DCUM Weblog

Looking at the the list of yesterday's most active threads, I am not feeling a huge amount of inspiration. The threads seem to have a depressing cast to them. For instance, the thread with the most replies yesterday and the third highest number of views was titled, "What is wrong with Americans? Target lost $400M due to mass theft" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The orignal post links to an report on a recent telephone call between Target executives and reporters on which it was disclosed that Target has had a profit loss of $400 million due to "organized theft" this year. The original poster asks whether our society is descending into anarchy and seems to blame these thefts on lack of law enforcement. The thread is mostly a regurgitation of partisan talking points such as criticism of liberal politicians, complaints about parenting, and moral decay. From the other side, posters described Target as a terrible employer, compared retail theft to white color crime and crimes by political leaders, and discussed social issues. The article to which the original poster linked was succinct and clear in the analysis provided by one quote that was included: "I think wealth inequality has everything to do with all this."

The thread with the highest number of replies and the highest number of views yesterday was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Russia fires missiles into Poland", the title is likely incorrect based on the latest information about the event. The original poster embedded a tweet saying that two Russian missiles had landed in Poland, killing two people. The original poster concluded that these missiles were fired by Russia, but news reports today suggest the projectiles were fired by Ukraine — who uses Russian-made ground to air defense systems — while attempting to destroy incoming Russian rockets and drones. These days the political forum amounts to little more than posters interpreting every single event through the prism of their pre-existing views. No matter what happens, it simply reinforces what they already believe. This is particularly ironic when posters with completely opposite views both believe the same event proves them correct. So it went with this thread. Those who are convinced we risk nuclear Armageddon at every minute worried that this woud be the trigger. Those who consider Russia the biggest evil in the world added this to their list of evidence. The posters who are convinced that NATO is being sucked into the Ukraine conflict pounded their chests in victory. Posters suggested that the event proved both that we should strengthen our support for Ukraine and that we should begin disengaging. The posters who suggested that maybe we should withhold conclusions until more information is available will be forgotten today as the loudest voices from yesterday will readjust their claims to state that while they were right yesterday, they are even more right today, despite being wrong yesterday.

The thread with the most replies and the most views yesterday was titled, "UVA mass shooting" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. As is clear from the title, this thread is about the tragic shooting that took place at the University of Virginia leaving three members of the University's football team dead and two others — including an additional football player — wounded. The thread was started just after 1 a.m. by a worried parent whose child was under lock down at UVA. Through the night, posters exchanged messages of support and sympathy and gathered what details they could about the shooting. There was also a discussion about the "Run, Hide, Fight" alert sent to students with some posters not understanding what is apparently a pretty standard warning as a part of active shooter training. Threads of this type generally provoke posts or reports from users who object to any kind of speculation about incidents of this type. They prefer that the threads be limited to expressions of sympathy and the simple reports of known facts. Others think that attempting to draw conclusions or discussing theories related to the event are helpful and normal. I tried to find a middle ground between these two sides by removing overtly political posts and others that diverted from the main topic of the thread. Specifically, I removed a number of posts disputing the value of prayers as compared to gun control. These posts simply rehashed the same arguments from countless other threads and continued over several pages, prompting multiple posts pleading that the discussion be taken elsewhere. I am not one of those who believes that the aftermath of a shooting is too soon to discuss gun control, but I do believe such discussions shouldn't drown out the rest of the posts.

Today I'll look at the most active threads over the weekend. Leading in the number of replies and second in number of views was a thread titled, "Dave Chappelle on SNL" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. As can be deduced from the title, the thread is about comedian Dave Chappelle's opening monologue on Saturday Night Live. Chappelle spent much of his time discussing recent controversies involving Ye and Kyrie Irving and anti-Semitism. The original poster viewed the act as anti-Semitic and vowed to never support Chappelle again. Others defended Chappelle saying that the original poster simply didn't understand Chappelle's message and praising the monologue as terrific humor.

Chappelle ignited the controversy at the very start of his monologue, mocking performative opposition to anti-Semitism in a manner similar to those who make frequent gibes about "virtue signaling". But, whereas a "Hate Has No Home Here" sign might be ridiculed as meaningless, insincere, or naive, Chappelle implies that expressions of solidarity with Jewish people are more akin to coerced hostage statements, not necessarily believed but required for survival. Many of Chappelle's critics in the thread were upset by this, viewing it as clearly anti-Semitic.

Today I'll look at the most active threads of the last week. However, I'll skip threads that have already been mentioned in the daily updates. With that in mind, a thread that was fourth in number of replies and seventh in number of views for the week was the most active of the remaining threads. This thread, titled "Are all POC women encouraged to work outside of the home?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. This may not have been the best forum for the topic, but it seems to have worked out well enough. The original poster of this thread describes herself as Pakistani American and says that while her mother was a stay at home mom, the original poster was taught from a young age to value education and financial independence and to pursue a different experience. However, the original poster notices that her white friends seem to view becoming a stay at home mom as aspirational and almost an achievement. The original poster asks why this is the case?

