The Awkward Silence

A J

06:27

Myntra forced to change its “obscene” logo —what the controversy is about

Currently a subject of memes here. ^^

Tinkeringbell

06:48

Honestly, I don't see it.

A J

08:09

@Tinkeringbell Neither did we until now.

Arthur Hv

09:52

“indecent and denigrating to women” Well even if you do happen to see it, I fail to see how it's indecent and denigrating.

There are numerous feminist activists that are on the contrary quite happily going away with vagina logos

Tinkeringbell

10:14

Guess it's the difference between 'this feminist came up with it' vs. 'someone else came up with it'. Some groups really like claiming certain things as only for the in-group. Religion has a lot of that too, for example.

Arthur Hv

:/ there are many things I really don't understand about group behavior

Tinkeringbell

There's loads I don't understand too. But having been in some groups and later out of them, this is one thing you start to realize: Behavior that's okay while you're part of the group will be frowned upon as soon as you leave it.

The reverse is true too, that's why it can be amazing to just say 'f-it, this group sucks, I'm out'

Overall, part of this is why I like having individual friends over large friend groups, I think.

Arthur Hv

Think I've never been in a group ever. I always had individual friends and went away group activities and stuff. I think I fear that at a personal level. I'm like always trying to understand the why of things and the why of doing it it's so much against going with group flow and following.

One day I had people following me and trying to form a group as I was founding an association. Didn't know how to lead. I was lost tbh.

Tinkeringbell

I've had a few 'friend groups', one was heavily related to church (basically just all kids born within a certain age rage spent a lot of time together so the group thing kinda grews naturally... now that I'm grown a little I realise there wasn't much friendship involved in that friend group). The other two that I might classify as friend groups were the group of girls (and a guy) I worked with while going through university, and the few people I used to group with in university itself.

Both fell apart pretty fast.

Right now one of my best friends is trying to get me to hang out more with her and another childhood friend of hers, it's something of an honor as she puts it as "being best friends with both of us"... I'm a bit hesitant as I'm unsure of the consequences for our friendship if the group thing doens't work out.

Arthur Hv

10:35

Well you can always opt-out what you don't like doing. I do that when my friends do things together I'm not fond of, now they know and don't invite me when they know it's not for me

Back in university, it was parties, now it's more like sports :D

Tinkeringbell

Hahaha it's going to be a bit hard claiming I suddenly don't like going out to eat or coming together for a cup of tea/whisky-cola :P

So far I've been able to keep most of it at bay a little by citing covid restrictions (one visitor only) and saying my mother is strict on that (since she works in care)

I'll probably need to figure out a more long-term solution though ;)

@ArthurHv Having friends that do that is great!

Tinkeringbell

10:58

Hah. And just after we're discussing this, there's a news article that stumbles into the same pitfall :D A study was done, and has determined that having kids of different study levels in different buildings (which is quite normal in big cities with huge numbers of pupils) is "bad" because that way the different levels don't interact with each other.

It's conveniently forgetting that being out of a certain group can cause so much relief from stress and annoyance!

(also not in the study: The benefits of not being cooped up with thousands into a mega building, which is particularly relevant now with covid, and hopefully remains so after!)

A J

11:10

@Tinkeringbell She who raised the issue works in an NGO.

Tinkeringbell

@AJ How 'far along' is India when it comes to e.g. feminists 'reclaiming' things like vagina's as a symbol?

A J

In fact, there are a lot of logos you can find offensive if you pay close attention. Amazon for example.

Tinkeringbell

Might indeed be more of a cultural difference than one between groups.

A J

I agree it's more of a cultural thing.

A p*nis festival is celebrated in Japan. Try organizing it here once.

Tinkeringbell

I think we've incorporated the fertility festivals into Easter and Christmas :P

But yeah, some things are just... "only for certain groups", in this case a culture more than a group ;)

Arthur Hv

11:16

Where is my penus festival tho :(

A J

But in this case, people only noticed it when it got highlighted. This company has been using this logo for years, but nobody has ever noticed it.

After that, some people have complained about Amazon's logo cause it is offending to boys. Although, they were not serious about it.

