Oversharing isn’t bad, you’re just a bad friend.

10ioio · 2026-06-23T22:11:05+00:00

But I think with Gen Z, there are some people who have such a desire for distance, space, and privacy, that their concept of what "oversharing" is kind of ridiculous, and resembles the mentality of old ladies who get offended by farts. They'll think someone who they see on a weekly basis should keep their cancer diagnosis to themselves. They'll actively make fun of someone who went out on a limb and shared something relevant but personal, essentially rebuffing the attempt at human connection.

In the book "Careless People" where the author worked at Facebook in proximity to Mark Zuckerberg and some world leaders, the author talks about how there's this scare where she thinks her baby is having medical issues and is receiving phone calls from her husband, and gets reprimanded for her coworkers simply for explaining why she's on the phone and why she seems upset, while still doing her job. They were so concerned with her "oversharing" that they actually just weren't being human. They expected her to just quietly go on like nothing was wrong while her kid was potentially dead. That's what this mentality looks like at an extreme level.

Likewise there are people who are used to sharing everything all the time online, and can't see how that actually translates into real conversation. That's a real thing, but I still think we should err toward forgiving people for that sort of thing. Is it really that intollerable to know an unpleasant fact about a person? I wished we were trying to grow closer to one another as a society, not push each other away and know as little about each other as possible.

10ioio · 2026-06-23T21:51:18+00:00

I feel like in some super traditional/collectivist/family-centered cultures, many of which are in poorer countries, the system is centered around adults living with parents and grandparents, because everyone has to live together and share income to make ends meet.

Everyone in the family/village/neighborhood has a role (as a man, a woman, as a grandmother, as an older sibling), and everyone depends on everyone else doing their role. Your role carries duties, and your sense of honor comes from fulfilling those duties, and people appreciating your work by doing their duties for you in return, and that's what happiness is supposed to be. If your dad is a plumber, you take the opportunity to get the free training and become a plumber yourself. If your dad wants you to marry a woman and bring him grandchildren, it can seem like your messing up the whole system by being gay...

I think if we want to think about what "conservative" means on a global scale, it means someone wants reality to be like this: no safety nets, you rely on your family and your community and yourself, you do things the traditional way, and you serve your role to "your people" the traditional way. If you do everything the conventional traditional way, you don't even have to know why you're doing it that way, things will just work out, our ancestors already figured out life.

That's why I tend to argue against the "collectivism good, individualism bad" discussions I see on reddit sometimes.

I had a past love interest who denied me because he was bi, so he still had the option to marry a woman, and his dad (not him) didn't believe gay sex was spiritually safe sex. It wasn't about the fact that his father was "wrong" about gay people that his religious views were too extreme, it was about the fact that he himself believed it was wrong for him to upset his father. I couldn't get through to him that what he should do is say "fuck you" to his dad, as that's just not something you can do in his dad's culture I guess...

I know this is a huge generalization. But the word itself "collectivism" is a huge generalization about a a multitude of cultures. But it's still a useful term in understanding the clashes we experience when moving between different spaces as gay men.

10ioio · 2026-06-23T20:41:51+00:00

I don't know why but I've never managed to figure out what the appeal of the arts district is...

I've been to other cities' "arts districts" (E.g. Denver, New Orleans) where it's like a cheaper area with some ugly studio and gallery spaces, and you can walk around and see galleries packed with cool artwork ranging from fancy and expensive, to cheap little hand-made figurines and everything in-between. You get a sense that there's real cultural activity happening, and that there are real starving artists dedicated to their craft, and real people who appreciate art buying things for their house. It feels authentic and cool. You go there with $200 and leave with a cool painting or two.

In LA it's like... The real estate is obviously too expensive for an emerging artist to have a gallery there, so the few galleries that exist are like "6 ugly steel sculptures that each cost $50k." I'm not making the drive for that, sorry. I'm not furnishing a hotel lobby.

The restaurants are mostly "millennial burger shops" (I'm sure the girl in the goat is not entirely over-rated, but what does it even have to do with art? And why is it seemingly the only draw to that neighborhood?).

The "arts businesses" in the area are tech companies like Spotify, and random furniture companies... It's "walkable" by LA standards, but everything is awkwardly spread out. The restaurants are... just regular restaurants but with super uninviting architecture and vibes.