The thread with the most replies and the most views yesterday was in the "Travel Discussion" forum. Titled "Separating kids and parents on flight", the thread describes the original poster's concerns about flying with three young children and possibly not being able to get seats next to each other. This was sometimes an issue for us when our boys were younger but, as it turned out, it was never a big deal. The kids had no problem sitting in another part of the plane between two strangers and, in some cases, I think they enjoyed it. While I understand that this calculus might be different for other parents, especially those with girls, I would advise the original poster to not be overly concerned. The first posters to reply, however, took a different approach by castigating the original poster for not booking tickets earlier or not wanting to pay enough to get adjoining seats. I haven't read many posts in this thread, but the ones I did read made me never want to travel with DCUM posters. Very little sympathy was spared for the original poster and some posters suggested that the original poster should not bother to fly at all if adjoining seating could not be arranged — they would neither exchange seats to allow a parent to sit next to her child nor want to sit next to an unaccompanied child. My fervent hope is that all of the nasty responders spend their next several flights seated next to crying babies. Extra points if the baby also throws up on them.

Yesterday's thread with the most replies and the most views was one of which I was not aware until just now. Frankly, I sort of wish I still didn't know about it. It's not offensive or anything, but just not the sort of thing we ever envisioned being popular on DCUM. The thread, which is in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum, is titled, "Movie lines you repeat among your family". Basically, the original poster lists lines from movies that are used within her household and asks others to do the same. Part of my problem with this thread is that I simply can't imagine families going about their days quoting movie lines in any significant numbers. Once in a while? Sure, but enough to be worthy of posting on DCUM? Not really. Maybe I'm just grumpy today, but given that yesterday the future of US politics was still being decided, inflation was showing signs of improving, the stock market was having one of its largest rallies in memory, and in the midst of that, billions of dollars of the crypto market were being wiped out and a hurricane was coming ashore in Florida, movie quotes are not what I would expect everyone to be discussing. Yet, here we are. Looking at a few pages of the thread reinforces my opinion that families are not really quoting these lines very often. Rather, I think the thread simply turned into posters posting their favorite lines from movies. You can't handled the truth. But there you have it.

Yesterday's most active thread in both numbers of views and numbers of replies was an election-related topic in the "Political Discussion" forum titled, "Democrats Rejoice!" The original poster credited the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision which overturned Roe v. Wade with stopping the predicted red wave of Republican wins. Furthermore, the original poster says that the Democratic performance boosts President Joe Biden's fortunes and calls on Democrats to rally behind his reelection efforts. Democrats are perennial pessimists who should probably replace their donkey mascot with a half-empty glass. There is no group more obsessed with the black lining of a silver cloud than today's Democrats, many of whom were determined to interpret the unexpectedly strong election performance of Democratic candidates as bad news. This trend is apparent in this thread which was filled with replies critical of Democrats. In addition, there is considerable attention given to the age of Biden and other Democratic leaders with many posters wanting younger candidates. There is a saying that, "You can't argue with success" but whoever came up with that expression was clearly unfamiliar with members of the Democratic Party, let alone the posters in this thread. By the end of the thread, it had degenerated to a debate over the qualifications of Hillary Clinton and an indictment of white men. The original poster should have known that asking Democrats to rejoice was a fool's errand. It's not in their DNA.

Yesterday's big event was the US midterm elections and that was reflected on DCUM by election-related threads taking the top two slots in the list of most active threads. In the top position in both numbers of replies and number of views was a thread titled, "2022 election results thread" in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread wasn't created until after 6 pm and still managed to seize the lead in engagement for the day. The original poster of the thread desperately wanted the thread to be limited to posts about election results without additional commentary or debate. Diligent reporting of non-results specific posts kept the thread on track for a few hours, but eventually the flood gates opened and the thread was flooded by DCUM's crack political analysts. By "crack", I mean both those who are very good and those who are apparently smoking crack. Among the latter was the poster who repeatedly posted about results of Virginia races before the polls were even closed or before votes had been counted. Looking through the thread today, it is interesting to see the early pessimism of liberals turn to cautious optimism and then to outright euphoria.

Probably a week into DCUM's existence there were already posters lamenting that "DCUM has changed" and wasn't as good as it used to be. Such sentiments have been posted regularly ever since. I normally don't find them very convincing but, as a result of the Covid pandemic, I really do think DCUM changed and not for the better. The pandemic created divisions that hadn't heretofore existed such as over school closings, the vaccine, or even the origin of the virus itself. Disputes over these topics have brought out the worst in posters, creating lasting resentments and a noticeably more negative atmosphere in the forums. But, the stupidest, absolute stupidest, of these disputes has been over masking. I can understand being upset that someone is not masking in a situation where you believe masking is deserved. But, I simply can't begin to fathom why people are upset when others choose to mask. I'm dumbfounded by the posters who are irrationally angered by the mere thought of a mask outside of an operating room. Threads about masks tend to be nasty, combative, and — above all — repetitive, simply saying the same things as every other thread on the topic. So, when I learned this morning that yesterday's most active thread in both numbers of replies and numbers of views was titled, "COVID and indefinite masking", I didn't know whether to be happy that the thread had somehow escaped my notice until now or upset that DCUM is still plagued by such threads. At any rate, the thread, which is posted in the "Health and Medicine" forum has already reached 14 pages. I'm not going to read them but maybe you have an enduring curiosity about why others wear a mask. If so, you are in luck.