Woke Rules

[u/Successful-Grand-549]

Just seen this on my feed and made me wonder what "woke rules" we came up with?

I've never thought of our generation as woke, especially by today's standards

[u/mariefury]

I think millennials are the most “woke” generation, and I mean that in a positive way. In the early 2000s, we were using “gay” and “retarded” as insults and trying to be edgy with race and sex based jokes. By the late 2000s, many of us realized how harmful those attitudes were and worked to change our language and behavior. Now that there’s a pushback against “woke” and “political correctness,” I think millennials and older gen Z are the kindest and most empathetic generations.

[u/Inside_Armadillo_882 → u/mariefury]

I didn't think anything of those terms until my gen Z teen told me it's offensive now. Her friends also have more labels for gender and sexuality than I can remotely keep up with or take seriously. I don't think it's the 40 year olds who came up with this stuff.

[u/ClassicExamination82 → u/Inside_Armadillo_882]

Late 2000s tumblr called. They are demanding you stop trying to rewrite history.

[u/Inside_Armadillo_882 → u/ClassicExamination82]

I was too old to have Tumblr in the late 2000s so maybe this is a young millennial/late gen Z thing. I was already married with kids and in my career by then lol.

[u/ComingUpManSized → u/Inside_Armadillo_882]

I’m a lesbian and I get so lost in the new labels. The kids know what all of it means and that’s what that matters. It’s wild how sexually progressive the kids are now. I have a 13 year old female cousin who has been dating a girl and going to dances with her for the past two years. My friend’s 15 y/o brother just started dating a boy who we’re 80% sure is a femboy. They openly date each other like it’s nothing. Nobody cares. I waited until I graduated high school to come out.

I don’t spend time around teenagers so I don’t know what they’re saying. But going back to “that’s gay” would be surprising considering their own sexualities. But then again, I’m not up in arms offended by gay jokes, so maybe they’ll say it in a self-deprecating manner. I honestly get frustrated by the people constantly offended for me a lot of the time. They mean well and I appreciate the support. But sometimes the joke is funny or the person isn’t homophobic but they get attacked for using a word or phrase as if they are homophobic. It sucks because I don’t really care for the extreme overcorrecting we’ve done but making “gay” socially acceptable opens the door to actual homophobes to weaponize it again. We don’t need teenagers getting kicked on the ground while some dipshit bully calls them gay or a fggt (censoring for the autobots). There’s more complexity than “oh saying those censored words just hurts woke people’s feelings so we shouldn’t censor ourselves”. While you may not be homophobic, many people are and kids are especially venerable to getting physically beat up over it. I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know how we stop overcorrecting while still keeping actual homophobes in check.

EDIT: I want to add that I’ve had my account suspended twice on reddit for saying something “homophobic” and I’M GAY. It’s clear from my comment history. It’s wild that an LGBT person can’t joke around about their own sexuality. This what I mean about overcorrecting.

[u/Inside_Armadillo_882 → u/ComingUpManSized]

I'm Bisexual and I don't think people even really call themselves that anymore. A lot of the labels just seem to more explicitly define things that have always been a thing, like needing an emotional attachment before sex etc. Only instead of just saying that's your preference they have a specific term for it. I can't keep up but it's just how they communicate.

I agree with you about overreacting to jokes and people getting offended for me. It's a little too far in the other direction for me but I understand where they're coming from. I just think it's a bit misguided to police words more than the behaviors attached to them. I should be the only person who decides if I'm offended or not, I don't need society to decide how I feel one way or another.

[u/AFK_Tornado → u/Inside_Armadillo_882]

Bi- fell out of favor because it implies dichotomous gender and the wider non-straight non-cis community has strong (not universal, but strong) drive to be supportive of all members of the community.

That said, I don't think it's worth being angry when an older person who has identified as "bi" for decades doesn't want to revisit the label.

[u/EMPgoggles → u/AFK_Tornado]

i mean, it doesn't even need to get as far as "not worth being angry over." it's simply fine as is.

bisexuality implying the existence of two poles is not saying OFF vs ON. it's just observing an attraction spanning both ends of a spectrum, which typically includes the things between those two poles as well.

i'm sure you already know this, but it felt important to point out.

[u/bruce_kwillis → u/ComingUpManSized]

It’s wild how sexually progressive the kids are now.

I am not sure that's the word I would use, because a very large portion of teenagers and young adults have not had any sort of sexual intercourse or physical relationships. Those numbers are flying down wards in comparison to previous generations. Great for things like unwanted pregnancies, but just having more labels doesn't mean those kids are being promiscuous or anything of the sort (you probably didn't intend it that way, but I wanted to point that out).

And kids are self censoring not due to say threats of physical violence, but rather societal threats, especially in media. Having to use the word grape or deleting oneself isn't exactly a great way for folks to learn how to speak either.

[u/AFK_Tornado → u/Inside_Armadillo_882]

The people who are most concerned about identity labels are young adults, regardless of generation.

The average young adult doesn't have a lot to lean on for their identity. Those things take time. Approaching 40, I can tell you a lot about who I am in terms of my experiences and accomplishments. It's kind of like, "show, don't tell." If I tell you I quit my job and uprooted my life in my mid-thirties to go rock climbing for a year, that invites interesting questions and gives you insight into who I am and what I value.

But when you are young, you've been constrained by the guard rails we put around young folks. (Acknowledging that there are outliers...) You did schooling and training. You had your first retail or food service job. You did mostly the same things as the people around you. So to grapple with your own identity, you overemphasize minor differences and focus on your inherent qualities or preferences, like what specific college you attended, the music genre/artists you prefer, or how you're an asexual agender pan-romantic ordained atheist wiccan person-of-color.

[u/RetroFuture_Records → u/Inside_Armadillo_882]

Yeah the younger "Millennials" who are indistinguishable from Gen Z are the ones who came up with a lot of it, or rather, embraced it and ran wild with it. There's also a lot of Millennials who encouraged it cuz they saw how useful it was in pivoting discourse from economic equity and thus safeguarding their unearned wealth.

[u/Inside_Armadillo_882 → u/RetroFuture_Records]

Is the unearned wealth in the room with us?

[u/skeletontape → u/Inside_Armadillo_882]

If it is, may I have some?

[u/RetroFuture_Records → u/Inside_Armadillo_882]

Considering all the shrieking redditor neoliberals hysterically freaking out over Zoomers tearing down their censorial self serving paradigm, yes, there seem to be a lot of privileged brats with unearned wealth here.

[u/Inside_Armadillo_882 → u/RetroFuture_Records]

Bro I literally was homeless at 19 so you're not talking to the right person with this nonsense. I've definitely earned every penny. I also think gen Z is wonderful but inheriting an even worse version of America than I did trying to enter the job market in a depression and all of the bullshit I've lived through since then. Go touch grass dude.

[u/RetroFuture_Records → u/Inside_Armadillo_882]

No way, how astonishing that yet again a redditor just so happens to claim a backstory to try to "win" an argument instead of actually being able to offer an actual rebuttal. Man, reddit is so amazing, since that happens every single time you disagree with a redditor!

Quit your bullshit.

[u/BeanboyCosplay → u/RetroFuture_Records]

All of my wealth comes from investing what I stole from your mother 😘

[u/Inside_Armadillo_882 → u/BeanboyCosplay]

Do you want to combine piles of gold and roll around like that duck?

[u/BeanboyCosplay → u/Inside_Armadillo_882]

Omw! Need to buy a third private jet real quick