zenosanalytic:

tatterdemalionamberite:

asynca:

Has anyone noticed how much Tumblr discourse is starting to be peppered with ‘embarrassing’ and ‘yikes’ as one-word responses when you disagree with someone? It’s really interesting how this choice of languages hammers home the ‘in-group’ opinion/correct opinion as something that doesn’t even need to be stated, and presents opposing opinions as embarrassing and something to be mocked.

These two words are, at their heart, conformist. They promote conformity and ridicule diversity. I find this deeply concerning – it’s like something the popular kids at high school would say to embarrass the less popular kids. They want their superiority to be acknowledged without explanation or justification, and they get off on mocking people who are different. 

Honestly, I’d encourage you not to fall into using this language without understanding why it’s an effective means of shutting down opposition and how it works. It’s anti-debate language that focuses on ridiculing the person who has the opinion rather than debunking the opinion and explaining how you believe it’s incorrect/harmful. 

This is really good meta and fits with my current vague hypothesis about the broader emerging foulness, and the tendency for appearances to be valued over results or factual accuracy, in the present dysfunctions of social justice discourse.

Namely, that it is a specific backlash against the people at the fringes who started speaking up for themselves in the big diversity acceptance boom of a few years ago.

I notice this most as an autistic person, because that’s where this stuff hits me most. It’s all a bunch of microaggressions against autism, even when the discussion takes place between allistics and autism is mentioned nowhere in the discussion; a bunch of “I’m socially suitable and people who disagree with me aren’t, and boy howdy those socially unsuitable people should get away from me” signalling.

And so even if you do agree with them about whatever they’re talking about, if you’re aware that you’re classed as socially unacceptable for some other reason, it sends the hostile message ‘if your social skills slip around me, you’re toast.’

“Cringy” is another of these terms I’ve seen, and I think at least part of the popularizing of these other terms in certain internet communities grows out of this co-opting of “cringe culture” by political discoursers(I avoid discourse on here mostly, but I remember seeing right-wing blogs picking this lingo up a year or two ago, at the latest).

At the same time, though, I don’t think this is what this is entirely; yes a shorthand, but not always a dismissive and condescending one. I’ve seen “Yikes”, specifically, used pretty frequently in black circles as a response to racist posts the poster doesn’t realize are racist(or clearly doesn’t care. For instance, even more racist responses to charges of racism often get a “Yikes”), and I think in these cases it’s working sort of as a “meaningful look”, a shortcut that expresses That conversation without having to actually have it because it’s exhausting having to constantly have it with people who don’t really care about listening, just about avoiding the social sanction that label carries. I can’t be sure about this, but given how culture usually flows in the US I wouldn’t be surprised if “Yikes” started in black circles and was appropriated into other online communities, where it was put to more derogatory use.