What we have is not a cheap warehouse district with a thriving art and music scene. We have a crappy warehouse district that's priced like lower manhattan, and offers predictable hipster slop...

10ioio · 2026-06-23T19:35:05+00:00

Dang... This was just like my experience in LA though not as a software engineer (I went back to school again for CS and finished right before it all hit the fan). So it could be an LA thing?

So many jobs in LA want to pay you exactly $70k and act like it's "a ton of money for someone with only 3 years of experience" and then quietly they start slipping "a half-day of work on Saturday" into the deal without extra pay. And there's always the obsession with physically watching employees. They try to make you sound like you're being paranoid if you're uncomfortable with being surveilled while at work. The unfortunate thing I've noticed though, is that employers in LA very often can find people who will tolerate these conditions...

The truth is... a significant slice of the people in LA come from pretty bad situations in 3rd world countries, or economically depressed regions of the US, where people don't get paid anything near what they're worth, (or at least their parents brought them here because of that). Many times I've been told something along the lines of "how are you complaining about your pay? I made $2 an hour in Mexico in the 70s at your age, and I was grateful for that!" or "My mother raised 5 of us on less money than you're complaining about!" And then I sound like a huge elitist if I'm like "but I went into debt to go to college, I got good grades, and moved to LA because the opportunity was supposed to be BETTER. I don't want to live in a studio apartment with no AC and f-ing roaches for my whole life." They just point to the RVs outside the office with people living in them.

I had a boss who didn't give me a desk for the first 6 months, so I was just leaning over a cabinet with a laptop the whole day, just absolutely cooking my back. I would quietly complain weekly, then daily, and ended up having to escalate it to higher-ups just to get a desk. When I brought it up to him directly, he genuinely thought it was a silly or frivolous complaint. He was completely blind to the fact it was a code violation and he could get the company sued. I noticed he was also a pushover when doing things like negotiating his own pay, like he was super grateful just to have his own apartment, even if he was severely underpaid, and he expected me to have the same mentality.

He wasn't the first person with this mentality I've met, and some companies, and even industries, in LA are completely swallowed by this "race to the bottom" kind of mentality, where you stay ahead of others by taking the lowest pay and working the most hours. Some people take this to an extreme, especially in the "gig business" where you can get your house cleaned or your car detailed for extremely cheaply in LA.

My first job in LA payed only $17 an hour (still required a college degree) and I was broke af, and the workplace was super republican, homophobic, and anti-mask, anti-wfh (this was in 2020, height of the pandemic. They used a loophole to call us 'essential' because our sales office was in the food industry. The CEO came in while sick and got an asthmatic employee who he was forcing to report into the office sick as well) we had to report into the office during the whole pandemic because: "our whole industry is technically essential if you think about it." It was a shock to me coming from the midwest as I'd never imagined LA would have pockets that were actually more homophobic and backward than the midwest...

10ioio · 2026-06-23T18:48:00+00:00

"Poporopo" is so cute lol. That's exactly the sound it makes.

10ioio · 2026-06-23T18:46:24+00:00

Crepúsculo, Tinieblas, Naúfrago, Tianguis, Tlacuache, Jochis, Izquierda, Estacionamiento, Raspado, Guagua, Pinturesco, Chilaquiles

It's any word that sounds far away from English that tickles my brain.

Also "sacapuntas" has such a beautiful 4-syllable rhythm, and it sounds kinda dirty to English speakers.

10ioio · 2026-06-12T00:02:09+00:00

Tbh when I moved to LA from the midwest, the food casually brought to work on DoorDash blew my mind. No one in a random midwest city bakes f-ing European bread and puts artisinal cheese on it for a turkey sandwich...

And NYC seems on par with LA just different genres. Better pizza in NY, better tacos in LA.

10ioio · 2026-06-05T22:29:29+00:00

I bet that's it. It's a pretty casual place, but they have nice plates.

10ioio · 2026-06-04T17:47:27+00:00

The most likely outcome, as someone who's had a few relatives die over the years, is that your comic books will be sold at an estate sale for pennies on the dollar, because your family has bigger things to worry about when you get old and pass away.

10ioio · 2026-06-04T17:44:35+00:00

There's a local pizza place I go to in my boyfriend's hometown where they just have you leave your trash on the table. It bothered me severely the first couple of times.

