this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
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Can any late teen-early 20s armchair philosophers once-over this for me?
I have a theory. Never before on the internet (going on 30 years of it) have I seen so many curses used but not fully spelled out ('f*ck' for example).
I believe the change has to do with social media and specifically short-form video apps (Tiktok, IG Reels, Youtube Shorts) - not all of which I am familiar with, but I know at least YT and I believe TT does as well. When curse words or words like rape and murder are used in text (or 'subtitle' text on screen) the video reach can be penalized in some way. I assume it's similar in comments.
So you have a ton of the younger generation consuming hours each day of censored curse words, and in their mind it becomes just what you're supposed to do, socially. They end up doing it with each other over text, and consequently in comments. I have a younger co-worker who will gladly say "F*ck that dude hes a b*tch" in group chat, and when I asked him why he doesn't just say the words he's using, he said "I just don't like to curse." Which makes no sense to me, as it's the same word and intent.
I know some Lemmy instances will remove words, but generally only 'bitch' and derogatory slur words.
So I hypothesise it's simply unexamined social conditioning, where they see their peers doing it so they do it too, never questioning why.
Makes sense. It's the USAtion of the world. Their puritanism is spreading. Wouldn't surprise me if people started censoring themselves when saying "moist", but getting excited when talking about guns, wars, and bombing the middle east.
Anti Commercial-AI license
I’m sure that factors in, but people censoring their curse words online has been going on for decades, as has the refrain “you can curse on the Internet.“
[Grandpa Simpsons voice] Back in my day, we used to say "pr0n" instead of "porn" to avoid keyword spotters, and saying it that way just got to be a habit. Nowadays e.g. twitch comments auto-mods have block lists. I think kids just do the same thing.
What's funny is when you're watching something like an AI summary of a movie on youtube, it'll use euphemisms like "self-delete" instead of "suicide" and "naughty place" instead of "brothel" to avoid the algorithm penalties you mention.
That's true, there is the Scunthorpe problem. I guess we're just doing another 20 year cycle like we have for all of civilization. If someone centuries in the future finds this comment chain, please name the solution to your 20 year repeating fractal math problem something like the CockSyn Solution. I want to be like Shadow from American Gods. Or more accurately like Pythagoras with his stealing murder cult.
Its happening with "killing" or "dead" being subbed for unalive too. I don't inherently think its bad, just culture moving forward and changing how it always has. "Its simply unexamined social conditioning where they see their peers do it so they do it too never questioning why" Thats just society, friend. Why does anybody do anything?
I'm 36 and don't understand plenty of young people's shit now, but that doesn't inherently make it scary or bad. I don't really have a point here I guess, except that we should strive to not be the old men who yell at clouds about "those damn kids." Life and time marches on, things change, and thats fine. 🤷
Unalive etc came about as a way to skirt TOS violations and demonitisation.
I'm aware, but it's made its way into peoples vocabularies IRL as well.
There are other things that get self-censored due to filters. The two that I'm thinking of are "suicide" and "murder" (which a lot of people reword as "unalived" or "committing game over").
Another one that I saw was a history summary channel I watch on YouTube couldn't get monetized because they kept mentioning Hitler (in a video about the end of WW2) so they had to keep saying "the toothbrush moustache having Austrian man" to get around the censor.
As another poster said, we used words like pr0n, and one that I personally have never used either of that replaces the "er" ending of a word with "a."
Hell, half of the time we used l33tsp33k was to avoid using specific words.
This is not a new thing.
I’ve never had the experience of seeing young people refrain from using curse words. It’s usually as people grow up they see it as an immature way to communicate. I personally use them a lot, but in formal settings I certainly don’t. Some people simply don’t turn the switch on and off and elect not to use them so much. I don’t think that’s such a bad thing even if it’s not how I operate. It’s up to each of us how we want to communicate, so frankly, I just don’t concern myself with it.
As for people self censoring online, I have seen that since my old messageboard days when I was a kid. “You can curse on the Internet“ is a pretty old meme. Literally decades.
People who see it as an immature way to communicate won't use the words at all. People who are actually immature despite growing up will use the word and think it makes a difference if they put an asterisk in there instead of spelling it out.
spoiler
sdfsafI am not judging people for using profanity, I am judging people for thinking fuck vs f*ck makes a difference.
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sdfsaf