DCUM Weblog

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Westfield HS-Student murdered" and posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. The original poster provided a link to a Washington Post article about a shooting in Fairfax County in which a teenager was killed. The original poster says that individual was a student at Westfield High School. The original poster also says that her daughter who attends Westfield has told her that the school is "full of police". Because the shooter has not been caught and the original poster fears he may be in the school, she is concerned for her daughter's safety and asks if others would pick up their kids from school in such circumstances. Whenever an incident of this type is discussed, there are always posters who seem to be primarily concerned with protecting the reputation of the school and distancing it from the events as much as possible. B the fifth response in this thread a poster was already complaining that the title of the thread was inaccurate because the student was not killed at the school. The poster also reported the thread to me with the same complaint. I was confused because I did not understand the title to say that the student was killed at the school. But, I later figured out that the poster was interpreting the hyphen between "HS" and "Student" to be more like a colon and signifying that the event occurred at the school. At any rate, the discussion about the title continued throughout the thread. There was a second objection that the thread didn't even belong in the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) forum but rather in the metro politics forum because it didn't involve the school. A poster went on to write, "the posters who start these threads usually want to encourage trash talk about the schools". Multiple posters claimed that I was keeping the "click bait" title in order to generate traffic and ad revenue. To be clear, I didn't change the title because I correctly understand the purpose of a hyphen. Overlooked by almost everyone was the fact that the original poster's main concern was whether she should pick up her daughter from school early due to safety concerns. There is no indication that she is interested in bashing the school that her daughter attends. It later turned out that the suspected shooter had indeed attended Westfield in the past but was not currently enrolled in any FCPS school. Therefore he was unlikely to be at the school and the original poster's daughter did not face at threat related to him. But then a discussion broke out about whether the suspect and the victim should have attended another high school instead of Westfield with many posts devoted to school boundaries. The primary message that many want you to get from this thread is that regardless of anything suggested by thread's title, this incident had nothing to do with Westfield and any attempt to argue otherwise is either a right-wing attack aimed at making the school look bad or an effort to generate ad revenue.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Neighbor is living her best life on Disability with ‘Long Covid’" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster writes that her neighbor, who is a federal employee, has not worked since the summer of 2020 because she has long COVID. Nevertheless, the neighbor plays tennis, hosts a book club, and frequently leaves on vacation, all the while collecting disability. The original poster concludes by saying that if this is what long COVID looks like, she would like to be signed up. I have no evidence that this is a troll post, but if it were a troll post, it is almost perfectly designed. It is full of hot button issues. It not only has COVID, the inspiration for multiple most active threads, but long COVID. The neighbor is said to be a federal employee, a group constantly attacked on DCUM as being lazy. Finally, the specter of welfare cheaters living lives of luxury is one that has long been used to manufacture outrage. So, of course, plenty of outrage was manufactured. "I hate people who take advantage of the system. She is taking advantage of the system" wrote one responder. Similarly, another replied, "I hate scammers." But, not all of those responding were ready to immediately grab their torches and pitchforks. To the contrary, one of the most frequent responses was to tell the original poster to mind her own business. As the original poster had predicted, many cautioned that the symptoms of long COVID are not always obvious and that the original poster has no way to know the neighbor's true health situation. Others explained that obtaining eligibility for disability is a complicated process that would require that doctors support the neighbor's diagnosis. Some pointed out that disability does not pay that much and questioned whether it would fund the type of lifestyle the original poster describes. A few posters claimed that long COVID is itself a scam. On the other hand, some posters were willing to accept the original poster's allegations at face value and offered advice as to how to respond. They suggested contacting the federal agency that employs the neighbor and provide an anonymous report. Others suggested that there might be a hotline that she could call. There were also suggestions to contact the Social Security Administration's fraud department. There are enough angles to this scenario to keep posters busy debating various combinations of them. For instance, there is considerable debate about how exactly disability works and whether or not the neighbor might be expected to do another job if she is unable to do her original job. As for her part, the original poster appears to have disappeared after a single follow-up report, perhaps leaving on vacation or catching a quick game of tennis.