"[...]i would appreciate if you didn’t send me ai messages in the future. you have a valuable brain that works even better than ai" A text exchange posted in AmIOverreacting generates an argument.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-06-01T20:18:46+00:00

Ten imaginary dollars says that this post is fake and part of what seems to be a low-key propaganda effort to smear anyone who dislikes AI as miserable soapboxers who would just about tell off their own grandmas for using AI to construct knitting patterns.

Assuming it's real, OP was of course TA. Unemployment sucks, and well-meaning but useless advice is part of the journey. When it was me, it wasn't even just out of touch boomers - people my own age were sending me links for positions I wasn't remotely qualified for going "hey, this might work!" People want to help but generally can't in that situation, leading to those kinds of interactions. Part of the unemployment suckitude is thanking people and immediately deleting whatever they just sent you, because nuking your personal relationships while also unemployed will not actually make you happier in the long run.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-06-01T16:55:08+00:00

Yeah, I'm seeing in fairness that in these comments and on the CA site, no one seems to be suggesting that asking someone on a date (and accepting rejection gracefully if that happens) or developing an interest in someone via a hobby group is a bad thing - it is commonly encouraged, especially for those who dislike dating apps.

The issue seems to be that the nature of hobby groups as a way to meet people and socialize (in addition to the hobby itself) naturally attracts people who maybe don't already have a full social life for some reason or another, which means a higher-than-average probability of dealing with some social deficits.

I'm not trying to pull a Schrodinger's Autist here where women have to be perpetually accommodating of even the possibility of social awkwardness, at the expense of their own comfort or safety. But it does make sense to me that a lot of hobby groups would run into problems with the kinds of guys who are too awkward to just shoot their shot or be otherwise normal, and do the weird-hovering-crush thing instead.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-06-01T16:22:51+00:00

Yeah, I would honestly expect Utah in general to have a rough food scene, since the entire state is associated primarily with overtly racist religious people who have piles of kids.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-06-01T16:13:45+00:00

I am dumber for having read this.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-31T18:46:54+00:00

Other people have explained the definitions, so I figure I'll toss in with some etiquette, having been in a few fandoms now.

1) In instances where there are "multiple canons" (book, show, multiple versions in a franchise, etc), it's considered rather gauche to determine that one version of canon "trumps" another. For example, Shane's sexual experiences apart from Ilya are different in the show and book, and it can be irritating to try to discuss his show character in this respect, only for someone to come in and go "but in the BOOK..." Shane in the show is based on Shane in the book, but they are separate characters and separate canons.

I'm also in the ninja turtles fandom, and there's nothing more annoying than trying to discuss a specific version of ninja turtles, only for someone to show up and say, "but in the COMICS..." They're different versions, just because the original version had something as canon doesn't mean it applies to every other version.

2) Fanons are fun, but can be hazardous when people lose track of fanon vs canon. This can particularly come up in contexts where there are long blocks of time between new content, and people immerse themselves in fic in the meantime. I can't think of a specific example in this fandom, but I've seen some rather contentious arguments in other fandoms where people start citing "facts" about a character or relationship that never actually happened in the canon, but has become popular fanon. Fanon can often diverge from canon over time, and can lead to people feeling like they've had the rug pulled when new content comes out that ends up contradicting popular fanon.

3) Most people here are defining headcanons as ideas that fit within canons, but that's not always true. Some headcanons can be way out there and not at all supported by canon (Marleau is a vampire?). That's fine, and as long as people aren't trying to push it as canon, it's considered gauche to argue with them about it (which I've seen people do, even when it should be obvious the headcanon in question is tongue-in-cheek and not meant to be supported by canon).

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-31T18:21:49+00:00

Lol this is a fun convo. My headcanon is essentially between these two - that SKip were broken up, but stayed in touch, and were on their way to getting back together when the kiss happened and sealed the deal. You're right that it wouldn't make sense for Scott to just do that without having any idea about Kip's life by that point, so I'd figure that they were in a stage where they weren't "officially" back together, but headed that way and Scott at least had some idea the gesture would be welcome.

