2023

As has been the case every day except one since October 7, the Gaza war thread was the most active with over 900 new posts since Friday. The most active thread after that was titled, "Stop asking student tour guides where they're applying to college". The thread, which was posted in the "Private & Independent Schools" forum, was started by a poster whose son conducts tours for prospective students at his high school. The original poster says that on almost every tour, he is asked to which colleges he is applying. The original poster considers this to be personal information and asks others to stop asking this question. I've noted before that DCUM can be very supportive to those that responders believe to be in legitimate need, but can be brutal to those whom users don't find sympathetic. The original poster appears to have fallen squarely into the second category. While there are posters that agree with the original poster, most of the responses reflect various levels of hostility. The first poster to respond called the original poster a "snowflake" and suggested that her son was not cut out for the job of tour guide. Other posters considered the question to be perfectly acceptable and suggested that her son should know how to politely deflect it. This thread managed to make it to 21 pages over the weekend which I think is surprising for such a mundane topic. The original poster sock puppeted a number of responses, but not really in a manner that would provoke conflict. Without having read all 21 pages, it appears that the main issue of debate is whether a question such as "where are you applying to college" is personal or not. A number of posters argued that private school students are more likely to consider this to be a personal question than public school students. Their reasoning is that the prestige of educational institutions is more important to private school students and parents. If this is true, and I don't know that it is, it may well be rooted in the commonly-held belief that one motivation for choosing private schools is to open doors for prestigious colleges. If a parent on a tour with a perspective student is mentally doing a cost-benefit analysis of the school and one benefit is thought to be enhanced college application prospects, it is understandable how this question might come naturally. At the same time, it is similarly understandable that a tour guide who knows the parent is hoping to hear "Harvard, Yale, and Princeton" may be reluctant to answer, "The University of Maryland, Rutgers, and Tufts". Some posters recognize that college opportunities are an important question to perspective students, but argue that the question should be asked generally. Instead of "where are you applying?", it should be asked as "Where do students normally apply?". Still others argue that where they apply is less interesting than where they actually end up attending and that information can be found elsewhere.

Because I didn't post over the weekend, today I'll review the most active threads since Friday. The most active thread during that period was titled, "Call to discuss the state of Hardy 05/15/23" and posted in the "DC Public and Public Charter Schools". Initially this thread started with a question by the original poster asking about an urgent call involving Hardy Middle School, a DC Public Schools middle school located in Georgetown. Posters were fairly tight-lipped about the call in question, but it was implied that it was a conference call involving school parents. Subsequent posts revealed that the primary topic of the call, perhaps the only topic, was parents' loss of faith in Errol Johnson, the school's principal, and their desire to have him replaced. Just four days after the thread was started, Johnson was indeed removed. For me, this brought back memories of a similar controversy involving Hardy from over a decade ago. At that time, parents of inbound students had rallied to demand the removal of Principal Patrick Pope who inbound families viewed as overly supportive of out-of-bounds students to the detriment of inbound students. This resulted in allegations that the inbound families — largely wealthy and White — were using their privilege to disadvantage out-of-bounds families who were predominately (but far from entirely) people of color. As soon as Johnson's removal became known, several posters made similar allegations, complaining that wealthy White families had unfairly pushed out a Black principal with little input from people of color. While the speed with which Johnson was removed was remarkable, I see some fundamental differences between the Johnson and Pope incidences. Pope was clearly removed because inbound families wanted to see the school remade with a focus on its role as a neighborhood school. Regardless of the legitimacy of that position, it had an obvious negative impact on people of color. There was a certain amount of truth in the allegation that White people were taking over a school that, in their opinion, catered far too much to Black students. In the case of Johnson, while those organizing against him appear to be primarily White, their efforts seem to be aimed at protecting the interests of all students. Their complaints involve the principal's communications, managerial, and decision-making abilities. While I may have missed it in this nearly 40-page thread, I don't see many complaints about Johnson's removal coming from the school's parents. Rather, those standing up for Johnson and complaining about his treatment appear to be a small number of teachers. DCPS can often have a "crabs in the barrel" tendency, something that is reflected in some posts. For instance, there are posts from parents with children at other DCPS schools complaining that Hardy parents were able to get almost immediate attention while their schools are largely ignored. I would argue that the problem is not Hardy's issues being addressed, but that other schools don't get similar treatment. Don't blame Hardy for that, blame DCPS.

