Ask Lemmy

Quite a few. I grew up in a conservative, racist family. It took me a long time to unwind the problematic casual phrases I grew up with. I'm not proud of it, and I occasionally cringe looking backwards. I realize now the tremendous weight and damage those phrases could do. Now I just try to be better day by day, and to make sure I don't perpetuate those damaging habits in my own children.

I used to slip in to a bit where I was sarcastically a character that took on beliefs basically the exact opposite of my own. I would make sexist or lightly racist (stereotype) jokes that I didn't actually believe but thought were funny. The jokes were ofter at the expense of myself or people like me but involved bringing up other races, sexes, and ethnicities.

I made an effort to stop doing this for a couple reasons. The first being that idk if I'm really good or really bad at sarcasm but a lot of people just wouldn't get my joke and I was afraid people actually believed that was who I was.

Secondly, I had a kid. I realized that she parrots everything I say and do, and she wouldn't understand the layers of the joke and could potentially become what I was making fun of.

I listen to a lot of comedians in podcast and I envy their ability to slip in and out of bits with other comedians knowing they all get it, but for now I make an effort to end that bit.

I remember as a teen in the 90s in high school, doing a fake gay voice was considered funny and nobody thought twice about it. Even if the person wasn't actually targeting anyone LGBTQ+ specifically, just doing the voice seemed to insinuate the somebody was less than masculine. Like, Oh, the water isn't cold enough for you, let me repeat that request back in a gay voice to make fun of you.

I'm pretty sure if I even tried doing a fake gay voice at work now I would probably be shit-canned pretty quickly, which in a way goes to show how far society has come in not tolerating what would've just been crude humor in earlier times. I know the LGBTQ+ community has worked for decades to get to where they're at today, but it still feels kind of crazy how quickly society changed.

Depends on the situation. In the corporate world I watch everything I say. When alone or with friends, not very much.

Don't beat yourself up too much for the behaviours and humor of your past. Times change, people grow. Sometimes a behaviour sticks, and thats ok too. We are still human.

I stopped ironically wearing my Putin t-shirt.

"Rule of thumb" I quit using this one after learning that it referred to a rule where you could legally beat your wife with a switch no wider than your thumb.

"Getting gyped" Learned this one is about associating gypsies with getting screwed over, so people started saying they got gyped because something bad happened.

Stuff I thought was completely innocuous but turns out has really bad connotations, so I dropped them.

I've been trying to degender my language. I grew up saying "thank you (or excuse me, yes/no, etc) sir/ma'am" and then being in customer facing positions for years just absolutely cemented that in my mind to the point where it is an absolute knee jerk reaction to make assumptions about the gender of others. It's an awful habit and makes me cringe every time I do it. I try to either just avoid the gender identifier ("thank you.") which to my mind sounds impolite, or use gender neutral terms like "friend" which REALLY sound impolite. It's tough but I'm working on it! The real trouble is getting my brain to stop gendering others and as a quite elderly millenial who actually identifies as Agender it is an annoying and difficult task. I'm envious of younger folks who won't grow up with these kinds of ideas as a default.

Jokes built on racist stereotypes. Used to be just another part of my family's collection of jokes, but now I don't see the humor in those

I automatically reject any arguments based on the "human nature". We know jack shit about our nature.

I was a huge Taylor Swift fan until she knowingly started dating a racist, sexist dirtbag. Dating someone with such views means you excuse those views. I was and am not willing to financially support someone with those views.

I also used to fly a whole lot. Probably once or twice a month on average. I developed a bad conscious about it and just stopped. I allow myself to fly if I absolutely have to (has happened twice so far), but otherwise I only travel by train or bus. My vacation destinations have changed quite a bit, to say the least.

I'm happy for your realisation, OP!

For me it was homophobic and ableist slurs as general words for "bad". It's very common in my native society, so after I started learning more about social justice issues, it took a few years to wean myself off.

Also, looking back, I realise now that in middle school I was lowkey cruel to some classmates, manipulated them for my own amusement. I was never one to bully others, but I was often a bystander entertained by others being bullied. (Even though I was being bullied myself by the same people on other occasions. But I somehow never made that connection with their other victims, I guess my empathy wasn't fully developed back then. Or maybe it was a mental self-defence mechanism, idk.)

For starters I don't listen to the band The Mentors anymore. Also I quit watching gory videos long ago and recently quit watching anything that gets me emotionally charged. So much on the internet serves no constructive purpose, it just riles up emotions. We've all heard "you are what you eat", the same goes for what you put in your eyes and ears

As a child, I kind of was pretty greedy and "bullied" my father for most of the time trying to buy the cheaper variants of food or clothing. Now that I know how hard it is to earn money, I really, really feel ashamed of myself for doing that bullshit. I must've put a good amount of stress on my father. I will repay him for all his hard work for me when I get a good paying job in the future. Love you dad!

Calling everyone "man", "bro", "you guys"

Some children Songs I could never sing vor hear again, they make me cringe a lot (racism, sexism, ...)

Making/laughing at jokes surrounding events like 9/11 and the titanic. Out of morbid curiosity, I know far too much about either of them now, they are no longer statistics, and contemplating both genuinely turns my stomach.

There is at least one pretty graphic recording of a phone call from a 9/11 victim trapped on the higher floors, the operator kept trying to reassure her, and it was obvious she knew they were lying. I can't anymore. I've deliberately traumatized myself listening to it, and I've lost my taste for that shit.

But, you know. "If we don't crack jokes, it gets too heavy." Ha-ha, holocaust /s

When I was in middle school a friend of mine used to dress up and call herself a gypsy. Due to where we live, we didn't know that word was tied to a real life culture. We thought it meant fantasy-like hippies.

Years later I found out the actual meaning behind it and freaked out. Sadly I wasn't still in contact with her by that time, or I would've told her. Though her parents would've complained about it...