Tinkeringbell

@AJ That's often a good measure of how ridiculous a claim is: If you can easily construct such a counterclaim, it's probably not worth the discussion :D

@ArthurHv You can organize your own? ;)

Arthur Hv

@AJ this defense I find is quite inappropriate. It's the "All live matter" kind of thing, or reacting to female only events with male only events etc. it's not making progress toward everyone living together in harmony.

@Tinkeringbell If I had a wide network of people to invite and tweet about this, I'd do it

Tinkeringbell

@ArthurHv Begs the question 'who started it' though, usually these things happen in response to a badly chosen slogan or argument, when facts don't matter. It's part of that question I asked about the rhetoric technique?

As soon as people resort to such rhetorics, they're no longer 'available' for talks that focus on just facts without emotive language. So the only way to try and reach is by descending to their level and use the same tactics.

Arthur Hv

@Tinkeringbell Yea, it is. I mean it's probably "efficient" in pointing out flaws but it's at the risk of making everyone dissatisfied for real issues being poorly framed. Imagine I break my leg and it hurts, I don't want someone in tweeter say well this many persons are hurt too so nobody should care.

Tinkeringbell

11:25

@ArthurHv :D Perhaps start small, and then next year the people that did participate could bring a friend or a friends friend... spread it out by word-of-mouth ;)

Arthur Hv

The bias there is in this rhetoric, is the one of single thought, which I find is quite dangerous.

Tinkeringbell

@ArthurHv That begs the philosophical question of 'what is a real issue'.

There's already some poor framing going on as soon as you call something 'a real issue'.

Because at that point, you lose the part of the people you want to reach that have other 'real issues' to deal with, and you're stuck with your in-group only.

@ArthurHv I don't know that one/can't connect that to one I know.... is it on this list perhaps?

Arthur Hv

All issues are real as long as someone have them, that's my point, so when you have a group complaining about a logo, it's serious, but maybe not for everyone, and I find that people that are not concerned by the issue dismissing it being a rude/inappropriate response.

Let me check the list in the meantime.

What I meant is basically the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformity bias applied to opinions.

Tinkeringbell

Hmm. I would phrase a similar train of thought more as 'all issues are issues as long as someone has them', because the catchphrase 'real issue' implies some urgency or a certain scale of the issue by adding the adjective 'real'.

From my bias, things like world hunger, wars and genocides are 'real issues', having to keep track of how much toilet paper is left is 'an issue'.

I guess people finding fault in a long existing logo or tradition is 'an issue' too, something they're welcome to make their problem. As long as those people aren't living in poverty or war, or having their basic human right violated... I wouldn't scale their issues as high as 'real'.

Arthur Hv

There is a certain kind of issues you filter out from the social perspective, but that thing is completely dependent of your society framework, and how serious some stuff are is dictated more by society than by you IMHO

I don't think the real/not real issues distinction is worth anything outside your own perspective, or the one of your culture

Tinkeringbell

11:38

I wouldn't go as far as 'society', because societies are very, very complex things. 'communities', perhaps... the way a church can form a 'community' and indeed put a filter on issues like vaccination or sexual preference.

@ArthurHv Perhaps not, but clarifying how I make the distinction will probably help this conversation anyways ;)

Arthur Hv

Yes, I understand

Tinkeringbell

And indeed, there's a certain form of conformity inherent to using slogans/words for describing issues.

Only your in-group will understand what you mean. I think the linguistic term for it is 'semiotics'? (learned that last night while watching 'the history of swear words' on Netflix!)

Arthur Hv

Yea so my point was if some issue you find is ridiculous then I don't believe it's appropriate to people outside your culture that you dismiss it. You could look less smart than you think you are when being surrounded by people thinking differently.

The ridiculousness, is in fact, an argument of power.

I believe in the fact we can find better responses than that

In regards to living together in harmony

Tinkeringbell

@ArthurHv Part of living in harmony is recognizing when things are getting ridiculous and working against living in harmony ... Otherwise you risk people getting increasingly zealous and intolerant.

