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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2523 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 2, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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"J.D. Vance" or "JD Vance"? We all know about preferred pronouns, but should a person be able to pick his preferred punctuation? The Wall Street Journal discusses the issue.

See also "Donald Trump, Jr.", vs. "Donald Trump Jr.".

According to most standards, yes. Famously a few music artists would deliberately choose something different and unintuitive including capitalization to see if the outlet cared or not.

Just call him by his Christian name: James David Vance Bowman.

Technically his Christian name is James Donald Bowman.

I'd love to see him get trolled on the debate stage about that.

See also Alberta Premier Marlaina Smith bans kids from going by their preferred name:

“Demanding everyone around you call you by a new name one day out of the blue is not a viable option,” said Marlaina Smith, who goes by Danielle.

“We have to respect the given and family names our ancestors carried for generations,” added Premier Kolodnicki.

As an aside, it's interesting how trying to dictate your own nickname is widely considered cringe, whether it be for laymen or celebrities.

See for example, Kevin Durant getting mocked for going with "The Servant" instead of fan nicknames such as "Durantula" or "the Slim Reaper." Of course, online NBA fans quickly turned this into "The Serpent" for him ssslithering into Golden State by way of The Hardest Road. I wonder if there's a large segment of children and teens out there who legitimately think his nickname was "The Serpent" all along.

Vance had to choose his own identity when the institution of patriarchy broke down in his family and failed to give him one. I don’t think it’s cringe, given his life story as portrayed in Hillbilly Elegy.

I can think of two other circumstances treated somewhat seriously by society, beyond legal name changes and brides taking their husbands’ names.

A story trope I heard about, growing up as a GenX kid in America, was how generic Noble Savages would rename themselves following their Trial Of Manhood. I have never heard nor researched this tradition’s provenance in any particular tribe or people, but it was played straight in the Star Trek TOS novel Uhura’s Song.

Then I discovered the Internet and chose a handle or two. This one dates back to finding out My Little Pony had the answers for my autism-based lack of relational instincts.

I don't understand MLP stuff, it is my extreme outgroup, like furries. Is it just being weird for the sake of being weird? Especially strange given the sexualization of kids cartoon ponies.

It’s not for the sake of being weird, it’s in spite of.

Generations X and Y grew up watching quality fantasy adventure comedy ensemble cartoon shows, often from Disney with the exception of Sonic the Hedgehog: Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Duck Tales, Darkwing Duck, Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers, Tale Spin, Goof Troop, The Mighty Ducks, and more. The fandoms of these shows endure because of the care taken with the storytelling and the high production quality. (They also tended to be incubators of furries.)

In 2010, such shows had basically gone extinct. There was the oddball Adventure Time and the “combining robot” adventure show Sym-Bionic Titan, and little else. Then The Hub channel from Hasbro debuted with My Little Pony, and fans of shows like Tale Spin or Sonic the Hedgehog recognized a return to the classic form: a quality fantasy adventure comedy ensemble cartoon show. It was not just fun, it was meaty in how enjoyable it was. Storytelling was back. It was written so parents could watch with their kids and not be secretly wishing to turn it off.

The basic premise is that a top student (nerdy, autism-coded) in an elite prep school gets sent by her mentor to a small Midwestern town to make friends with the local small business women who are vendors for the mentor’s big event: a farmer, an animal caretaker/trainer, a party planner, a dressmaker, and a crop-duster/cloud-seeder who dreams of flying with the national airshow team. They rescue the mentor when her estranged sister kidnaps her. The mentor assigns the student to learn sociology there in the town with her new friends.

Except they’re all technicolor horses (unicorns, pegasi, and “earth ponies”) in a quasi-feudal fantasy realm, the mentor is the princess alicorn (winged unicorn) who raises the sun each day, and 1/3 of the population has reality-warping magic.

And both GenX and the Millennials adored it.

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I spent a fair bit of time in groups ostensibly proximal to the horse show, and never understood the appeal either. Despite absorbing large chunks of the fandom osmotically. Once I started directly interacting with people that had been into it (thanks, VRChat) did I start to see it as part of a broader constellation of "moe shit." If someone was into K-On!, Azumanga Daioh or Dragon Maid, there was a much higher than average chance they had also been into MLP at some point. I don't get moe either. The only useful observation I can provide is that it seems like you either get it, or you don't.

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It never even began for people who go by their middle name.

What about when you're quoting someone who says "Jay Dee Vance"?

You say "James David Bowman."

“Full Metal Alchemist!”

J[ames] D[avid] Vance

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