Ignoring the my-uncle-works-for-microsoft flex for a moment, are you trying to pretend we’re talking about changes that occurred in the last 10 years? Jerry was working in television 35 years ago, and is talking about programmes even prior to that. You probably weren’t even born then.

It didn’t take long for Lemmy to turn into a carbon copy of reddit, I barely post here and you’re like the third dude in the last day to pull the same sleight of hand by trying to change the argument.

This isn’t about ‘not letting people enjoy things’, you straight up equated tiktok with the likes of MASH, one of Seinfeld’s examples. But lets just pretend we were arguing about something else.

Very ‘inspirational’, but as useless as your previous reply.

American television was always known for production interference, but it was mostly from advertisers, bored executives, and censors. Not even close to the same thing, widespread use of focus testing and demographic committees and having 12 different sensitivity consultants is all relatively modern, and that’s on top of most of the traditional interference.

And you in all likelihood knew all this, but chose to waste our time anyway.

Finding a romantic partner should come naturally from making friends. Friend may introduce you to a romantic partner, or they could become one.

That’s a lovely idea, unfortunately a lot of us are growing old waiting for this bullshit.

I don’t agree with everything the guy above you said, but my circumstances are very similar to his.

I have friends, but they don’t know anyone they can introduce me to.

Sports are off the table due to both health problems and a lack of interest (do you really want group activities to be full of disinterested guys just there to chat up chicks?), never mind that they’re all heavily male-dominated around here.

Local councils put on events, but they are either for children, for mothers, or for seniors.

Everything has been turned into a product to be sold to you, almost every event costs money, and when you do pony up the events are somewhere between borderline scams and actual scams.

…

This is a recurring issue with this subject. Someone offers advice, someone points out why that advice isn’t very applicable, and the first person makes no attempt to “adapt and overcome” themselves and either a) offer better advice, or b) admit that they don’t have any better suggestions.

You don’t need to use meth to have an informed opinion on it, and dear lord its popularity has no bearing on its value.

but from what I hear coworkers listening to and laughing at that is like a telephone game description of it.

No, it is accurate. The three primary sources of inspiration for TikTok videos seems to be Facebook style outrage bait, black american subculture, and anime, which all rely heavily on zany and sassy and dramatic reactions to shit. Every time someone shows me something, I just have to smile and nod to be polite.

It isn’t by accident, either, every social media platform is designed to appeal to the 14-25 demographic, the rest of us are just stuck along for the ride, and you get exactly the maturity and sophistication you’d expect from that design focus. The short format and pressure to grab people in 0.5 seconds before they scroll past aren’t helping, either.

Calling it a thirst trap is too innocent. These dating app companies are scum-sucking vampires designed to make most people feel lonely and desperate enough to give them money in perpetuity. People just handed one of the most important and intimate aspects of their lives over to US tech bros, pressured everyone else to do the same, and two whole generations are not just having less sex than their parents, but half of them have never had a long-term relationship as they’re approaching 30.

So what is his issue with the “extreme left” exactly if those were the shows he picked?

You could legit just read the screenshot and answer your own question.

Looks like Jerry is a pretty mainstream liberal who is okay with shows tackling issues of their own volition, but doesn’t appreciate the current production model of everything having to pass through focus groups, committees, and wanker consultants, coming out the other side so impotent and safe that it doesn’t arouse the intellect enough to really make a point or stand for anything specific.

Like if you watch Disney stuff and think that’s normal, you’re part of the problem.

Where is the funny stuff? On the fucking streaming services, YouTube, TikTok, etc.

You may have just made his argument for him. If Ticktok is what passes for comedy today, loud, obnoxious reaction bits from people who think a bad hair day is literal, all delivered in 10 second disposable bytes, yeah nah.

Rap got popular in the 80’s, like NWA and Run DMC, right as GenXers were entering their formative years. Really not hard to figure out before posting pointless replies.

Can confirm, the spiders swear like sailors.

The whole trend is nothing new. Millennials and some GenXers were stealing all their slang from American rappers when they were young, too.

I wouldn’t mind the star trek stuff if star trek fans could meme. So much painfully shit spam from those boards.

You search for one thing and it starts showing recommendations.

I fail to see how this is a bad thing. Youtube’s old default homepage would show scam and content mill recommendations.

This isn’t just an issue in terms of romantic relationships, or gender-specific.

We used to all be exposed to the same media and had common points of reference and interest. It was called water cooler discussion. Unless you’re into sports, this doesn’t really exist any more.

We used to share a more common set of customs. Schools used to have etiquette/finishing classes. Was a lot of it ultimately arbitrary and made up? Of course, but we were all taught the same things, and they became a common language. You knew to take off your hat/glasses when talking to me to show a level of courtesy and respect, and I knew you were showing respect when you did that. This also worked in terms of things like knowing when to adopt a formal tone with others… many people don’t have a formal tone any more, let alone know how to use it.

Everyday life thrust us into more social interaction, too. You used to have to go to stores, talk to people. Even public transport and public spaces used to be a social experience before everyone buried themselves in their mobile phones and headphones. Now the majority of people left trying to interact with you in public are weirdos or trying to sell you something, so people assume anyone approaching you in public is a weirdo or trying to sell you something, suddenly it is taboo to even try to strike up a conversation with a stranger.

And modern outlets like social media encourage some of our worst tendencies. Everything escalates into outrage, tribal warfare, makes us really bad at self-moderation and letting things go.

The-way-things-were was never ideal for a minority of people, but the way things are is ideal for no one. I strongly believe even the innovations that are supposed to help a lot of minorities are hurting them to a degree, too. I fit into a couple of those minority categories myself, and have to force myself to go outside, to use manned checkouts, to put away my phone when outside, as while the alternatives may be easier in the short-term, in the long-term they are making me both physically and mentally less-resiliant.

I needed a new saucepan.

I’ve now replaced half my kitchen.

Siiiigh, would it help if I said penis? The last time this happened, it happened to be a woman.

And it’s pretty obvious when someone starts shit with people on the Internet for no reason, then posts their uglies all over the net, that they’ve got a pretty juvenile issue with attention-seeking behaviour in general.

More than once I had someone being an arse to me on reddit, I took a gander at their profile to see what kind of fucko I was dealing with… and it was full of their nudes.

One time it was someone who lived in the same town as me.

Yeah… your insults and comebacks don’t hit quite as hard now that I know you’re desperate for people to see your vagina.

I don’t understand, what data from other instances is cached, exactly?

And usenet has existed since before the Internet itself, has been used for piracy almost as long, and yet I don’t see many concerns there.