April

Today we have released a slight redesign for the DCUM Forums. For years, posters have been asking for a design that was optimized for mobile users. An attempt to deploy such a design a few years ago ended amidst a host of user complaints and performance issues. I hope that this design has resolved both of those problems. There will not be a lot of differences for those using desktop devices. Mobile users, however, will find a completely redesigned interface. The top navigation bar and the left side menu (where "Recent Topic" is located), can now be found in two "hamburger" buttons in the top corners. The default font size for all devices has been increased. So, if you suddenly find the fonts to be too large, adjust the zoom level of your browser. I found that I have been running my browser with the pages zoom 120 percent so in this design I made that size the default and now have my browser at 100 percent zoom level. For those of you who simply cannot abide change, there is a link at the very bottom of the page to the legacy design.

I woke up this morning feeling really good, sort of had an extra spring in my step, and thought to myself, "I'm going to kill it today". Then I sat down at my computer, pulled up the list of yesterday's most active threads and there, right at the top, was a thread about Meghan Markle. More specifically, a thread titled, "Meghan Markle Pink Short Suit at Lakers Game" and posted in the "Beauty and Fashion" forum. So, this is why I got out of bed this morning? To write about Meghan's clothes? What is there to say? Meghan wore a suit. It was pink. She was at a basketball game and the suit got wrinkled. She also rolled up her sleeves. Apparently having wrinkled clothes and rolled up sleeves are major fashion faux pas (I say as I look at my wrinkled shirt and rolled up sleeves). I know nothing of fashion, but my intuition suggests that Washington, DC is not on the cutting edge of fashion trends. Similarly, I suspect that Los Angeles is light years ahead of us. So, when posters started complaining that Meghan's outfit was out-of-date and more fitting for the 90s, I remembered the one rule of fashion that I ever learned. "Keep your old clothes because they will eventually be in fashion again". Sure enough, it turns out that our future is going to look a lot like Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman". Surprisingly, this thread stayed pretty much on topic. Only toward the end did it start to diverge into the sort of Royal Family in-fighting that characterizes most of these threads. Of course, Meghan and her outfit had both their fans and their detractors. To her credit, the original poster was definitely a fan. But, other than the wrinkles and rolled-up sleeves, most of what posters thought was wrong with the outfit turned out to have been choices made by the designer. Perhaps Meghan didn't wear it well, but she wore it correctly. Given the number of posters insisting that the suit represents the current style, I suspect that a year from now DC will be filled with women dressed in colorful boxy shorts with blazers draped over them like a towel hanging from a bed post. There will be one group that will conspicuously stand out by not adhering to the trend: the Meghan haters for whom the look as been forever ruined.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "I got an email telling me my daughter is a mean girl." and posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The original poster explains that she received an anonymous email saying that her teen daughter is a "mean girl" who gossips and excludes others. The original poster says that she knows that her daughter is popular and is sometimes frustrated by expectations that she be everyone's friend, but does not have a feeling that she is a mean girl. The original poster asks for advice about what to do. This is a 14 page thread and I've only read a few pages of it. Based on that limited exposure, I am inclined to say that the original poster is one of the most level-headed participants in the thread. She is neither ruling out nor completely accepting the accusations in the email. While she recognizes that her daughter has faults and is therefore willing to consider the possibility that she is a mean girl, the original poster doesn't feel like the email is sufficient evidence of this being true. Some posters were prepared to accept the email as fact and declare the child a certified mean girl and, by implication, her mother a bad parent. Others were more skeptical, suggesting nefarious explanations for the email in which the original poster's daughter was more a victim than a victimizer. Much of the discussion in this thread is less about how to react to the email and more about the appropriateness of anonymous emails. Quite a few posters view this as a completely valid means of communication while others are critical of both the practice and those who condone it. Personally, as a recipient of many generous, but unlikely to be true, proposals from random Nigerian governmental officials, I don't trust anything that comes in email these days.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Is this a legitimate reason for a divorce?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. Given the tendency of posters in the relationship forum to recommend divorce for almost any reason, I would expect that the answer to the question posed in the thread's title would be "yes". The original poster's complaint in this instance is that her husband does not defend her from criticism (she calls it "attacks") by others. She describes two examples, which were apparently the only cases of this happening. Everything else in their marriage is good, but she considers her husband to be "wimpy" and doesn't want to stay married to him. For once, most posters seem to be opposed to divorce, especially because the couple has four kids. The original poster doesn't provide a lot of details about the "attacks", but what she does provide are not convincing to many posters. Quite a few believe she is greatly overreacting. Several posters advise the original poster that everyone has flaws and that she has to take the good with the bad. Even posters who sympathize with the original poster and think that her husband should have defended her don't believe this is divorce-worthy. Some posters are even able to find a bright side to a conflict-avoidant husband. To be sure, there are a few proponents of divorce — it wouldn't be the DCUM relationship forum if there weren't — but they are relatively sparse.

