Monday's Most Active Threads

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.

Next was a thread posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum titled, "Ivy League son is graduating next month with a rubbish GPA and no FT job offer". The original poster's son didn't have any internships which he blames on COVID and has a practically empty resume. With graduation approaching, he has no job opportunties lined up. The original poster doesn't really have a specific question but given the 12 pages of responses, that wasn't required. Almost immediately this thread generated lots of reports suggesting the original poster was a troll because of a number of similarities between the initial post and several threads from a troll that has haunted the forum for some time. Ironically, the original poster herself reported quite a few posts in the thread that she thought were from trolls. The responses in this thread included criticism of the original poster's son, some criticism of the original poster, and lots of suggestions for possible job opportunties. In addition there are lots of stories of other poster's experiences being in similar positions. There is actually no shortage of advice in the thread, some of which even seem to be pretty good. There are a couple posters who are either trolls or desperately in need of a hobby who are fixated on jobs a Starbucks and Seacrets, but there are also some more interesting suggestions.

The third thread I'll discuss was titled, "DH (WH) about to be hospitalized for suicide ideation- what do I need to know?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that she found out about her husband's affair several months ago and they have been in counseling. However, recently he had some sort of a regression involving not telling the original poster the truth and then started talking about suicide. As a result, she is about to take him to the hospital and has several questions about the practicalities involving such things as his job and her job. Several posters provide helpful information and advice, though some of the advice from different posters is contradictory. However, the original poster's use of abbreviations receives almost as much attention. It turns out that "WH" — which is included in the title — stands for "wayward husband". She later refers to "IC" and "MC", creating further confusion. Those evidently stand for "individual counseling" and "marriage counseling". As far as I can tell, the original poster quit posting after the second page. Nevertheless, the discussion continued without her with many posters describing their experience of being in similar situations and offering additional advice. There are many heartfelt and well-meant responses, but I'm not sure if the original poster has been around to read them. In addition, there is a lot of discussion about whether the original poster's husband is somehow manipulating her or even trying to sabotage her career or simply suffering from mental health problems.

The final thread at which I'll look today was also posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. Titled, "Why do men only date women they’re attracted to?", my initial reaction was that this must be the title with the most obvious answer that I've ever seen. Reading the text of the post didn't do much to change my opinion, but it did clarify that the original poster seems to limit her idea of "attraction" to mean "physical attraction". Her argument is that men complain about women being "gold diggers" or lacking personality but then only date women to whom they are (physically) attracted. She says that she has dated men who she didn't find attractive, but later grew to appreciate their character and charm. She urges men to do the same. The original poster did not find a lot of buyers for what she was selling. At least on the first page, not one poster agreed with her. To the contrary, poster after poster argued that they only dated men to whom they were attracted and would not consider doing otherwise. There was some allusion to beauty being in the eye of the beholder and some discussion about confidence maybe overcoming a lack of being physically attractive, but no one willing to go as far as the original poster. The conversation in this thread goes in so many directions that it is hard to summarize it all. But, the thread running through most of it tends to circle around the same distinction I made earlier: whether "attraction" was limited to meaning "physical" attraction. In the view of some posters, dating a man that you don't find physically attractive, but to whose personality you are attracted, is an example of following the original poster's advice and dating someone to whom you are not attracted. To others, attraction has a wider meaning and the fact that you may be attracted to someone's personality if not their looks does not negate the fact that you are attracted to them. To put it simply, these groups see the exact same situation in opposite ways. Some posters make elaborate arguments cloaked in various pseudosciences to argue that men put higher importance on physical beauty, only to have other posters immediately respond that they are women who put a tremendous amount of importance on physical attractiveness. There seems to be no agreement on whether the phenomenon that the original poster described is at all gendered. One poster goes as far as to say that the original poster is simply providing the female version of males complaining that women "don’t like nice guys".