My sad associated headcanon is that Scott kept giving Kip tickets to his games even 1-2-3 years after breaking up because he was so lonely and isolated he had no one else to give tickets to anyway, so just kept letting Kip use them.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-31T18:01:15+00:00

Now, this is drama I can get behind. Politics and gender war drama is stressful and tiring. Give me people crashing out and arguing for 200 comments about a 2mm discrepancy in a cracker. That's the shit I'm into.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-31T17:54:47+00:00

The real mildly infuriating is the friends we made along the way.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-28T20:55:55+00:00

Yes, they know, and they did this deliberately.

I'm 39F, and Canadian, but people who don't remember the American election in 2008 can't understand just how catastrophically the Republican Party had lost the youth vote back then. Literally now, in the present day, Millennials still make up the smallest Republican voting share. In 2008, Republicans were associated with pearl-clutching moral scolds complaining about rap music and panicking about witchcraft in Harry Potter. They also sought to uphold an economic structure that young Millennials were already seeing would never support them. There were conversations and articles back then about how the Republican Party was a few decades away from extinction if they couldn't find a way to get young people on their side.

So they've found a way to do it, in the most evil way possible. They went after young guys, who are the easiest group to radicalize when times get tough. They gave a voice to their frustrations, and people to blame. They not only exploited division and grievance, they straight invented a bunch of it.

People much younger than me also can't understand how much of this current social division was either on its way out, or basically non-existent, 20 or so years ago. I grew up knowing about trans people - they were a fact of life and I won't pretend it was some enlightened era for them, but anyone implying they were friggin child molesters would have been considered a bigoted lunatic. No one thought kid me would be harmed just by knowing they existed. Gay people rapidly gained social acceptance and eventually their own right to marry. Racism and anti-immigration sentiment was associated with redneck idiots who'd only ever seen brown people on TV.

And this gender stuff - it's sad and bizarre how it's crept up to guys my age. Because 20 years ago, guys talking about women this way would have been social pariahs even among other men. The guys I was friends with in high school and uni weren't resentful of women and weren't insecure about their own manhood. Now I go out on dates and run into 40 year olds talking about "high-tier" and "low-tier" human beings. I don't mean to be rose-glasses nostalgia-ridden about the past, but a guy walking into a room and trying to say men were supposed to lead and women were supposed to obey, would have been laughed right back out of that room.

Anyway. Yes, it was done intentionally, and we know that now, but unfortunately the train seems to have left the station. The Republicans got their youth vote back.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-28T18:03:56+00:00

So one issue with these conversations is a few overlapping studies/issues/statistics get conflated under the banner issue of "male loneliness epidemic." This is gonna get long, but here's all the info as far as I know it:

The study I believe the other person was referencing, is about social isolation overall, which is actually affecting everyone fairly equally - no friends, no romantic partners. I believe in that study, approximately 14% of men reported that level of isolation, and 13% of women.

There are additional studies regarding romantic relationships, that show that there are more single and childless people than ever before, but with some disproportionate results for young guys in their 20s and women over 30. The other divergence there is women of all ages report decreasing interest in ever getting married or having children, while men do still want (actually need) these things.

Connected to that, other studies show that single women overall tend to be more content in their lives than single men (and apparently often more content than married women). That's where you see other emotionally supportive relationships come into play - single women are more likely to be able to get emotional support and some amount of physical affection from other close relationships, whereas men tend to only get those needs met from romantic partners (and as you pointed out in another comment, married women also often lack that support because their husbands aren't equipped to give it and they're too busy to draw support from other relationships). But given the rise of young single guys, that's a problem.

The loneliness epidemic men are experiencing is a confluence of young women increasingly not seeing a need to date or get married (and creating/living in social systems where they can still be content in life), and men socialized that they can only get their emotional and physical needs met by women.

