Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid - welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful youā€™ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cutā€™nā€™paste it into its own post ā€” thereā€™s no quota for posting and the bar really isnā€™t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned so many ā€œesotericā€ right wing freaks, but thereā€™s no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iā€™m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged ā€œculture criticsā€ who write about everything but understand nothing. Iā€™m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyā€™re inescapable at this point, yet I donā€™t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnā€™t be surgeons because they didnā€™t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canā€™t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard. Nearly forgot to put this up, whoops)

  • ivyastrix@awful.systemsEnglish
    10Ā·
    7 days ago

    The waterboarding thing was introduced by Vibecampā€™s head of safety at other events, and a lot of the pdku programming seems to be in the area of light bdsm / boundary pushing. imo they work from some base general formula and try and differentiate / create intake funnels for other events.

    • YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systemsEnglish
      7Ā·
      6 days ago

      The fact that itā€™s referred to as a potluck is also interesting because it suggests that participants also had to come up with their own torture method to inflict. I imagine ā€œspend twenty minutes with the sort of person who participates in a torture potluckā€ was the equivalent of potato salad.

      • nfultz@awful.systemsEnglish
        6Ā·
        5 days ago

        Vice has a writeup - https://archive.is/ooVju - more of a bring-your-own-taser kind of thing I guess

        The tortures varied wildly in nature, and were too numerous to list in full, but several stuck out for me: There was someone pinning clothespins to partygoersā€™ cheeks; a man called SirLemmings used some herbal powder to strip you of your sense of sweetness, then made you eat an Oreo to test the result; Avalon Warren, an actress resembling Lola Bunny sprung to life, made partygoers make the ahegao hentai face, and carried a fly zapper; other electric torments were also popularā€”several people carried tasers, and someone had an electric baton that transferred shocks between participants; someone elseā€™s bit was asking you to yell compliments for Donald Trump, which was perhaps the most polarizing (SirLemmings told me that when he declared the president was an excellent comedian, he drew glares); yet another was writing unknown directives onto othersā€™ foreheads. My friend Jahnik had ā€œpls give me a smooch <3ā€ penned on his, and afterward, received kisses throughout the night. Meanwhile all I got was ā€œCTRL-ALT-Z,ā€ making me wonder if they wanted to undo me from reality.

        As for my torture? I was merely a journalist. A lazy choice, I felt, but for some it was the most terrifying of the bunch. One girl even walked away when I told her; before, sheā€™d been nothing but smiles.

        Another resident teacher was political satirist YouTuber JREG, real name Greg Guevara, who recently published a polemical video calling for Total Clanker Death, or the eradication of all would-be sentient machines.

        youtube faves are implicated!?

        • CinnasVerses@awful.systemsEnglish
          1Ā·
          1 day ago

          I would not recommend consuming strange powders from these people. Hazing with electricity goes back to club initiations in the 1920s or so.

    • CinnasVerses@awful.systemsEnglish
      6Ā·
      6 days ago

      Introduced by the head of safety (!)

      At least they accept the principle that ā€œrelationships across a power differentialā€ can put the weaker party in a difficult position. They donā€™t have a rule against this, or a requirement to disclose, but they accept the principle.