, and baggage delivery systems, and no indication of unhoused individuals. The opposite was true upon the original poster's return to the United States, where the airport and trains were outdated and unhoused people's encampments were visible all along the train route. While some of those responding agreed with the original poster, many countered that the original poster described only a limited view of Asia and argued that things were much worse in some parts of Asia. That led to posters pointing out that there were parts of the US with still worse infrastructure. I haven't read very many of the posts in this thread which is currently 14 pages long, but it looks like it turned into a general debate about the current state of the US with some arguing that it is the greatest country in the world and others arguing that it is far from it. There is also some discussion about how the train infrastructure in the US could be improved and impediments to its development.