The most active thread yesterday was somewhat of a surprise to me. Titled, "Succession - Season 4" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum, the thread is obviously about the HBO Max television series chronicling the Roy family and their business empire. This thread was originally started back on March 26 but added slightly over 10 pages yesterday. I only just watched this episode yesterday, saving me from reading through pages of spoilers in order to write this post. But, in consideration for anyone who hasn't caught up yet, I'll try to avoid spoilers now. A moment in the episode that basically went over my head was caught by our mostly female user base and became the subject of much discussion. I'm still not sure of its significance and based on the pages of discussion it provoked, there is no consensus about its importance among our users. Several posters, however, have strong opinions about the matter, often drawing on personal experience to argue their points. Beyond that, the posts mostly recount fairly memorable scenes. There is a bit of a debate about whether the show should be watched as light entertainment or whether it has deeper meaning worthy of causing introspection among viewers.

Because I took the weekend off from the blog, today I'll review the most active threads since Friday. The most active thread during that period was titled, "I dropped the hosting rope and now ILs think I’m ‘mad’ at them" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster recounts that she has hosted her in-laws for years for holidays and vacations. Each time, she is forced to be responsible for all cooking, cleaning, childcare, and logistics. Meanwhile, her husband neglects everything while simply hanging out with his family. When her husband suggested hosting for Easter, the original poster told him that he would have to take responsibility this time. There were a few issues with meals, and a few logistical problems, but it generally worked out. After the holiday, however, the original poster's mother-in-law contacted her asking if she was mad. The original poster explained that she hadn't felt like hosting this holiday. This caused the original poster's husband to ask why she had been rude and why she was mad at them. The family relationship forum has become a frequent venue for lengthy and contentious threads. As is often the case on DCUM, I am astonished at the topics that gain attention. While I understand that this is likely an important topic to the original poster, I am amazed that complete strangers have any interest in the thread at all. Nevertheless, it has already reached 25 pages. But, further investigation reveals that the interest was not all from complete strangers. By my count, the original poster has posted 53 times in this thread, many times referring to herself in the third person or offering anonymous support for herself. Even on page 24 she is continuing to defend the "original poster" while speaking in the third person and calling critics of the original poster "old biddies". Since all signs point to a likelihood that the poster will extend this thread ad infinitum, I've locked it.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Prince Harry to attend coronation without Meghan" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. I locked this thread less than 6 hours after it was posted because it was basically nothing more than 18 pages of Meghan bashing, much of it quite bizarre. I am no longer surprised that threads involving Meghan turn out like this, but I still find the fanaticism regarding her to be very strange. Both her haters and her supporters are way too obsessed. The numbers speak for themselves. In the few hours this thread was open, it reached 18 pages of posts, becoming the most active thread of the day. At least 11 posters managed to post in the double digits before I locked it. All of this because it was announced that Harry would attend the coronation of King Charles without his family. The irony is if the announcement had been that Meghan would be joining him, the thread would have been equally long and equality acrimonious. All that is required is a mention of Meghan. It doesn't matter what she does or doesn't do. All of this on DCUM where most of those involved know that I am hostile to these threads and will likely lock or delete them. Can you imagine the sort of traffic that sites that welcome such discussion must be observing? Their servers were probably melting down. If due to some incredible and extremely unlikely series of events Meghan ever manages to become Queen, I will convert DCUM to the DC Urban Meghan Forum. I would never read the forum, but no descendent of mine would ever have to work a day in their life thanks to the ad revenue that would produce.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Are privates that don’t offer merit aid still enrolling the best students?