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Violence in Kindergarten- Sligo Creek Elementary" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. The original poster describes an unbelievable amount of violence occurring among kindergartners that has left children "knocked out cold", caused one teacher to leave, and sent a second teacher to the hospital. The original poster is frustrated because it does not appear to her that the school's principal is doing anything about it. When I say the violence is "unbelievable", I am not exaggerating as many posters don't believe it. Those who do believe it have a range of suggestions including contacting the media, switching to another school, or even contacting the police. Few think that the police can or should do anything about a 5 or 6 year old, but many see value in a police report that might motivate parents. Many posters complain about the lack of options available to the school, saying that it is nearly impossible to have a violent student removed from the classroom and the support required for the student is not easily obtained. While the original poster places blame with the principal, other posters say the problem lies further up the chain of command with the central office. The principal's hands are tied, they say, and the process for dealing with students with extreme needs takes too long and unnecessarily exposes the other students to trauma. While most posters were eager to publicize the violent incidents in hopes that might encourage a solution, many other posters seemed to be more interested in protecting the school's reputation or protecting the children responsible for the violence. Almost immediately after the thread was started it was reported to me with a request to delete the thread. I continued to receive reports throughout the day yesterday. Posts within the thread also suggest that it should be deleted and a number of posters accused the original poster of trolling and not being truthful. No students were named or even described in any detail whatsoever. Nobody who is not associated with the school would have any clue about the identity of the students involved. Anyone close enough to the situation to connect the dots likely already knows full well what is going on. So I don't have concerns about the chance of children being identified. I do have an interest, however, in posts being accurate. The original poster's claims seemed outlandish, but appear to be independently supported by multiple posters. I put quite a bit of effort into ensuring that the confirming reports were not sock puppeted and concluded that this would either have to be the best and most extensive trolling I've ever witnessed or the original post is largely accurate. Nevertheless, a number of posters throughout the thread make a tremendous efforts to deny or downplay whatever occurred.

The two most active threads yesterday were the two British Royal Family related threads (Kate photo, Meghan lifestyle brand) that I've already discussed and will skip today. As it happens, I finally lost patience with the need to constantly moderate those threads and locked them both yesterday. So this should be the last we hear of those threads, if not the personalities involved. The next most active thread was titled, "I guess I don’t get why infidelity is a big deal if sex before marriage isn’t" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. To be honest, I had quite a bit of trouble understanding all that the original poster was trying to say and I will probably make a shambles of summarizing it. The bottom line is that she (I am assuming the poster is a woman) notes that society has more or less accepted sex before marriage but once a couple is married, sex suddenly becomes "sacred" and has entirely different connotations. She doesn't seem to believe that sex should have elevated importance in this manner. Rather than seeing infidelity as a traumatic betrayal, she views it more as mistake, "a really really bad one, but a mistake nonetheless." Several posters hasten to point out that the issue with infidelity is not so much the sexual acts, but rather the violation of trust. One of the earliest posters to respond explained this viewpoint very well, saying, "The sex isn't the point, the vow of fidelity is the point" and argued that the original poster was "trying to frame infidelity [as] an extension of sex positivity, but what you're looking for is a free love scenario." As with this poster, most of those replying focused on infidelity as breaking a commitment and suggested that they maintained a zero or near-zero tolerance for what is essentially breaking a contract. A few agreed, at least in part, with the original poster. They were less worried about the physical act of sex than the often common impacts of an affair. These include lying, gas lighting, loss of affection, and other negative fallout. As such, they could imagine scenarios that avoided the negative ramifications, resulting in infidelity being forgivable or even, in some cases, acceptable. There were a number of outliers in the thread who had viewpoints that weren't widely shared and, subsequently, also not widely discussed. This included a poster who contended that humans are not meant to be monogamous. That mostly only elicited responses saying that some are and some aren't. Another poster argued that sexless marriages justify infidelity. Posters with this viewpoint are a fixture of the relationship forum and I think most posters simply ignore them now. The few posters that took notice simply said that the sexless poster should either divorce or reach an agreement that infidelity was allowable.

