Being Discussed
Conversations about the writing people are reading on The WilderNet.
Recent conversations
- Just how are we supposed to do this "Life" thing?
On “I'm angry. You should be too.”: At almost 70, perhaps it's time I figured out just what I'm supposed to be doing here. Please help.
Thank you. - This is what I’m here for
On “Ditch the Orc, Adopt the Ogre!”: A detailed post describing the origins of Tolkien’s orcs and contrast to ogres.
I think orcs have a compelling place still though over ogres. Ogres can be intelligent and crafty. Orcs are dumb bludgeons.
I think… - Thank you for saying it
On “Classical statues were not painted horribly”: I’ve seen these reconstructions of what these statues look like painted before. They have always struck me as ugly. There’s no way they took meticulously sculpted pieces and painted them with what looks like the basic 8…
- Unusually honest
On “Incelsexuality”: I have never read something like this before. This list…
1. I’m socially and sexually rejected because I’m weird.
2. Normie girls are sexually unavailable to me.
3. But conversely, maybe weird girls could be sexually… - Do we infantilize young adults with language?
On “Girl Math, Girl Dinner, Girl Music: The Dumbification of Female Language Use Online”: Phrases like "girl math" and "girl dinner" are funny but it also seems to be a symptom of how society increasingly treats young adults like children.
I remember being in my late teens and wanting to be able to make… - Why are teenagers (and adults) so intrigued by the occult, witchcraft and satanism?
On “The Bargain I Didn’t Know I Made”: I never read the book in the original post, but I did read a ton of witchy, occult novels geared towards young adults in my teen years. I was especially obsessed with Anne Rice (who was definitely meant for adults).
I… - Has the internet converged on 3-6 ideas?
On “The Self-Contained Noticing Apparatus”: The internet only talks about like 6 things these days. These topics seem to consist solely of: dating, relationships, sex, gender roles, parenting and the random wild card culture war issue of the day. Yes, a lot of…
- Hygiene olympics are a whole online culture war of their own
On “Do any of us know how to adult?”: People are very competitive about how hygienic they are online. I think of myself as being a relatively clean person without being obsessive about it. My house is presentable but lived in, and if someone comes over…
- Do people still go to movies anymore?
On “Review - Project Hail Mary”: I saw Project Hail Mary a few months ago with a whole group of aging Millennials. I include myself in that description. Not to be too vain, but I think I was the youngest in the gang.
It seemed like when I was a kid… - Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?*
On “Why Can't Women Just Be Evil?”: I feel like in recent years we have gotten very afraid of calling people evil. In almost every crime, there is a tendency to search for a broader explanation. My objection to this is so often it seems like we are…
- A lot of feel good family movies require major suspension of disbelief
On “Elizabeth James is the Villain in The Parent Trap”: Even as a kid I wondered why the parents just picked one infant twin and separated them by thousands of miles. Obviously, both parents are the asshole in this situation.
Anyway, RIP Natasha Richardson. - When does fantasy cross the line into something dangerous?
On “Sometimes, Men Are the Problem”: Growing up in the 90s, a major cultural mantra is "if it doesn't affect you, why do you care?"
In general, I think that is great to live by. I don't have the time or energy to be poking my nose in people's business… - It's pretty messed up that this woman was assumed to be a prostitute
On “The Kiss of Death: How Annie Chapman Became Jack the Ripper’s Second Victim”: It sounds like Annie Chapman was a bit of a hot mess herself, but wow, what a tragic life and a truly horrific end.
What is it about true crime stories, especially when they target women, that make them so… - Are pumpkin spice lattes cringe?
On “Starbucks’ Fall Menu is a Sign of the Apocalypse”: The author's comment on being embarrassed to enjoy pumpkin spice lattes really resonated. It's interesting how much our preferences and choices can be shaped by fear of being judged as basic or uncool. When I was in my…
- Not relevant at all but...
On “Downton Abbey Feminism”: Spoilers:
I hate Downton Abbey for killing off both Sybil and Matthew in the same season in nearly identical circumstances. I kept watching hoping that it would improve but it just kept going downhill. - Health changes impact friendships
On “Losing Friendships While Losing Weight”: I have heard or read about this multiple times that people who have lost a lot of weight often lose a lot of friends.
