8mo ago

Pronouns

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One of john green's tiny, ridiculous problems is that he has an ego that requires him to share his thoughts via tweets to fix the world.
His thoughts are like mine, fairly irrelevant, reprehensible to some and an echo chamber to others. At least I have the modesty and humbleness to know that my thoughts belong in the comments section of an unknown social media platform where it will be read by, at most, 20 people.
- Someone sharing their thoughts on the platform literally made so people can easily share their thoughts? Absolutely insane thing for John to do, you're right.
- So you're saying calling people by their preferred pronouns is a great difficulty for you?
  
  I call people by their preferred pronouns because this is something that's completely inconsequential and meaningless to me. But the same kind of argument can be made against you: "So you're saying taking "no" for an answer is a great difficulty for you?"
  If I traveled to some country where a particular religion - let's call it X - was the most common, and in X people were ascribed different pronouns based on some rules or rituals, I would call them by their preferred pronouns because as an atheist and moral anti-realist that's just not something important to me. But if a Christian felt uncomfortable doing so because it goes against their religion their position is just as valid - arguably it's more valid since in this example the people from X are asking the Christian to change their vocabulary, while the Christian isn't asking anything of the people from X.
  
  Some Christians feel uncomfortable treating people of another skin color as equal to them and say it's because of their religion. I don't really give a shit if you think your magic sky god gives you license to be rude.
  
  You're moving the goalpost as treating other races as equals and using different pronouns are not the same thing, but again the argument can be turned against you: Why are you rude towards Christians simply because they prefer to use a different pronoun when referring to you? Is taking "no" for an answer such a great difficulty?
  
  To be fair, you started moving the goalposts by invoking special privilege/motivation for misaddressing people.
  But to answer why I would be rude to christians for misnaming me, is because in my culture it is rude to misname people, and even more so when they've offered a good natured correction.
  If you say you're William, and I call you Shirley, would you defend my right to call you Shirley?
  And why would it be different if The Almighty Bob said to surely call you Shirley?
  
  Rude to Christians? They're the ones who are saying their religion tells them that they can't call other people what those people want to be called. That is the rude thing. How would you like it if I used a pronoun for you that was not the one you went by? You'd probably think it was rude. How about if I said it was against my religion to call you by the pronoun that fits your gender? You'd probably still think it was rude.
  And it would not be rude to tell them off for doing so.
  That said, in my experience, most trans and nonbinary people are incredibly patient with people like you who refuse to use their pronouns even though you're being extremely rude to them.
  
  First, I would ask that 'Christian' why they felt the need to travel to a country they felt uncomfortable using the local language in.
  Also, in this scenario they would be asking for something from the people of X: The right to not use their language in their land.
  I know the Christians near me have specific views on when other people should speak their language when they're on their land.
  
  I didn't give my thoughts on the matter, since it's irrelevant.
  
  If that’s so, then your comments here are worse than irrelevant. I don’t know who the linked person is, but this was a very weird hole you dug for yourself.
  
  He's a novelist who is active on Twitter and I have no idea why this person has such a hate boner for him.
  
  He's a popular author for young adults. Wrote the fault in our stars which was made into a massive movie. Seems like a great guy.
  
  What a very deep pit I've found myself in. So deep. And dark. How will I ever find my way back from this anonymous comment debacle?
- He's building hospitals/maternity wards in Sierra Leone, fighting healthcare companies to reduce the cost of life-saving medications, and creating free educational content as some of his side projects while also being a writer and consistent YouTuber. He's doing far more than 'sharing his thoughts via tweets to fix the world'. He's doing the work too.
  What you're projecting doesn't come across as 'modesty and humbleness'. Feels more like jealousy and bitterness.
  
  I know what he's done because I've followed his instructional video channels for years. You know, where he teaches stuff, not just ridicules groups he doesn't agree with.
  
  Oh, you're upset because you're feeling called out, not because you don't understand. Sorry to hear that this non-problem is the hill you've chosen the die on.
  
  Thanks for the apology.
- Goodbye, one month old account that had nothing to say in the past week until John Green suggested that refusing to use someone’s pronouns is a stupid hill to die on 👋😊
  
  buhbye.
- You could also tweet your opinions and it would only be seen by 20 people
  
  Buuuuurn.
- Sounds like you're just jealous that John Greene has more people that care about him than you do.
  But don't count yourself short, the votes on this comment of yours suggest more than 20 people read your comment!
  
  Super jealous. So very jelly.
- John Green actually has a large following. You have no one who cares what you say.
  
  Buuurn.
- So who in your opinion has the right to post to twitter?
  
  I didn't speak about anyone's rights. Just about egos and the need to share ridicule.
  
  According to you he stepped out of line for having the audacity to post his thoughts on a platform made for posting thoughts. The truth is it's not his ego that you have an issue with it's that one topic.
  
  Thank you for the keyboard psychology, it's enlightening. You may, however, need to go back to school for some fine tuning or maybe just wipe the dust off of your magic 8 ball, however.
  It's his small-minded ridicule on a global platform that I was making comment about. I don't have an opinion on his chosen topic as it doesn't effect me in any way.
  
  Uh-huh. You clearly have some emotional beef with either John or the topic. Since twitter is made for anyone to share their random thoughts there is nothing out of line or arrogant of him using the platform for it's intended purpose. So we can either accept that you are not bright enough to know what twitter is or we can very reasonably assume that what's really got you worked up is you don't like people standing up for trans people...or you have that secret beef with John. You want to frame ridiculing bigots as "small minded". That's also telling about you. You do have an opinion on the topic. That's what caught your eye and compelled you to make your nonsense comments.
  
  Man, you're terrible at this whole psychological workup stuff.
  
  You are terrible at expressing what your real issue with John's post was.
  
  His small-minded ridicule and his ego in thinking that he needed to share it with the world.
  
  What is small minded about speaking out against bigots? How is it egotistical to post to the world on a platform made to post to the world? You want to attribute those negative labels to John for some reason. Twitter was made for doing exactly what he did so that action isn't what makes him egotistical in your mind. None of what you are saying makes sense... Unless we add the puzzle piece that you don't want people advocating for treating trans people decently.
  
  If you can't see a difference between the constructive, informational, thoughtful and educational content he provides in his videos and "please trade lives with me so that I can have your tiny, ridiculous problems", then you're his target audience that his tweet was intended for.
  He could have said anything that added to a constructive point in a discussion. Instead, he just shit on some nameless group of people that he disagrees with.
- And yet you're still posting. If you posted on Twitter, no one would give a shit. That's because people like him and find value in what he has to say. And he's trying to help people in that tweet.
  If you think you're posts are so valueless, couldn't you just take your own advice and shut the fuck up?
  
  I could but then I wouldn't benefit from all this constructive criticism and life pro tips.
- This almost reads like an ironic shitpost
  Almost
  
  I love italics.
  Love
- I like how you realized you had to hedge at the end to not look like a ridiculous hypocrite. "What I'm doing here is totally different because my audience is smaller." You can just delete the comment if you find yourself backed into a corner like that. It's sunk cost fallacy to go ahead with posting it.
  
  Thanks for the enlightened pro-tip.
- That's sad. I hope you gain the courage to speak your truth openly someday
  
  Thanks for the kind thoughts. It means a lot.

478 comments