The most active thread over the weekend was the Kate photo thread that had nearly 4 times the number of posts as the next most active thread. That thread, wouldn't you know it, was the thread about Meghan Markle's new lifestyle brand. So, apparently, DCUM has turned into a tabloid. The next most active thread, and the first one that I have not already discussed and, therefore, will discuss today, was actually a parenting topic. Titled, "DD wants the big bedroom, but I don’t want to give it to her & DH not backing me up", the thread was posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster describes a disagreement involving her nine year old daughter, herself, and her husband. The family is moving into a new house that has three children's bedrooms. Two are identical to each other while the third is larger and has built-in furniture that gives it a "girly" appearance. More importantly to the original poster, it has a door to the outside. The original poster would like her daughter to take one of the identical rooms and her 4 year old son to take the other. However, her daughter wants the larger room. The original poster is concerned about the door and she would rather remove the built-in furniture and convert the room to either a guest room or play room. The original poster's husband has agreed that their daughter should not get the larger room at this time, but has told her that she may be able to move into it in the future. This is frustrating for the original poster because this presents an obstacle to removing the built-in furniture which she also thinks is her daughter's main attraction to the room. Moreover, the original poster's husband thinks that she is being paranoid about the door. She wants to know what DCUM thinks about this situation. This seems fairly simple to resolve to me. Put the kids in the small rooms, convert the larger room, and assume that their daughter will forget all about moving soon enough. If not, deal with that in the future. But, few of those responding seemed to see things in these terms. To the contrary, quite a few of the posters would consider this abusive. One poster is convinced that having raised the daughter's hopes about the larger room, it would be mean to disappoint her now. She insists that the daughter should be allowed to have the larger room immediately. Other posters reject the notion of fairness and don't see a problem with one child having a larger room than the other. In contrast, fairness is very important to other posters. A few posters side with the original poster and criticize her husband for not supporting her. In addition, some posters are concerned about the outside door and consider that a safety issue. The notable thing about this thread, and what contributes to its length, is the strength of the feelings of various posters. To some, this is not a topic on which reasonable people can disagree, but rather one about which a few posters seem to think that their answer is the only valid one. As one poster sums things up, "Clear that the inmates are running the asylum in most of y’all’s homes."

The top three most active threads yesterday were all ones that I've previously discussed (Kate photo, soccer club merger, over-scheduled kids). Therefore, I am starting with what was actually the fourth most active thread yesterday. Titled, "What season is boys volleyball?" and posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum, this is not the sort of topic that you would expect to see as the first thread that I discuss in one of these posts. The original poster simply is curious about whether boys volleyball will conflict with her son's primary sport. You might think that this is a fairly simple question — I certainly did — but then you, like me, would be wrong. The answer is that boys volleyball is a Fall sport in Fairfax County Public Schools. What complicates things is that this is a new sport that will be introduced in the next school year. Therefore, the thread begins with a discussion about whether boys volleyball even exists within the school system. Once it is established that the sport has been approved, there is a dispute about whether there is interest in the sport. Many see volleyball as a girls' sport and claim that they don't know a single boy who plays the sport. Other posters point out that there is an active and popular recreation league that is proof of strong interest in volleyball among local boys. In addition, a number of posters point out that boys volleyball is popular in other parts of the country. Federal regulations require that boys and girls have an equal number of sports, so another point of discussion involved which sport would be introduced for girls. That turns out to be girls wrestling, which was equally, if not even more, controversial. Once again, posters claimed that they didn't know any girls interested in wrestling. However, another poster wrote that several girls wrestled at the high school her kids attend. In addition to the expected lack of interest in the sports, the other reason many posters were upset about the new sports was the concern that the sports might complete for space in gyms. Several posters argued that the limited gym space at their schools was already booked up and that there wouldn't be room for two more sports. Another objection was financial. Apparently, the cost of the two new sports was included in a budget which also asked for a 10% increase in funding from the County. One poster wrote, "It’s an irresponsible idea that came out of a small group of boys volleyball players and their parents badgering [the schools superintendent]". This poster expected that the sports would be cut before the final budget is approved.

