Tuesday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday, by some measure, was titled, "I don't think I can be friends with moms who drive huge SUVs" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster says she has just moved to the suburbs and describes encountering a group of moms loading groceries at the grocery store who all had the same type of white SUV. The original poster found this hilarious but wonders if these women are concerned about global warming. I am fairly certain that this is a troll thread. The original post clearly seems designed to trigger as many people as possible and the poster has a posting history that suggests a certain amount of creativity has probably been employed. If the thread was indeed aimed at trolling, it was wildly successful as the thread generated a massive 24 pages in less than 24 hours. Probably as intended, SUV fans who were provoked came to the vehicles' defense. Some posters pointed out that the original poster's decision to move from an apartment to a house was also ecologically unsound. The original poster defended this choice by stressing that it was a small townhome with no yard. The original poster's attacks on SUVs were soon replaced by her defense of cars when posters argued that the original poster should be walking rather than driving. The poster found herself fighting a battle on two fronts with SUV proponents on one side and those arguing that she should have chosen a walkable urban neighborhood on the other. The brilliance of the perfect troll thread is that everyone knows that it is a troll, but they are still incapable of not responding. The bait is just too appetizing.

The next most active thread was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. Titled, "Caucasian son is dating an Indian girl he met in college. A few questions", several posters suspected that this might be a troll thread as well. The original poster says that her son, a "blue-eyed Caucasian young man", has been dating a woman of Indian descent. Since they have been together for a few years and are both now employed and seem very devoted to each other, she expects that they may be getting married soon. Because the original poster knows very little about Indians, she has several questions about what she might expect in terms of customs and the girlfriend's parents. Those responding struggle to provide answers because Indian families are obviously not all the same. The original poster doesn't even know if the woman was born in the US or abroad. She knows nothing of her family. Posters explain that this makes even broad generalities difficult. Some of those responding provided heavily caveated answers based on assumptions they are making. Many posters seem annoyed by the post. Responses include arguments that this relationship is no different than any other intercultural relationship, that the couple would have already discussed these things and the mom should talk to them about it, and that the original poster was significantly getting ahead of things, The troll/not troll scales got tipped a bit further in the direction of "troll" when the original poster inquired what the child of a white blue-eyed father and Indian-American mother might look like. I eventually locked this thread.

Next was a thread titled, "What was DC like in the summer of 2000? I want some nostalgia" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster asks to be transported back 22 years to a simpler time. For some reason there has been a cottage industry lately on DCUM in threads about DC's past. This one is particularly specific. Coincidentally, the summer of 2000 was fairly memorable for me because we were expecting our first child who would be born in September. I suspected that those responding would not be able to stick to that particular summer and, true to form, replies describe a range of time periods. Some posters hadn't even moved to DC by that time, yet still wanted to offer their impressions. Others concentrated on earlier decades altogether. These nostalgia threads always seem to divide between posters who think DC's past was the dark ages in which nothing functioned, everything was horrible, and the only notable personality was Marion Barry, and posters who think that DC was great back then before transplants moved in and ruined everything. For the most part, the responses reflect the age range of our users. For the middle-aged parents of today, the summer of 2000 was a time of going to popular bars and restaurants, many of which no longer exist. Several have memories of risking muggings and hurrying past prostitutes to catch a band on an otherwise abandoned 14th Street. Many of today's popular neighborhoods were just beginning to transition from their affordable, if somewhat run down and crime-ridden, pasts to the swank venues of multi-million dollar townhouses they are today. But, for the most part, it seems that memories have faded and those reflecting on the time either view it overly rosy or unnecessarily bad. 

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "South Dakota forcing trans kids to detransition", the original poster links to an article describing legislation recently signed into law by South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem that bans gender-affirming care for anyone under 18 and gives doctors who are treating such patients one year to stop the care. That means that transgender youth will be forced to detransition. We have had countless threads about transgender youth on DCUM and they all seem to go the same way. Anti-trans posters who distinguish themselves mostly by their lack of understanding and ignorance of the topic create strawman arguments or completely ignore reality. This law prevents the use of puberty-blockers, but the anti-trans posters ignore that and, instead, focus almost exclusively on "cutting off body parts", something that likely has not occurred a single time to a child in South Dakota. Sadly, Republicans, who are bereft of policies that actually help people and whose "tax cuts for rich people" proposals are no longer popular, have found that the way to power is on the backs of trans people, particularly children. As a result, Republican leaders are in a race to see who can be the most anti-Trans. None of this is done out of concern for children. The only motivation is partisan politics. As such, it is no surprise that right-wingers go along with the charade, or join in the obfuscation of reality, and participate in the anti-Trans fervor. More disappointing are the "I'm a moderate Democrat" posters who delude themselves into thinking that any of this is being done in good faith. I wish that I could say that I don't know what kind of person can look at a struggling adolescent and see nothing but a "wedge issue", but sadly I know exactly what kind of person that is. It is a Republican governor.