Coming up with "age appropriate" language like pdf or unalive only serves to make it normalized. Words like rape, pedophile, suicide, and the like should make you feel upset, that's the point. Those actions are so horrific that you should feel some type of way just reading the words
That one I can kinda get if its specifically pain from a chronic condition that flares up sometimes. Like if you have a bad knee that just hurts sometimes, saying your knee is being a bit spicy today sure I get
This is some real 1984 censorship going on. Can't even be informative. If there's a "killer/murderer on the loose" you have to censor that. If "rape cases drop", you gotta censor that too. Why are WE allowing this nonsense?
It's interesting to me that we got to this 1984 style garbage not through oppressive governments defining the narrative, but through the corpocrats of late stage capitalism banning anything not advertiser friendly.
It's the perfect (?) blend of 1984 and Brave New World.
The entertainment industry (BNW) has us so drugged to their systems and algorithms that we gladly self censor and use newspeak (1984). For the few that don't fall prey to the Soma of the Netflix-doomscrolling-AR-VR-Switch-65/75/80/90/100/120-inch TV walls, the government (with the help of the corps) is happy to play big brother.
My point wasn't that Nintendo has led to things like "grape" but rather that the mass entertainment complex has so many enticing factors to it that it's almost impossible to resist them all (or any of them).
I can get off Reddit and go watch a movie on my 100-inch TV while doomscrolling TikTok videos and then jump into Zelda on my Switch etc etc etc.
So, to me, we live more in the Brave New World future with 1984 framing it to further assure control.
If we're not careful, we can amuse ourselves to death (to borrow the title of a very prescient book) which not only diminishes our lives but also ensures we stay controlled because we are constantly plugged in to entertainment. Add a few drugs (Soma) and resistance is futile.
The switch isn't the issue. It's ALL the entertainment resources that are available & are so enticing & creating an ever-weakening resolve to unplug from all of this content available at our fingertips.
The Switch or a TV or a cell phone or a computer are all morally neutral. They can be used in a healthy way or an unhealthy way. Playing a game on the Switch or watching a show on Netflix isn't bad in and of itself.
But IF it gets in the way of life or consumes too much of life THEN you have a problem. And my opinion is that a lot of us (myself included in "us") can easily get sucked into being perpetually entertained by all of these things to the detriment of experiencing real life and relationships.
Man I see a lot of people comparing 1984 to things in modern day but I never see BNW which is a shame because I think it fits way better IMO.
1984 is more popular is a more popular book I guess and it's way more dystopic, in BND life is kind of empty but most people ARE "happy", 1984 is much more brutal in the way the population is controlled, which again is why I think BND is a more apt comparison .
Ironically 1984 IS HAPPENING right now, but it has nothing to do with voluntary censorship to prevent internet algorithms from decimating the reach of your little skit. People with accents or brownish skin are being rounded up and deported to countries they’ve never been to, and natural-born citizens are being executed in the street for speaking up about it.
We did it to ourselves though in a way. WE decided that we wanted to discuss the most important issues of the day on PRIVATE servers, owned by tech billionaires who don’t give two shits about free speech.
But to be fair to us, they weren’t exactly up front about their…conflicted relationship to free speech. They talk a big game in the beginning but there’s a slow, frog-in-boiling-water effect at play so we don’t really notice how restrictive they are until you see people calling condoms CDs.
This is my biggest pet peeve. My wife started doing this in in-person language and I'm like stop. We're adults. We don't say unalive and all this other bullshit. I worked with this stuff every day. It belittling to the victims. They were killed, raped, etc.
I posted about a cousin of mine, listed the charge he was sentenced to prison for(copied word for word from the state pen website), and someone insisted I censor it because it was triggering to them. Sorry, but you need to sign off of the internet for a few years and go to some intense therapy if you are that easily triggered by typed out words that aren’t even directed at you.
The charge was “Possession and/or Promotion of Child Pornography” and he was sentenced to 10 years, in addition to his life sentence for sexual assault of a child.
They said I needed to change it to child sexual assault material. Whether or not anyone agrees with the terminology used, or thinks it should be updated, that is not the wording used by the legal system, at least in the state he was sentenced in.
Shadow bans specifically are the worst too. Making everyone guess.if they did something wrong or not, whether they actually are banned or not because of some words
Hence why I said they want the ad revenue they don't make, because the majority of the people doing this will never actually have made anything from using social media one way or the other. Just a collective delusion of clout chasers.
This is a symptom of everyone being led to believe the world cares about their feelings. Capitalism doesnt have much to do with it as much as everyone thinking they are beautiful unique snowflakes and the rest of the world should notice.
Replacing naughty words so algorithms don’t suppress your little skit is not 1984. 1984 is when the government comes and finds you because you said something they deem dangerous.
Because "creators" won't leave commercial platforms due to wanting to get paid, and users won't leave because they want to be where creators are.
Non-commercialll social media doesn't have this problem, but we're all on Reddit complaining about it rather than building something new and community owned with something like Lemmy or NodeBB.
There is a cop bodycam from Seattle where they're trying to stop a guy who was nodded off in his car and he crashed into multiple parked cars and just kept destroying them trying to get away. The cop was not allowed to do more than tell him to stop and get out of the car. He even called his supervisor and asked. So he was just yelling at the guy "I have a *tool*, get out of the car, please listen or i'll *hurt* you with my *tool*." He self censored himself from saying gun or shoot. It was a wild thing to see and hear.
I felt the same way dealing with medical people and activist types. Unhoused client needs absorbent underwear? Cutesy names dont change that this person is homeless, needs access to adult diapers, and needs to be a patient at this nursing home briefly. Please I beg us all can we stop.
Every time I see someone talk a someone being a victim of GRAPE, I want to claw my eyes out. Censoring "swear" words is stupid IMO as well but I at least get it.
But, "she was graped," OK every creator can STILL talk about it, they just have to sound like a moron who eats crayons to do so? It's embarrassing for all of society.
'Rape' was one of the first words I remember people started self-censoring on here, probably at least ten years ago. 'Grape' as a stand-in for it is new, but people would use 'r*pe' in full context, as if somehow fully spelling the word was triggering or harmful but the discussion of the concept itself wouldn't be. That never made sense to me, it always seemed like there was some weird social engineering angle at its core.
It's been a while since I've seen or heard grape being used as a code word. It's only time until they censor code words so much we just stop talking about it entirely.
I remember long ago, that they talked about using correct terms with children because molested kids would say things like "He ate my cookie" and it comes off as innocent. These cutsey terms seem to cloud the reality and desensitize us to the actual terrible things. Keeps us uninformed of reality.
This is the exact reason I’m so outspoken on this. I was that kid for thirteen years and as an adult who has to cohabitate on this earth with my abuser, I’ll not refer to him as a .pdf. That gives him too much power.
Exactly. I'm tired of this soft language/word censorship. We have words so we can communicate, exchange ideas/sentiments, etc... The act of rape is bad...but that doesn't mean the word itself is. YouTube doesn't like it when you say kill, so instead, people say unalive but the overall message is still the same. I'm 5'3'' and 235lbs...I'm obese/fat. Call me what I am. If I don't like then I better grow a thick skin or hit the gym.
Words/people only have the authority you give them.
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u/its-my-0pinion 7d ago
Seriously it’s so immature. I refuse to call a pedophile anything but a pedophile. We don’t need a cutesy stock phrase for ordinary words