The Kate photo thread once again led as the most active thread, racking up more than 10 times the number of posts as the next most active thread (nearly 11 times in fact). The next most active thread was titled, "a final warning to high school students in the college admissions game", and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a YouTube video by a current student at Princeton University who expresses strong disappointment with Princeton and warns high school students who are currently in the process of choosing colleges to avoid the university. He warns about a number of other top colleges as well. His main complaint is that rather than being a supportive environment, Princeton — at least according to him — is very cutthroat and, he believes, damaging to students' mental health. He advises applicants to ignore college rankings. He argues that instead, students should investigate the atmosphere of schools to ensure they choose a school with a supportive environment. Due to the video's name starting, like the title of this thread, with "a final warning" and the very depressed attitude of the narrator, I was a little concerned that this was a suicide message. But, hopefully that is not the case. Despite the serious nature of the video, I almost broke out laughing as I read the replies. Multiple posters blamed the student's distress on test optional admissions policies. Their theory being that he is an undeserving student who probably would have been filtered out by a low test score and is now discovering that he doesn't have the chops for Princeton. I don't know whether this demonstrates the posters' determination to protect Princeton from criticism or their one-track fixation on test optional policies. A number of posters wonder why the student simply hasn't transferred. Others just brush off his complaints with one poster even describing him and others like him as a "tik tok like ‘geniuses’" from whom she would never take advice. For the record, this video was on YouTube and the other social network is "TikTok". Other's suggest that while the student may be accurately portraying his own personal experience, he is wrong to extrapolate that experience broadly across Princeton, let alone other top universities. Some posters come to the students defense, though many of them tend toward offering explanations for his struggles rather than accepting that his description of student life at Princeton is valid. A few posters, however, do find the student's complaints to be believable. They point to a rash of suicides at Princeton and its relatively low freshmen retention rate as evidence that the environment might be overly stressful. The bottom line is that those posters who want their children to pursue top universities such as Princeton appear unlikely to heed this warning. Some others who either have ruled out the school or don't consider it to be a realistic option in the first place, find some solace in believing their children are better off elsewhere.

The thread about the photo of Kate Middleton and her kids again led as the most active thread yesterday. If you thought that thread could not get even more crazy, you were wrong. If you thought that it could, it probably even exceeded your expectations. The next most active thread was titled, "37 single, want a baby, make about 95k a year", and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster repeats what was written in the title, adding that she has never married, and asks what advice others might have for her. For some posters, this is mostly a question of finances. On that basis, many posters are concerned that the original poster might not have the financial means for raising a child on her own. Other posters are less concerned about finances but, rather, what they consider the "proper" environment for raising a child. These posters are adamant that a child needs both a mother and a father. As such, they suggest finding a man to marry. Others warn against this due to the likelihood of ending up with a poor choice of man. This warning is provided by several posters who say that they made exactly that mistake. But, by far, the most emphasis was on the need for a support network. If the original poster has friends or family who can pitch in and provide assistance, most posters encourage her to have a baby on her own. Some posters suggest that the original poster find single mom by choice groups which offer mutual support to single mothers. Almost by accident I stumbled across an odd situation involving the original poster. It appears that she only posted three times in this thread and, in the third post, claimed to have two children who share a bedroom in her $2.5 million home. I then checked what the original poster had posted in other threads and it appears that she alternates between two personalities. One is a late-thirties, single, childless women and the other is a mom of two grade school-aged boys. I'm not sure what to make of that. As if a split personality original poster was not enough to discount this thread, a troll also disrupted much of it. The moment that I saw the title of this thread I suspected that a frequent troll would gravitate to the thread. The troll whose posts I listed a couple of days ago is particularly opposed to single mothers and I fully expected that the length of the thread was likely due to her involvement. This turned out to be the case. She posted time after time about the importance of having a father involved. She followed her modus operandi of frequently identifying herself as a new poster when she was not. She also started posts by saying things like "I am not the pp", meaning she is not the previous poster though she was indeed the previous poster. It would be unfortunate that this poster destroyed the thread, but the original poster was long gone by then and her mom-of-two-children persona probably didn't need advice about single motherhood in any case.