This really doesn't surprise me that much.
When I started dealing with a major chronic illness in… - Boomer parents are very mixed when it comes to how much they help their children
On “The Boomer Family Contract: I Owe You Nothing, You Owe Me Everything”: I get the sentiment of the article but it seems like my peers (Millennials) have a very mixed experience with how much help they get from their parents. Some of them are left out in the cold starting from the moment…
- Dear John letters, military culture, and infidelity
On “Apparently, My Son Has a New Bedroom”: I'm not in the military and I don't know many people who have been in the military. But it seems like everything I read about military involves someone cheating at some point. Yet, this is also a demographic that seems…
- Overlapping generations
On “My Mom Told Me She Was Pregnant. Five Hours Later I Had Katie.”: Having a baby right after your mom tells you she is pregnant with your 9th sibling at age 37 must be a very surreal experience.
This sort of thing must have happened a lot more frequently back when people married… - Big fan
On “Malfoid: An Analysis”: Love this trend. What do you all think of it?
- Non-toxic pain relief
On “DMSO Master Class: How to Actually Use the Bottle on Your Shelf”: DMSO helpful for pain. Only side effect is smelling like garlic. I use peppermint oil to mask smell.
- Divine timing?
On “If God Gets Angry, Does He Have an Adrenal Gland and a Gut Microbiome?”: This is a funny coincidence as I'm almost done writing a similar article! Maybe God is just some guy in a lab coat who likes toying with us. 😄
- I do something like this every monday night
On “Our year of Saturday dinners”: I have a couple friends over for dinner almost every Monday. We trade off who makes the main course. It is a big commitment and we aren't able to do it every week. But it is so worth it to establish friends that you see…
- this book is so weird but hilarious
On “Something a bit out of the ordinary: ‘Convenience Store Woman’ by Sayaka Murata”: I highly recommend listening to the audiobook, specifically.
- Trad wives are not new!
On “So Much Less”: For those who don't know, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin were sisters who at 15 and 17 wrote a book called So Much More. The book is about how young women should not go to college, pursue career goals, and should focus…
- Am I dumb?
On “Are You Really Your Body?”: I don’t understand what this is saying. The hypotheticals are absurd. I can’t even conceptualize what it would be like to have my head transplanted onto a different body. Like how could that even work? Hasn’t my brain…
- I'm so glad I came of age before everyone had smart phones
On “How Fun Became Dystopian”: I was very self-conscious as a kid and young adult and I can't imagine coming of age knowing that any embarrassing moment could be turned into a social media moment.
Even now when I go to the gym it weirds me out when… - It's not just the malls that are dying...
On “Dead Mall Map”: A couple years ago I went to a Macy's at the local mall. I was looking for a professional outfit to wear to an interview.
It was so striking. Nothing was organized and it felt like a TJ Maxx. There were random racks… - How does language shape the way a technology is adopted and used?
On “Are We Repeating the Ottomans' Blind Spot?”: How does language shape the way a technology is adopted and used? If AI tools are mostly developed around English will language become a barrier to technological progress for some cultures?
On the other hand, Chinese… - Millennials police each other
On “Raging for the Machine”: This is a cross post from my substack:
As a Millennial this doesn’t shock me at all. My generation is constantly policing each other for “problematic” language or ideas.