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster says that her child is turning down an Ivy League acceptance due to the cost of the university and, instead, will attend a state flagship school. The original poster wonders if this is an indication that many of the best students may be avoiding top private schools that don't provide merit aid. Many of the threads I've discussed in these blog posts have touched on similar topics. The rising cost of college has resulted in many students/ families earning too much to be eligible for need-based financial assistance but not enough to afford $85k a year colleges. One result is that students turn toward less prestigious, but still very good, schools that offer merit aid. Several of those who responded agreed that this is a trend with many of those saying that they noticed it themselves. On other other hand, others argue that this is not a new development and that students have always turned down Ivy League schools due to cost. The discussion in this thread goes in a couple of different directions. Many of the posts question whether Ivy League schools still have the prestige that they once had. Some posters suggest that in addition to the cost, other factors such as holistic admissions policies, have led to demographic changes that no longer make these universities as elite as they once were. Similarly, many posters argue that state universities that were traditionally not considered academic powerhouses now attract top students. The other direction the discusion takes is continued focuse on the cost issue. Many posters stress the existence of "donut hole" families such as those described above who make too much for need-based aid but not enough to pay for expensive schools. While just about everyone acknowledges that many families are in this situation, there are differences about what to do about it. At least one poster expresses hope that families will begin to save for education at an earlier age. Others argue that many families can't save the amount required for today's college costs. In response to that, a poster suggests that those families have not made paying for college their number 1 priority and that they should take out loans. That, of course, leads to a discusion about loan forgiveness.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "If you are still masking children indoors for Covid" and posted in the "Health and Medicine" forum. It has been a while since I've discussed a thread about masks so I guess it is time. The original poster says that she lives abroad but sees in pictures of her child's friends that many still wear masks indoors. In the country in which she is in now, almost nobody other than the elderly masks and she is curious why some children are still masking. Masks are one of those topics is which both the pro and anti-maskers have complete confidence in their position and each side thinks the other is completely off their rockers. As such, any thread like this is guaranteed to be a dumpster fire. The pro-mask side's attitude is reflected in the very first response which states, "Because we have common sense". Similarly, a couple of posts later an anti-masker writes, "A very sad thing that parents are making their children still do this." Neither evinces the slightest doubt or leaves any room for nuance. Happily, the same cannot be said about all of those who respond, many of whom make an effort offer detailed explanations. Some point out that the children may have or suspect that they have COVID and don't want to expose others. Other posters point out the many other communicable diseases that children many pass to each other and suggest that masks many help prevent the spread of those as well. An interesting point that was raised is that, in Europe, parents have significantly more paid sick leave and doctors and medicine are free. So, having a sick child or family member is much less of a burden. The pro-masking side is not without its prejudices against anti-maskers, but anti-maskers seem less cautious with their disparagements. As is common, many posts in this thread accuse those who favor masks of being anxious, being insane, or requiring therapy. I can understand those who believe that masks protect them feeling negatively about those they think are threatening their health, but I really struggle to understand why anti-maskers are so concerned about maskers. What harm are they presenting? While teachers in the thread seem to be generally supportive of masking, one teacher comes under fire for telling children, "It's nice to see your face" if a child comes in without a mask. This is portrayed by a pro-masker as evidence of an evil political agenda that should require the teacher to seek a different line of work. Another normal feature of such threads is posters arguing about the benefits or detriments of masks. Again, this seems to be an all or nothing issue where each side is firmly planted in thinking that their belief is right. Ultimately, this thread, like most others on the topic, devolves to nothing more than angry posters being angry. If that is your thing, you are in luck.