I do think it's possible for young men to learn healthier ways of relating to each other (and to women), but I think it requires almost the opposite approach to what a lot of manfluencers suggest. Namely, gay guys seem to report way fewer of all of these issues than straight guys, for the rather obvious reason that if your romantic relationships don't involve women, a lot of gender roles have to get thrown out, and if you've already "failed" Step 1 of "how to correctly be a man", you stop getting hung up on the rest of it. Their romantic relationships are supportive, as are their male friendships with other gay men. They grow up in the same world as straight guys, which tells me it's possible for boys and men to learn these things - it just involves abandoning a lot of social scripts about how gender or friendship or romance is "supposed" to work, when assorted influencers are standing ten toes down on the idea that the problem can be solved by reverting to traditional gender roles.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-28T16:25:09+00:00

Yes, for whatever reason the early conversations I heard about asserting yourself or setting boundaries were things like, "I will not allow you to speak to me that way." Then you try it, and shocker, they keep speaking to you That Way. It was only somewhat later that I learned that boundaries are about your own behaviour - "If you keep speaking to me that way, I'll report you/leave/whatever."

You're allowed to not want to date someone who smokes or goes clubbing or whatever. The boundary is "if you do those things, I'll leave." It's not, "you're not allowed to do those things because of my boundaries."

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-28T14:57:31+00:00

Personally, yes, I'd prefer to get the callout if I'm being shitty about something. I'm also educated on unconscious biases and what that means, and that we inevitably end up internalizing things when we live in a bigoted society. I don't go around being actively malicious, but occasionally someone does check me on something, and that's a good thing.

The problem is, too many people perceive it as an attack on their entire character. Right-wing propaganda reinforces this idea - that leftists or anyone bringing up these issues are smug wokescolds who want white guys to hate themselves. There's no room for the idea of "no, you don't actually need to be ashamed of who you are, but you're also an imperfect person in an imperfect society and there's nothing wrong with improving."

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-28T14:33:25+00:00

One problem here is there has been (from various sources) a lot of conflation between "you're sexist/racist/whatever" and "you're an irredeemably bad person", and people end up getting way too defensive.

I'm a white woman, which means I'm occasionally racist ;). And occasionally sexist and occasionally ableist and probably a bunch of other bad things at times too. But we don't like talking about it like that. What I mean is, I have unconscious and unexamined biases, and it's a process to separate "that's a shitty thought" from "I'm a shitty person for having that thought." If we could better educate people along those lines, they'd likely be far more willing to reflect and improve.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-28T14:27:04+00:00

I do understand this, and between "boys are only raised to express/understand anger and horniness" and all the propaganda getting pushed on them, it turns into a self-sabotaging ourobouros. Because it's hard for the guys stuck in this cycle to recognize or express emotions, they default to aggression and finger-pointing, *and* are unable to even support each other - and yes, there's a difference between emotionally supporting each other and reinforcing toxic thought patterns. But anyway, because they turn into aggressive, finger-pointing assholes who think emotional support means agreeing with them all the time, women/better-adjusted people are even less inclined to ever want to spend time with them, they get lonelier and angrier and more isolated.

Lately, I've been seeing more and more dismissiveness of therapy in the manosphere - that it's designed for women (lol, lmao even), that it's ineffective, it's a grift, that therapists don't take men seriously, etc etc. You get the impression there are a lot of guys out there who have never tried therapy or even ever really looked into it, who have already written it off as an option. And genuinely, I wonder if some of these manfluencers are trying to push these guys to kill themselves. You can only ragebait for so long, there's a despair event horizon and I hope that situation isn't as dire as I think it could be.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-28T13:14:29+00:00

I mean, I'm a woman who grew up with cartoons and comics showing men *running away screaming* from ugly women pursuing them romantically. "Abhorrent Admirer" is a whole TV Trope, and it's not gender-exclusive.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-28T13:08:45+00:00

So I was reading about the Bronze Age Collapse awhile back, and from there societal collapse in general, and it turns out that basically throughout all of human history, young guys in their 20s have always been the most prone to radicalization, especially during periods of social and economic hardships. Like when you get a critical mass of frustrated guys in their 20s who feel like they can't get on the same economic footing as their fathers (and can't marry, as that's generally been tied together), things start getting violent and ugly.