Once a friend of mine corrected me for using… - My 20s sucked
On “Getting Old Is Not That Bad and Fearing It is Dumb”: And they sucked even more because I was watching tv shows like How I Met Your Mother and Gossip Girl that portrayed your 20s as being amazing. (Don't judge my tv preferences 😂 )
But my 20s were very intense because I… - some flaws with this genre of cultural criticism
On ““Strong Women” are the Weakest Men”: The major flaw with this genre of culture criticism is it places the blame of women not settling down or marrying solely on women, without any recognition that in order for a marriage to happen, there needs to be an…
- some thoughts on this very weird internet niche of stay at home daughter bloggers
On “The Founders of the Stay-At-Home Daughter Movement Apologized. Now What?”: In college, I was fascinated and a bit repulsed by the stay-at-home-daughter movement. I came from a very liberal, secular, mainstream background, so it was more of a curiosity for me, not something that affected my…
- Men suck
On “Ladies, this isn’t going to age well.”: That’s the vibe I have often gotten from women. I feel kind like the societal villain sometimes. When I talk about it with women, they often say something to the effect of “Men do suck. Oh, not you, but most other men”…
- Hoovers Contributions Outside of White House
On “The Emergence of the Great Humanitarian (U.S. National Park Service)”: It’s interesting to read about how renowned Hoover was globally after WWI. In American culture, I think he’s widely panned as a president who failed to contain the Great Depression and little is acknowledged about his…
- Style conflicts
On “CAVALIER POETS”: Differences in styles of art between factions in a civil war is an interesting topic. There are enough cultural similarities between the two groups that they are pulling from similar traditions, so the differences…
- Irish pennant
On “"Irish Pennants" - some thoughts on being offended”: I came across this word in a discussion on substack and was curious about its origins
- Ain’t got no space for that
On “You Are No Longer Invited to Dinner”: We need to pump these numbers back up.
I don’t have space to invite people over in my tiny apartment. It makes me very sad.
I tried to improve the card playing culture in the Midwest by attending a weekly cribbage… - Why do artistic communities always have a lot of interesting drama?
On “The Book Community is Toxic”: I think it is because making a comfortable living as an artist is extremely difficult so the competition is going to be tough.
Writing is one of those artistic mediums --like music -- where in theory someone could… - AI and Software Engineering
On “"I was forced to use AI until the day I was laid off." Copywriters reveal how AI has decimated their industry”: I work in a field probably among the most immediately affected by AI: software engineering. My job is significantly different than it was a few years ago.
I know many people I work with dislike the changes. I’m not… - Twilight
On “Won’t Somebody Think of the Predators?”: I'm currently rewatching the Twilight Saga, which is a masterpiece btw. Robert Pattinson is actually a pretty good actor and I am excited to see him in Primetime. He takes on some really weird roles. He was also…
- GLP-1s
On “Your Eating Disorder is Sooo Cliché”: My thought when reading this was that I can’t think of anyone I know who had an obvious eating disorder in some time and wondered if it affects younger people more often.
But then it came to mind the shocking… - This article is wrong.
On “Top 10 Awkward Office episodes”: The most awkward office episode is Scott's Tots.
Summary: Michael promises a bunch of underprivileged kids when they are 8 that he is going to pay for all of their college tuition after they graduate high school. He… - why do men leave their wives right after she has a baby?
On “My husband left me 6 weeks postpartum and all I got was this pretty cool baby”: so this is a pretty horrific story.
What makes men leave their wives right after a baby? Seems like the relationship is something you should figure out before you get someone pregnant.
Another complicating factor is… - Can’t relate
On “Remember getting stuck?”: Debugging a call stack like that almost always meant understanding some library code that you used wrong due lack of documentation and stepping through the debugger to figure it out. It usually isn’t about system design…
- Partyin', partyin' yeah!
On “How To . . . Build A Community.”: Now that I've gotten Rebecca Black's song "Friday" out of my system, I want to talk about how much I love parties.
I love having people over for dinner, going to other people's houses, and just hanging out with a… - Last post?
On “Ode to Scissors”: Sad this seems to be the most recent post on this site.
I was curious to see more since this post was from 2023, early ChatGPT.
The sentiment towards using AI with art has shifted significantly. I don’t see many… - My most unpopular opinion is about Taylor Swift
On “Taylor Swift’s Shrinking World”: This might be sacrilegious for a millennial woman the same age as Taylor Swift, but I have always struggled to understand why she has such a devoted following. Her music is fine, but sonically it always seems to be…
- this person's blog is delightful
On “Lorna Alkana”: I highly recommend a browse. So many strange, quirky art projects to peruse.
- worth reading the screenshots because they are hilarious
On “I Pretended to be a British Teenage Boy on Reddit for Three Years: Part 1”: I love a good reddit troll. This one has a strong commitment to using british slang like "minge" and "wanker." Hard to beat this.