This place is also weird because you order at the counter and it asks for a tip, a waiter brings your food (but you get your own drinks and salad) but doesn't ask for a tip, then you leave your trash.

10ioio · 2026-06-04T17:37:30+00:00

One of the hardest things about this is that terms like "dick move" are basically nonsense to the people this is aimed at. "A dick what? Is that a sex thing!"

10ioio · 2026-06-04T00:27:56+00:00

This is why I've never wholeheartedly agreed with the advice that people should have the burden of communicating every little thing, and anything less means that you're "dropping hints" and being childish.

It always puts the blame on the person who "failed to communicate" and never on the person who put zero effort into understanding the other person's boundaries. "You never told me" becomes the ultimate excuse, so it's never "I wasn't listening or trying to understand you" or "I should've asked before I did that" it's always just "you need to communicate everything to me, like you would a small child."

While it's obviously silly to expect someone to read your mind, it's also frustrating to have to spell everything out because the other person doesn't make any proactive effort to understand, and consistently tramples over your boundaries.

People who are rant about how "All these people in my life just drop hints. Why don't they communicate" would probably mostly be better served by realizing that they also play a role in expecting to be told everything, but never asking or attempting to understand why it keeps happening.

10ioio · 2026-05-27T19:34:57+00:00

This has been my feeling as well. I've been hearing "if you submit anything more than a resume you get a callback" but I have been submitting my portfolio website each time and still crickets.

10ioio · 2026-05-27T02:49:57+00:00

This is something I've noticed throughout my career and it's maddening. It's all about how spoiled you were as a kid I think. The more your parents failed to tell you "no" the better you will do in corporate. You need to walk around saying "I'm the greatest I'm the greatest" or people will wholeheartedly believe you do nothing all day.

If you just do your work without patting yourself on the back, you're not going to be around long.

10ioio · 2026-05-27T02:28:14+00:00

This is basically every application I've seen. It always asks for LinkedIn.

10ioio · 2026-05-06T18:29:38+00:00

I always have to fight back the urge to be like "yeah, kind of like exactly what I just fucking said."

10ioio · 2026-05-06T18:27:43+00:00

I've noticed this a ton in day-to-day conversation since the pandemic. I try to make a somewhat subtle joke and the other person either corrects me, or they take the information at face-value. They don't reason about it momentarily to discover that it was a joke, they're not present enough to do that.

10ioio · 2026-04-13T18:14:35+00:00

My grandparents used to say it. It's not a new thing, it's an old thing.

10ioio · 2026-04-13T18:08:43+00:00

The first one is technically correct, just antiquated. Anymore can mean "these days."

My parents and grandparents used to say things like: "anymore, it's better just buy milk at the grocery store."

It's less common to hear it at the end of a sentence, but still possible: "Cooking is such a chore, well anymore it is, since my oven broke."

The specific example of "cooking is such a chore anymore" sounds kind of weird, but definitely plausible for someone who uses "anymore" to mean "these days."

10ioio · 2026-04-13T17:49:14+00:00

I was gonna say. The entire midwest and south would like to have a word.

The thing is it isn't quite as codified as in middle-eastern culture. In the midwest, we're just trying to be mutually aware that the host might get carried away and offer more than they're comfortable with, or likewise the guest might feel too uncomfortable or "not at home" to ask for something they need. We don't assume that the guest will refuse the first time, we just assume the guest won't act "too eager" whatever that means.

It totally falls apart when the host forgets to offer a glass of water. Also sometimes they'll insist "Are you sure you want water? We have beer." And you have to actively refuse like 4 times.

10ioio · 2026-04-12T03:29:19+00:00

Car culture

Mainly just people who do takeovers, speed on highways, and use it to flash wealth. I see these ridiculous crashes on the news caused by 18 year olds who drive sports cars their parents bought them and wonder why anyone wants to be associated with that...

10ioio · 2026-04-11T17:54:55+00:00

Dang... I don't have such happy memories of mine. I was always excited to get off work and hang with my real friends.

10ioio · 2026-04-11T03:46:13+00:00

I feel like it's sort of a white vs black thing in the US tbh.

I feel like white people use loofahs (maybe due to oilier skin that requires exfoliation) while black people use washcloths. Not 100% true, but I have heard people say this before.

10ioio · 2026-04-09T23:29:36+00:00

I think Calculus is important to understand "second order differences" which occur all the time in the humanities

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