The two most active threads yesterday were the Harry and Meghan thread and the thread about the woman and the CitiBike. Since I've already discussed those, I'll move to the third most active thread which was titled, "Is this how thin people eat?" and posted in the "Diet and Exercise" forum. The original poster explains that she recently suffered from a stomach bug and didn't eat for 24 hours. Since then, she hasn't had much of an appetite and has only been consuming about 1,000 calories a day. She had already been at a healthy weight, though not thin, and has lost 3 lbs since her illness. She says that she feels great and asks whether this is how skinny people eat. Weight loss topics are popular in the diet forum and many of the posters that frequent the forum have very strong opinions about eating. There are posters who seem convinced that anyone whose diet is even a single calorie short of what they believe is sufficient suffers from an eating disorder. Others believe that all weight gain is a result of eating and weight loss is as simple as controlling your eating. Both viewpoints are expressed very early in this thread. I picture a forlorn DCUM poster who is hoping to get advice about lossing weight sitting at their computer with a small DCUM poster perched on each shoulder. One is telling the poster to "just eat less" and the other is saying, "that's disordered eating". These two popular but irreconcilable positions are what causes threads such as this one to be among the most active. In this case, the discussion transformed a bit into a dispute about nature vs nurture. Some posters argue that weight is genetic and that reduced calories can't do much about that in the long term. Others argue the opposite, suggesting for instance that identical twins can have vastly different weights based on differing diets. Posters link to various studies that make often contradictory claims. Intermixed among all of this are a number of posts that offer differing advice. Some suggest high protein diets, others low protein. Some think that protein should be just right, though of course there is no agreement as to that amount. Probably by now the original poster is sorry that she posted in the first place

Imagine that you were asked to draft the plot of a sensational story, one that would capture the world's attention. You would probably want your story to take place in a well-known location. New York City, for instance. You would obviously want an element of excitement. So, maybe throw in a car chase. But, to really get attention, you will need personalities guaranteed to attract publicity. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, perhaps? So, Harry and Meghan in a car chase through New York City? That would probably work. But, this isn't just a creative figment of someone's imagination, but something that actually happened. Or, did it? The most active thread on DCUM yesterday was titled, "Prince Harry and Meghan in Near Catastrophic Car Chase in NYC" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. The title of the thread initially referred to a "Catastrophic Car Crash" before I corrected it, putting what was always destined to be a dumpster fire of a thread off to a confusing start. The very first response was from a poster doubting the veracity of the story, setting the scene for near mortal combat over what had or had not occurred in the streets of New York. I really don't know what it is about this couple that provokes what I assume are perfectly normal people to go completely berserk and post compulsively as if their lives depended on it. But, in less than 24 hours, this thread reached 30 pages. If we could have harvested the energy generated by fingers frantically hitting keyboards yesterday, we could probably completely replace fossil fuels. Multiple posters were in double digits for numbers of posts. A few were over 30. One was 44 and another 48. I wish I could tell you what the thread said, but I have no interest in reading it. However, I am pretty sure that there is post after post by individuals complaining that the Sussexes seek too much attention, all the while giving them attention. Folks, the opposite of good publicity is not bad publicity. It's no publicity. If you don't like these people, ignore them. My only regret is that Harry and Meghan were not driving Mini Coopers. That would have allowed this whole thing to be turned into the next sequel of "The Italian Job".

