Basically just something people say that indicates a position indirectly, like how seperatists from a given region might always say they’re from [region] and not [country] or how trump supporters call AI “SI” now.
The narwhal bacons at midnight.
My favorite dog whistle (that went over my head, because I was not the audience for it) was the Subaru “Come out and play” commercial.
If I remember it correctly, the ad was mostly footage of Subaru SUVs driving over rocks and through streams while a voice over talks about the cars’ off-road capabilities. The ads would always end with the narrator saying "Subaru invites you to come out and play.”
As a straight man, I always assumed that the commercial was about how much fun it is to drive a Subaru up a mountain. Apparently, I was missing the point. The nature footage was all a distraction to pacify the straights. The real commercial was just the sentence fragment “Subaru invites you to come out”. It was meant to say that Subaru supports queer people. It was a resounding success in promoting the ‘Subaru driving lesbian’ stereotype.
That seems like a big stretch of interpretation, no?
It’s fully not, the head of marketing at the time actually has done multiple interviews about it.
“Subaru Lesbian” had become a meme in the queer community, and someone internal to Subaru found out that on self-reporting surveys of Subaru owners, Lesbians made up a surprising amount of the respondents
So Subaru decided to embrace it, with thinly-veiled advertising targeting lesbians
I always throw an occasional “streets ahead” in my conversation just to see if they’re a Community watcher. Most of the people around me are streets behind, though.
My favorite example is how francophone leftists or those who dislike america will call americans “USians”. (Américain -> États-Unien)
I call people from the US that as I respect the other nations in the Americas who are also Americans - from Chilean people to Canadian. All American. Neither of them USian.
But, I do also hate US Defaultism because it shows a lack of knowledge/understanding/awareness which only plays into the stereotypes that people from the US are stupid and ignorant. Which I think is disparaging to (some of) them, and they could show they aren’t by being using self-aware language. Hence, “USian” . It’s like how “woke” originated too - i.e. “awake” to institutional bigotry.
No one but those from the US claim the term “American”. Canadians do not want to be called American, and everyone else speaks a whole different language, and they prefer to be referred to by their county as well
It’s not US defaultism, it’s like calling someone from China Asian, or worse Oriental. It’s not woke, no one will thank you for calling them by a label you’ve assigned to them as an outsider
It’s only ever done online, if you’re taking to people irl, it’s obvious via context. But online is global so it makes sense to talk in a global sense.
The reason no one does it in person is because they would be swiftly corrected.
In fact, no one actually uses it on the Internet because no one would know what you mean… It’s just a meme argument that probably originated from 4chan
It’s literally the same as calling all Asian people Chinese. You can’t just pick the biggest country in a region (let alone an entire hemisphere) and fold everyone there under their label…No matter what Internet logic you use to justify it, it’s still offensive to everyone involved
Thanks for the comedy. I love how wrong you are. About everything you said.
A) it isn’t said online because of context. Everyone you’re talking to face to face will understand what you’re saying from previous parts of the conversation. It’s only online that you talk to people from all over the world in any given conversation so it’s better to be specific about areas. That’s also why people will say “The US” and not America. To many people, America is the continent, both North and South America. This just shows you lack in education and understanding how others see the world probably because you’re selfish and don’t think about other people from other parts of the world.
B) just because you’ve heard of 4chan and probably don’t understand it, you think everything you don’t like/understand comes from there. Such a Boomer take. Everybody would know what you mean if you called someone a USian. Unless they lack in education and understanding how others see the world probably because they’re selfish and don’t think about other people.
C) People do say “Asian people” quite commonly. They probably shouldn’t but they do. Asian means something different in different places too. If you said “Asian” in the UK, they would think you’re meaning India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. In the US, it’d be the “Oriental” countries. From Australia, it could also be used for South East Asia. You’d know this if…insert end line.
D) China and The US aren’t the biggest country in either of their respective continents. China isn’t by physical size OR population. Well done on being ignorant in multiple ways. Calling someone from the Americas “American” isn’t calling them USian, it’s calling them from The Americas. Insert end line.
E) Hemispheres. Western and eastern are colonial concepts and based off the Greenwich Meridian. Northern and Southern are based on a physical attribute of the oblate spheroid we call Earth and useful due to our axial shift. This shows lack of knowledge about the…you know where I’m going with this.
F) if you’re offended, meh, I don’t care. Don’t be a snowflake. Others aren’t. Get over it. I’m not punching down at a maligned group, even if USians do have both a superiority complex and a victim complex simultaneously - honestly the cognitive dissonance inherent in the psyche of the country should be studied.
Anyhoo, good chat.
