Oh dear

[pez]

1. You'd think that after somebody gets their LJ comm application rejected, they'd understand that they got rejected and not just reapply exactly the same way. If I see this person a third time, I'll hit the "reject & ban" button.



2. There has been some "sexism is okay when it's only a joke" thing going on. To a certain extent I can understand it - I've thrown around the occasional casual sexist and casual racist comments myself (stereotypes exist for a reason, and I do enjoy the occasional French mockery with dystopiarcadia), but only when around people who know me and even then it highly depends on circumstances, and definitely not on the internet when nobody can hear the tone, when misunderstandings cannot be immediately corrected because you aren't in the same room to explain right away, verbally and with body language.
   
   It's not about taking the internet too seriously, it's about having had to put up with that sort of thing offline already, when one gets online to muck about a bit one doesn't want to have to put up with the same thing.
   
   It's not about being politically correct, which implies it's just being correct for the sake of it but actually nobody cares. It's about being considerate because "jokes" like that can hurt people's feelings and reinforce an idea that is bad, outdated, or both.
   
   And depending on the joke, it sometimes does show that the person who tells it, no matter what they say about them actually believing in equality etc, does think that one sex/race is superior to the other. They might say otherwise - they might even believe they really aren't sexist/racist - but somewhere deep in their heads they are, because they lack the basic respect that should be as natural as breathing. Things that they do to try to prove otherwise are just acts of denial to convince themselves and others.
   
   Not to mention that jokes are supposed to be funny, and that sort of jokes usually just end up so damn lame. Personally I don't enjoy the company of people who are so witless they need to resort to those jokes.



3. Having adding a few young people on my Facebook friends list, I finally understand what they mean on TV when they talk about the decline of literacy and spelling skills. I never knew it before, so many of them just can't spell, or don't care enough to spell. WTFBBQ. I'm hoping that it's just the kids in my town/county, but somehow I'm guessing it's a country-wide problem.



4. Lastly, on a forum I frequent, someone started a thread "Have you ever wanted to tell someone to just stop posting?" and I was ever so tempted to reply and say "Yes - YOU."

Comments

[digiguy-online.livejournal.com]

someone asked me to spell Ireland for them speaking of spelling, but I'm dyslexic :P spelling is a problem when all the people on facebook just don't write proper sentences anymore. dropping random vowels and consonants, like they were donating them to countdown

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

Yeah. XD There's a difference between dyslexia, not being good at spelling, and downright not caring.

dropping random vowels and consonants, like they were donating them to countdown

XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD WIN.

[firescribble.livejournal.com]

2. Well put. One of the things that is easy to miss is that just because those kinds of jokes can be ok in some situations, coming froming from some people, doesn't mean they're ok all the time, from anyone.

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

And then when they're called on it, they say things like "well you just don't have a sense of humour", refusing to acknowledge that it's THEIR sense of humour that has a problem.

[impressioniste.livejournal.com]

RE: the joke thing. For me, it's mostly circumstances and people involved if/when I tell or talk about those sorts of jokes. I'm not just going to walk up to some random German and go, "Hey, you Kraut!" or something. But sometimes on my LJ or when I'm in the company of people I know have the same horrible taste as I do, I'll make lame and ridiculous jokes.

But I hate the 'it's the internet' excuse. Just because it's the internet doesn't mean you can say anything you want and not come off sounding like a douchebag. Political correctness shouldn't enter into the equation. You should care about whether or not what you're saying in a public forum is going to hurt someone's feelings, within reason.

I mean, you see me joke about in Tenipuri game screencaps about Sanada going GET IN THE KITCHEN AND MAKE ME A SAMMICH, WOMAN but if someone ever thought I meant that seriously, I'd feel REALLY bad. And wonder what they were smoking for taking Tenipuri seriously. But that's another story. :x

My sister used to like to pick on me, and call me stupid and ugly and other stuff, and then say, "Oh, haha, just kidding." or something like that. And it still hurt my feelings. Just saying, "It's a joke!" doesn't automatically always make it okay.

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

Exactly. There's a time and place for those jokes, and public forums are not the place. Of course LJ is not private, but at least you can count on the people who read it being able to see where you're coming from.

Your sister's sense of humour was ridiculous.

[impressioniste.livejournal.com]

It wasn't so much that she did it, but it was like, at very inappropriate times and stuff. She doesn't do it anymore, thankfully.

[solaas.livejournal.com]

Word on the joke thing. And not just jokes, but sayings and slang and whatnot. I have this word, it's a normal word, but where I come from it can and will also be used as an insult. It is going out of use, but I still use it with one other person. One. Because she knows that I know that this word, used the way we do between us, is a horrible way to use the word and not something you want to do in front of other people. Not something you want to teach your kids.

And I still grin as I say it, because it's nostalgic. And bad. ^^;

[schweinsty.livejournal.com]

So much word on the joke thing - and not just online, but in RL. I swear, if I hear my classmates make one more gay joke....

And - on no. 3; I occasionally proofread a few of my classmates' essays, and I've seen actual chatspeak on term papers. And they're freaking English majors. Lolsob.