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Physicians Assistant yelling “HELP ME” while stealing a CitiBike ?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. For the cave dwellers out there who have yet to become familiar with this story, it involves a video that was originally posted on TikTok but, after going viral was circulating just about everywhere. In the video, a woman is shown sitting on a CitiBike — a New York City bikeshare service — while a young man holds the bike's handlebar. The woman is yelling "help, help me!" while the man calmly insists that it is his bike. He holds a phone in his hand that appears to show a CitiBike rental while the indicator on the bike shows that the bike has been rented. The woman at some point starts to cry, though the authenticity of her tears is questioned by people in the video. Eventually, the women gets off the bike and walks away. Why is a thread about this yesterday's most active thread, you ask? Well, I left out some context. The woman is White and the young man is Black. To many, this seemed like an example of a White woman weaponizing her screams for help and tears against an innocent Black man and, as is the tendency these days, was enough to cause the video to go viral. The original poster of this thread posted because she didn't understand what all the fuss was about and wanted it explained to her. Several posters helpfully explained what was happening in the video and others added additional context. As the thread goes on, posters scrutinize the video as if it were the Zapruder film, engaging in a number of disputes about what is shown and what is not shown. Most posters felt that the woman was at fault, with some questioning the state of her mental health. Several reserved judgement because they believed the video was either inconclusive or may have been edited. A number of posters seemed to bend over backwards trying to exonerate the woman, causing exasperated posters to complain about the lengths to which people will go to excuse the behavior of White women. Several White women, on the other hand, agreed that the woman's behavior was unacceptable, but questioned whether she deserved to be the victim of an Internet mob. One poster posted about a statement by the woman's employer saying that they were looking into the incident and several posters expected her to be fired. Fundamentally, this incident is not about the bike, but the long history of White women exploiting prejudices to the detriment, and even endangerment, of Black men. But, on the spectrum ranging from Emmett Till to Central Park Amy, frankly, this incident should not even register. Unfortunately however, Internet pile-ons don't generally involve much in the way of nuance.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Dooce /Heather Armstrong" and was posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. Armstrong was one of the original "mommy bloggers", posting under the name "Dooce". She tragically died by suicide yesterday. This thread is currently eleven pages long which would be significant on its own, but a separate thread about her was also started and reached six pages before I locked it. I know very little about Armstrong and what I do know is limited to my brief interactions to remove inappropriate posts in threads about her that were occasionally posted on DCUM. As might be expected, posters familiar with Dooce posted about their surprise and sadness regarding the news. There is considerable discussion of her very personal and revealing blog. We have an informal but generally consistently-applied rule about criticizing individuals for the first 48 hours after their death. Because so much of Armstrong's life was apparently public, I had a hard time trying to draw a line between posts that were simply describing her life and those that were inappropriately negative. But, the thread was eventually growing so fast that I couldn't keep up in any case. As a result, the thread is likely very much out of compliance with our guidelines. The few times that I was able to read a few pages of this thread, I noticed that discussion had less to do with Dooce specifically, but more with "mommy bloggers" and others who lead their lives so publicly. In addition, there is considerable discussion of the "Get Off My Internets" website or GOMI. I also know about this website solely through earlier threads about Dooce and based only on that very limited knowledge, it appears that GOMI is basically devoted fulltime to critiquing bloggers and that Dooce was one of their favorite targets. As a result, there is considerable criticism of GOMI in this thread for potentially contributing to the blogger's mental health issues. While probably not appropriate for this thread, there is an interesting conversation to be held regarding discussion and criticism of those who willingly lead their lives very publicly. What boundaries should be observed with regard to those who themselves adhere to few boundaries?

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Tucker out at Fox News????" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread is obviously about Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson leaving the network. While Fox's announcement said that the network and Carlson had "agreed to part ways", it is pretty clear that this was a decision taken by Fox management and came as a complete surprise to Carlson. Both Carlson fans and detractors were similarly surprised and the early responses in the thread were a mixture of surprise and joy. The general sentiment was that this was a much deserved outcome to Carlson's years of lying and provocation. A number of posters wondered what Carlson would do next with many speculating that he would simply join another network. Some speculated that he might run for president or vice president. There was quite a bit of discussion about why Carlson was suddenly removed from his position. He had concluded his Friday night broadcast by saying, "We'll be back on Monday" but his unceremonious removal on Monday morning prevented that. Many posters, including myself, guessed that Carlson's departure had something to do with the Dominion lawsuit that just cost Fox $787.5 million in a settlement fee. The Washington Post reported that it was due to private comments Carlson made about colleagues and Fox executives that were revealed as part of the Dominion lawsuit. Yet a third explanation that was widely circulated claimed Carlson's firing was related to a lawsuit by Abby Grossberg, a former booker for his show, that alleged sexual discrimination and a hostile workplace. Carlson fans were in short supply in this thread. A few showed up to defend his intelligence or to predict great things for him in the future, but, in general, they were surprisingly quite. One thing I noticed from reading this thread is the stature given Carlson, not just as a Fox News personality, but as an informal leader of the Republican Party. In many ways, former President Donald Trump has sucked the oxygen out of the party with the leading elected Republican, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, often viewed as a "Republican in name only" or RINO who doesn't command the loyalty of many grass root party members. Only Carlson, with his Fox megaphone, has been able to break through the Trump distortion field. It is unlikely that whoever replaces Carlson at Fox will have near the politcal impact.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "The Witch Trials of JK Rowling podcast" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. As can be expected from the title, the thread is about a podcast discussing JK Rowling and her views regarding the transgender community. The original poster says it is one of the best podcasts to which she has listened recently and she considered it to be balanced and rational. I haven't listened to this podcast, but it doesn't appear that many of those posting have either. Moreover, the discussion isn't so much about the podcast but rather Rowling and trans people. Topics on trans issues have become among the most controversial on DCUM and tend not to go well. As such, I generally end up locking or deleting them. In the case of this thread, I eventually locked it. Threads on transgender topics tend to have a familiar arc. They start out with posters demonstrating the best intentions, stressing that they are not anti-trans, indeed they are actively supportive, but they have questions or slight disagreements. In the case of this thread, Rowling is essentially used as a proxy to demonstrate this position rather than posters immediately attributing it to themselves. For instance, one of the first to respond writes, "Rowling is consistently measured in her speech and clearly has real compassion for transgender people...". But, as such threads continue, more and more responses are not only not "measured" but clearly anti-trans. The same poster claiming that Rowling has "compassion" for trans people goes on to imply that trans individuals are suffering from "delusion". Apparently the podcast compares support for the trans community to the Salem Witch Trials. Many of those responding point out that Rowling is succeeding brilliantly as a best-selling author and extremely wealthy person. Newly-passed laws are not limiting the rights of those like Rowling — who at worst risk being the target of mean tweets — but transgender people who are seeing restrictions on their most basic rights. On the other hand, a poster who describes herself as the "mother of a trans teen" who has listened to the podcast argues that Rowling is not exactly transphobic and that activists have overreacted to her. The real threat, this poster suggests, comes from right-wing politicians. As is common in such threads, posters complain that they can't engage in "respectful debate". The problem is that posts like those suggesting that trans people are "delusional" go unchecked or are even made by the folks who claim to be "measured". It is hard to have a respectful debate when one side's starting position is that the other side is delusional. In the case of this thread, it turned into a several page argument about whether criticizing Rowling meant support for rape and arguments that the trans community was motivated by misogyny. Rowling, and many of those posting, see advancement of trans rights as often resulting in set-backs for women's rights. Posters argue that they, and Rowling as well, only want to protect women's places. Because this necessitates restricting access by trans women to those places, this is viewed by supporters of trans people's rights as anti-trans. Repeated experience has proven that a nuanced discussion of that point is simply not possible on DCUM.