I've seen that happen quite a few times, I think while I was growing up in church it split off from other groups at least 3 or 4 times, just because those other groups weren't 'zealous' enough.

At some point you just have to realize that church is ridiculous in order to be able to get out of it.

I prefer to stick with the Dutch 'Act normal, then you're already behaving crazily enough'. Even though the definition of normal shifts over time ;)

Arthur Hv

How are you sure that normal isn't the new zealous

Tinkeringbell

11:53

I was just typing something more about how 'normal' was relative too :P

I guess it's more of a statistical 'mean'.

Arthur Hv

My beliefs are more in like what's interactions are supposed to be, that I have a strong view of, but if a certain group request something and obtain it, no matter how zealous, don't find anything to comment about

Tinkeringbell

So if a very zealous group obtains something, you wouldn't protest? That can get taken to the extreme...

Arthur Hv

I wouldn't protest as long as my own interests are preserved, then I'd start my own group

Now imagine that instead they asked for the removal of half the videos of prnhub, that would have been gently declined with a "haha, no". It's all about power imho

Tinkeringbell

Ah.

True, there is something about power that can make or break the balance that we call 'living in harmony'.

I must admit that while I'm sometimes happy to see big platforms taking action, at other times I wonder if I really want to live in a world where these platforms, which aren't really 'democratically elected' for lack of a better phrase, have this much power over people's lives, the information they see and the norms they have to conform too. It's all teetering on the edge of becoming one of those disaster movies dystopia's sometimes.

I know I can choose to 'not use them', but that would put quite a bit of distance between me and the rest (especially in this times), which is also not quite ideal.

E.g. if I choose to not use WhatsApp but Telegram instead, I have to rely on everyone else using Telegram too, which isn't a feasible option. Unless we all collectively decide to switch, that's not going to happen. It's a form of inertia that bothers me.

Arthur Hv

12:16

I know the feeling. I don't think giant corps are that big of a deal, someone always had power anyway, but I find a problem with the way they destroy jobs to enrich the rich and evade taxes especially. I made attempts to limit my usage of them, but not very successfully also. I do use telegram though, so somehow I have friends that managed to drag me here and so you can :)

Tinkeringbell

Hahaha I tried once, when telegram was relatively new already. Perhaps now that it's gained a bit more traction I should try again :)

Arthur Hv

The biggest pain point to me is facebook. I dislike all they represent and even the features are not very useful. I don't like most of what I read there. BUT it's a nice way to keep in touch with some of my friends.

Tinkeringbell

12:41

Yeah. I mainly started my Facebook account after MSN shut down, all my friends at the time moved there. Right now I don't have anyone to really follow there, and since I've also not been crafting/crocheting as much as I used to, I don't think I've started Facebook more than twice in the past year.

Like you said, the features there aren't all that useful :)

It's like all the birds here are noticing a change of weather may be coming... they're predicting frost/snow from Saturday evening on.... so all the birds are taking baths now ;)

lila

13:51

hi

Tinkeringbell

hey!

M.A.R.

hyi

Tinkeringbell

14:11

fyi?

Extroverted Main Man

14:52

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Q: What are some examples when it may be considered socially appropriate to display emotion around others

Some context for this question. The person is in Canada. Lets say the person is not around very close friends or family. If you have an answer which involves close freinds or family I still want to hear about it so please make a note. The person is not in any immediate danger. The person is arou...

0

Q: How do I convey to a family member that the deadline for moving out is non-negotiable when they responded emotionally to a previous attempt?

Summary Over Christmas my spouse and I took in a family member who needed somewhere to stay temporarily. They contacted us because we were (and still are) the only family who had a spare room and, despite not having regular contact with them over the last few years, my spouse felt obligated to ag...

family assertiveness

IPS Comment Bot

23:22

Would it help to put in writing? No justifying why, just your needs. — Yosef Baskin 2 mins ago

#26730 Yosef Baskin (373 rep) | Q: How do I convey to a family member that the deadline for moving out is non-negotiable when they responded emotionally to a previous attempt? (score: 1) | posted 8 hours ago by user32349 (11 rep) | edited 5 hours ago by user32349 (11 rep) | Toxic

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