Yesterday's most active thread was obviously the thread about the Princess of Wales's photo, receiving nearly 1,400 new posts. I covered that thread yesterday and, therefore, will go on to the next most active thread. That one was titled, "Can’t face friends" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that her husband accidentally revealed that his longtime best friend has been having an affair with a college classmate for the last eight years. The original poster, her husband, and their children regularly socialize together with the other family and she is friends with the friend's wife. Knowing this information has made the original poster so uncomfortable about being around the other family that she canceled a planned get together this weekend. She believes that the friend's wife deserves to know about the affair but her husband is loyal to his friend. She asks what others would do. As could be expected, responses are all over the map. Several posters urge the original poster to simply forget what her husband told her and do whatever it takes to let it go. These posters argued that nothing good would come out of telling the friend's wife about his affair. Others argued that the wife deserves to know. They are concerned that if the wife learns of the affair and finds out that the original poster knew about it, she might blame the original poster. Another angle was to focus anger on the original poster's husband who has been hiding this secret and allowing his family to grow close to the other family despite knowing that things could blow up anytime. Some suggested that the original poster's husband should have a discussion with his friend, either to convince him to stop the affair or to let him know that the original poster now knows and is struggling with the information. Basically, put the ball into the friend's court. There was disagreement about how the friend's wife might react to being told about the affair. Many posters thought that she might already know or prefer not to know. They saw many scenarios in which revealing the affair could hurt the original poster's relationship with the woman. However, a poster who herself had been in the friend's wife situation says that she is very grateful to the friend who revealed her husband's affair. The poster says that friend was the only one who put the poster's interests first. In a follow-up post, the original poster says that she has settled on the "put the ball in the friend's court" strategy. She agrees with others that she and her husband need to be on the same page in order to protect their own relationship. The original poster is also compelled to end her friendship with both her husband's friend and the friend's wife. In the first case because she abhors what the friend is doing and in the second because she doesn't want to face the wife while keeping a secret from her.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Kate's New Picture" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. As best that I can tell, all the world's insane asylums opened their doors yesterday and the inmates all rushed out and immediately began posting in this thread. The thread was off the rails from the very first post in which the original poster linked to an article about a recently-released photo of Kate, the Princess of Wales, and her children. The original poster complained that "we only see her from the neck down?" and asked "Any conspiracy theories here?" The first problem is that the photo actually showed Kate from the neck up, not down. Second, the original poster was referring to a cropped version of a larger photo that appeared on the same page to which the original poster had linked. The original poster appears to have not bothered scrolling down. As for conspiracy theories? Of course there are conspiracy theories. Any thread on DCUM involving the British Royal Family has conspiracy theories. Poster after poster was apparently spending their day zooming in on the photo and doing a pixel-by-pixel analysis. Problems were found with the foliage, one of the boy's fingers, and the lighting on Kate's face. Posters questioned why Kate wasn't wearing a wedding ring. There was a discussion about the children's teeth and whether they have had braces. The thread would easily have been the most active of the weekend on this basis alone. But then several major wire services issued "kill notices" ordering publications to withdraw the photo due to "manipulation". This was like blowing up a nuclear bomb with an even bigger nuclear bomb. The crazies had been proven right. Never mind that despite the long list of irregularities that posters claimed to have found in the photo, I don't think any of them found the issue with Charlotte's sleeve that actually provoked the photo's withdrawal. But that was of little matter. For once their wild speculation had been proven correct. This completely opened the floodgates of conspiracy theories. Kate is in a coma some said, the couple is divorcing others suggested, Kate has been forcibly separated from her kids some claimed, a few posters even worried that Kate is actually dead. Personally, I'd suggest that she has been abducted by aliens but that theory is a little too mundane for this thread. When a vague statement admitting to the photo having been edited was published on the Prince and Princess of Wales's social media platforms, posters could not even agree who authored it. Some said it was William while others argued that it was Kate. At any rate, the statement did nothing to calm speculation. Rather, it had the opposite effect. Several posters said that they were previously uninterested in the Royal drama but this controversy had caused them to become keenly engrossed. Others were just along for the ride. As one poster put it, "You guys are nuts. I love it!!"