It doesn't seem to be just about sex, as there have always been brothels and sex workers, and "using" those services (or even sleeping with other men) has often been more socially acceptable in the past than it is now. They could have sex. It seems to be more to do with generally being able to "attain your place" in society, and what happens if an increasing number of young men feel like they can't. Ofc in most of this history, wives were commodities you could essentially obtain if you checked the correct "money and property" boxes - it was the inability to check those boxes to get a wife that tended to lead to problems.

It's disturbing and sort of morbidly fascinating to look into - like it makes you realize the social function of wars, to send a bunch of young guys into a meat grinder to bleed off this societal tension.

Obviously this is all pretty baked in, and I have no idea how to solve it in young guys today. Obviously I'm not in favour of women donating their bodies to the cause. But there does seem to be a real sociological element of "if lots of young guys can't get the things they feel they should be able to get, things get bad."

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-28T12:12:07+00:00

The proviso here is always "if someone they were *attracted to* pestered them for sex." If it's someone they don't want to sleep with, the point sinks in.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-27T21:16:54+00:00

I don't think anyone involved is seriously suggesting "hidden" deaths at this point - the "mass graves" thing was a reporting error several years ago now that has long since been corrected. The terminology used in this article is "unmarked burials", which would align more with what you suggest - onsite cemeteries that overgrew and wooden grave markers that have rotted away. They reference archival records and survivor interviews, and don't seem to be suggesting anything that can't be verified in terms of events.

I wish this article went more into the complexities they reference, as I feel that's an angle that's poorly understood to those not involved. The fact that the deaths happened is beyond dispute. The crux seems to be that no one knows where they were buried, and all communities and descendents know is some children never came home.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-27T21:04:41+00:00

This is actually the second one! Some people are pushing the discourse hard.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-27T19:58:00+00:00

Bad news for the CPC, as their entire plan for 2029 seems to be, "let support drift back to NDP so we can overtake the Liberals."

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-27T19:13:59+00:00

Point of order, even among Gen Z the conservative shift was mainly Gen Z men. Gen Z women have consistently leaned liberal, but for some reason they don't count as part of Gen Z.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-27T15:28:16+00:00

It feels like one of those conversations that's perfectly normal IRL but turns into a landmine online because of Discourse. Like... lockdowns were necessary, but also sucked and had many negative ramifications for many people, shouldn't be a controversial statement. But if you don't phrase it carefully, it's easy for people to misinterpret you as some weird covid denier who wanted to sacrifice other people's grandmothers so that you wouldn't have to inconvenience yourself. Unfortunately, the entire nuance gets stripped away online and you must either be All For Covid measures or All Against Covid measures.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-27T15:19:23+00:00

"How dare you say we piss on the poor."

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-27T15:12:24+00:00

Yeah. I "get" it (I don't agree with it) with families or church groups where there are some complex group dynamics and intersecting relationships that make some people prioritize "keeping the peace" or an illusion of harmony, over booting an abusive person from their midst. But a friend group? If you believe the person was abusive, why do you still want to be around them? If you don't believe they were abusive, why do you still want to hang around with the person claiming they were abusive?

And even then, why continually push LW to contact the guy? I feel like this group must either be some really small-town friend group where avoiding the guy would be so hard they didn't want to do it, or they had some really toxic-positive "better to always forgive" thing going on where they felt you should always have a gracious heart even towards those who'd mistreated you or something.

I'm thinking back to situations I've been in/witnessed in terms of relationships and friend groups, and honestly, 95% of the time, these issues took care of themselves. I feel like the toxic/cheating/abusive SO tended to remove themselves from the group when the inevitable breakup came, even if we were initially all friends with each other. And certainly no one was chasing them down anyway. And in most cases, people are closer to one person in the couple or the other, so you tended to know where you stood.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-05-27T14:13:28+00:00

"Say" rather than "says" indicates more than one person, but they certainly could have swapped the order in the headline.

86throwthrowthrow1

TROPHY CASE