The top three most active threads yesterday were all threads that I've covered in the last couple of days. So, I'm starting with the thread that was actually the fourth most active yesterday. Titled, "Women's NCAA championship game" and posted in the "Sports General Discussion" forum, I believe this may be the first thread from the sports forum that I've discussed in these blog posts. If you have had even the slightest contact with news about the women's college basketball championship game, you will probably be aware that most of the discussion is not about buckets, blocks, or rebounds, but rather hand gestures. More specifically, hand gestures by Louisiana State University's Angel Reese. As soon as the game was over, Reese was inundated with allegations of being unsporting, classless, and even "ghetto" for a hand gesture that imitated one made by an opposing player, Caitlin Clark of the University of Iowa. Much of the discussion in this thread focuses on the disparate reactions to the same gesture being made by the two players. Whereas Reese, who is black, was generally criticized and described in negative terms, Clark, who is white, was generally described positively such as "having swagger" or being a "fierce competitor". The original poster of the thread drew attention to this racial divide which was repeatedly demonstrated throughout the thread. Just about the only thing to distract from the debates over Reese and Clark was the fashion choices of LSU coach Kim Mulkey. Jill Biden also became a topic of discussion after she suggested inviting both teams to the White House. This reinforced the view of those who felt that Reese and LSU were receiving unfair treatment. Traditionally only the winning team received such an invitation and LSU supporters viewed this as just another case of double standards. When Reese rejected Biden's suggestion, some posters doubled-down on complaints that she lacked class. But, eventually Biden backed off of her suggestion and even Clark rejected the idea. Clearly, however, there were posters prepared to interpret everything about Reese in the most negative light possible. These racial divisions continued later in the thread with posters complaining that Reese said that she hoped to inspire girls that looked like her. Other posters pointed out that Clark had made similar statements about inspiring girls in Iowa and again asked why similar behavior was treated differently. To be sure, Reese has her defenders in the thread and she may be proving the expression that "there's no such thing as bad publicity" true. As several of her supporters point out, her popularity has only grown and her earning potential has increased.

Since I took the weekend off from blog posting, today I'll look at the most active threads since Friday. The first of those was titled, "This is getting ridiculous" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. At first glance, this is simply another in a long list of threads complaining about the alleged unfairness of college admissions. The original poster complains that her son — whose stats objectively are impressive — has repeatedly been waitlisted or deferred by top universities to which he has applied to study computer science. What makes this thread somewhat different is its focus on computer science and the substance of the replies. Whereas most threads of this sort tend to get bogged down in self-pity among White males and Asians who are convinced the entire system is rigged against them, the replies in this thread look at other explanations. Many posters point out that computer science is currently very popular and universities have difficulties expanding their programs given the high salaries that potential professors are able to command elsewhere. As a result, there is a supply and demand problem that is resulting in disappointing admissions results for many very qualified candidates. Other responses suggest that the original poster's son might not be as uniquely qualified as she believes and some posters hypothesize that admissions committee members are not sufficiently versed in technology to adquately understand the qualifications of the strongest applicants. Eventually the discussion does turn to the usual trope that equity is causing the best candidates to be rejected. But, by now, forum participants are well-versed in the argument and able to provide solid counter-points. One slightly new twist in this discussion is a debate about whether computer science is a dead end field that will be replaced by artificial intelligence. As is soundly argued in the thread, believing such a thing suggests a significant misunderstanding of the field.