The thread I discussed yesterday about white women and beauty standards and the thread about Trump's indictment I discussed earlier this week held the top two spots on the most active list yesterday. So, I'll skip to the third most active thread which was titled "How to talk to 14yo about waiting to have sex" and posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The original poster says that her 14 year old daughter has had a boyfriend for about six months and while she has discussed birth control and other topics related to sexual activity, she would like advice about additional things to say to encourage her daughter to wait for sex. I am not really going to discuss this thread because I assume that I will be forced to delete it due to Google's terms of service. As such, I'll take this opportunity to talk about Google and it's impact on DCUM discussions. For advertising, we rely on several ad networks, but manage all of them through Google's Ad Manager product. We also use Google's Adsense and Ad Exchange advertising services. Google has robots that scan our site looking for content that violates their terms of service. When such content is identified, it is flagged in Ad Manager's Policy Center. Google provides very little information about why the content violates their TOS, but in our case it is almost always labeled as "Adult: Sexual content". There are two types of violations: 1) the regular violation that restricts advertising on the page with the content; and, 2) "must fix" which cause advertising to be restricted across the entire site. We receive anywhere from 10-30 violations a day. The problem we face is that Google doesn't identify the specific content that triggered the violation. The Policy Center has links to the pages, but a page in a DCUM thread likely has 15 different posts and identifying which post is the culprit can be a challenge. Moreover, Google's system is completely braindead. Repeated mentions of the word "sex" are often enough to cause a thread to be flagged. Because this thread has "sex" in the subject line, it is repeated at least 16 times per page (once in the title and as part of each individual message). It is probably mentioned many additional times in the text of posts. To be clear, there is probably nothing sexually explicit in the thread but that is enough. The thread is currently 8 pages long and Google has already flagged 5 of the pages. I imagine the remaining 3 will eventually be flagged as well, Currently all of the violations are in the normal category rather than being "must fix". As such, I am willing to leave the thread for a while, but will eventually have to remove it. If the classification changes to "must fix", I will have to remove it immediately. One strange thing is that despite being flagged and subject to restricted advertising, there are still plenty of ads on those pages. This is just another oddity of Google's system. In short, we are subject to an arbitrary system that does not function in a coherent manner. But because nearly all of our revenue depends on it, we have to attempt to comply. As a result, many interesting and useful discussions are removed for no other reason than because of Google.

Today I'm back to looking at the most active threads from the previous day. The most active thread yesterday was one I've already covered so I'll move on to a thread titled, "White women try to ‘reclaim power’ through #vanillagirl and #cleangirl beauty posts??" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster discusses an interview on NPR with Buzzfeed News reporter Steffi Cao about an article she has written arguing that certain fashion styles such as "the clean girl, coastal grandmother and – most importantly – the vanilla girl trends" are efforts by white women to reclaim "soft power". I have no clue what any of those fashion trends entail and I don't recall ever even hearing about them until just now. I was all set to ridicule this thread as a giant waste of time. But, it only took reading a couple of posts to change my mind. It is actually a quite intriguing topic. Cao's contention is that in recent years Black women seized the initiative in setting beauty trends and cites examples ranging from the Kardashians to Miley Cyrus of White women adopting, some would say appropriating, from Black beauty ideals. In Cao's telling, the "vanilla girl" and other trends are efforts by White women to regain influence over fashion and with it, the "soft power" associated with beauty. Enough of the responses on the first page of this thread were interesting enough to compel me to read Cao's article. I thought she made some interesting points, but overall I think she is unconvincing. I get the impression that she believes that White women somehow got together to plan their retaking of the beauty industry. I'm sure almost all of the female DCUM users will attest to having missed that meeting. Moreover, as posters in the thread point out, White women never controlled the the beauty industry which is primarily owned or controlled by White men. This is emblematic of much of the discussion in this thread which centers on differing views of the status of White women. In the perception of some, White women have been victims of misogyny and prevented from having a fully equal role in society. Moreover, any attempts to assert themselves provoke negative reactions and criticism. Others, including Cao, view White women as exploiting their alleged victimhood to wield power over others, the classic example being Amy Cooper who famously called police on a Black bird watcher in New York's Central Park. Whereas Cao provides "balletcore" (no, I have no idea what that is) as an example of a beauty trend fixated on "whiteness", some posters argue that the most popular ballet figure today is a Black women. In response, others argue acting like ballet is diverse because of one start is similar to suggesting that the presidency of Barack Obama means that US presidents have been diverse. In response to that, posters argue the lack of diversity of ballet is related to age and at the younger ages is actually is diverse. So, point, counterpoint, counterpoint, etc., before we even get to the issue of whether ballet-influenced styles are an effort to reassert white supremacy. Beyond the substantive disputes in this thread, which I admit much to my chagrin, fascinate me, there are several arguments about whether this is a real issue or a media-driven contrivance aimed at generating controversy and, hence, clicks. I think that this can both be a media-driven hyping and also touch on some real issues. At any rate, very much contrary to my initial reaction, I think this is a great topic for DCUM discussion.