Tuesday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "SOTU Thread" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Created to discuss last night's State of the Union address delivered by President Joe Biden, the thread managed to produce 15 pages of discussion in less than 18 hours. With posts being created at that pace and needing to sleep for many of those hours, there was really no way for me to keep up with this thread. Most of my exposure was in response to reports of inappropriate posts. I was interested in how widespread participation in this thread was and, based on a quick analysis it appears that there were nearly fifty posters who contributed to the thread. Of those, five posted more than ten times including three who posted more than twenty times each. Based on what I've read, the thread is a combination of play-by-play discussion of the speech as it takes place, analysis and commentary on various points, discussion of audience behavior, and lots of talk about fashion. The thread also included discussion of Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders' response. DCUM has a liberal-leaning audience so it is no surprise that Biden generally received good marks while Sanders left a lot to be desired. However, conservative posters on DCUM are generally very vocal and frequently dominate threads due to repeated posting. But, it appears that last night even they struggled to find ways to spin things in their favor. Pickings were so slim for them that at one point the best they could do was fixate on Jill Biden kissing Douglas Emhoff as they greeted each other. Sadly for them, even KissGate was fairly short-lived. The highlight of the evening for many was a bit of political rope-a-dope by Biden who accused Republicans of wanting to sunset Social Security and Medicare, only be met by an avalanche of boos and jeers from Republicans. Biden adroitly welcomed the unanimity around protecting those programs declared them off the table. It was an amazing hoisting of Republicans on their own petard.

The next thread was another of those of the "why was it posted?", "why did anyone reply?", and "how the hell did it end up being among the most active threads?" variety. Posted in the "Off-Topic" forum and titled, "AITA: Grocery bagging", the original poster recounts being at Trader Joes and refusing to help bag her own groceries because she considers bagging to be included in the price. She wants to know who was wrong in this scenario. Who cares? There are a lot of things to get upset about in this world but being asked to help bag your groceries is not one of them. The amount of thought the original poster has given to the mundane task of bagging groceries is simply phenomenal. That this poster returned home, presumably unpacked and put away her groceries, and was still bothered enough about the grocery bagging affair to sit down and post about it on DCUM just blows me away. Equally astonishing is that anyone thought such a post worthy of a reply. I have no idea how this thread reached 16 pages and I am not going to bother to find out. So, if solving that mystery is important to you, you will have to read the thread yourself.

If you bothered to read the grocery bagging thread and felt that what you really need after reading it is even a bigger waste of time, the next thread is just for you. Titled, "Why do the rich vote Democrat?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the grammatically-challenged original poster believes that wealthy people do better under Republican policies and, therefore, wonders why the wealthiest places in America tend to vote Democratic. The thread managed to stay on topic for a whopping four posts before an "Independent" poster decided that staying on-topic is overrated. That poster introduced a criticism that has become sort of a mainstay of conservative thought lately. Rather than attacking Democratic policies, they attack Democrats for not adhering to the policies sufficiently. In other words, it's not that Democratic polices are bad, but the fact that Democrats are hypocrites and sometimes don't practice what they preach that is the problem. Personally, I think partial adherence is better than no adherence, but I'm just a glass half full type of guy. But, you do have to feel for those in this poster's position. In order to critique Republicans' policies, they would actually have to have a policy. Beyond tax cuts for the rich, they just don't. I guess that is not completely fair. They also oppose anything that Democrats support. Regardless, what is clear is that conservatives and, in this case, an independent, are not going to simply sit by while a bunch of people explain what they like about Democratic policies. No siree Bob. So, it is attack, attack, attack, despite none of that having anything to do with the topic of the thread. The icing on the cake is that on page 3 of the 12 page thread, someone brings up COVID and that ends up dominating the thread right through to the end. Of course just what DCUM needed was another thread full of fighting about COVID.

The final thread at which I'll look was a welcome surprise, especially after the last two threads. Titled, "Do attitudes about obesity cause more harm than obesity itself?" and posted in the "Health and Medicine" forum, the original poster provides a thought-provoking and convincing summary of an article that contends that our current approach to addressing obesity does more harm than good. The original poster describes himself as a white man who does not have weight issues, but he approaches the topic with a notable sense of empathy and concern for people of color and women. This is far different from what we normally see in weight-related threads. What follows the original post are a number of heartfelt stories that support the proposition of the article. Both the article and many of the replies place blame squarely on the medical establishment for taking narrow views regarding weight. Unfortunately, many DCUM posters are firmly in the "just eat less" school of thought and they intrude on this thread, basically serving to reinforce the points made by the original poster. Still, this thread is far more substantive than what might be expected and its focus on doctors and bias within the medical field are somewhat original, at least to me. Weight loss is always a contentious issue on DCUM and this thread is not free from bickering. But, it is better than most on the topic and definitely a step in the right direction.