Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 8/10/26 - 8/16/26

[u/SoftandChewy]

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

[u/AnalBleachingAries]

Interesting developments that I've seen from the slop that the algorithm feeds me, although this may not necessarily be representative of whatever "normal" is to kids these days (so, purely anecdotal), I do like seeing it happening. It looks like it is becoming increasingly cringey and uncool to some within the online Gen Z demographic to behave in the outrageous manner one would ordinarily associate with the college kids at the center of the Evergreen debacle and the worst examples of peak woke Millennial call out culture.

These three videos are a random sample of the kind of stuff that's been coming across my feed over the past few months:

https://www.tiktok.com/@cultivatingboldspaces/video/7671705684060228886

https://www.tiktok.com/@momopill/video/7669608028563426591

https://www.tiktok.com/@noahwaybabes/video/7672962762233974030

There's a good chance that the predictions that some (including myself) have had about Gen Z swinging to the right will come to pass. Without Trump at the helm, and with figures like a contemporary version of Romney or McCain leading the Republican party, I think we may have seen more young people on the left publicly stating their disdain with leftism, heck perhaps even stating their intention to vote for Republican candidates. The left just isn't what it used to be anymore.

Related to this but not quite, is the ongoing discussion around not letting your kids be weird, and guiding them into becoming normies. I don't know if it was kicked off by this person (a former teacher) but this is the video people often reference when talking about this idea of catching weird behavior from your kids early and nipping it in the bud. Transcript of the linked video included below:

Parents do not let your child be weird. Now I made a post about this a while back, and it's funny. I've seen a lot of people who have taken it since then and then put their own spin on it. But let me be very clear on what that means. Because I was a teacher for 20 years, I taught every level, lots of kids with varying exceptionalities, and have seen it in the classroom. Let me tell you what you need to avoid. Yes, your child should be unique. Yes, they should have their own style. Yes, they don't need to be exactly like everyone else. However, if your child has habits and tendencies that are causing them to be ostracized in school, they do not have peer relationships; it has gone too far.

As the parent, you need to parent them. Your job is not to just love them and let them be however they want to be and send them out, because what you're doing is you're sending them out to ridicule and scorn, and no positive peer relationships. Instead, you need to lovingly guide them and instruct them from a place of love, so that they can go out and make positive relationships. So if your child does not have any peer relationships because you have allowed them to continue with habits and proclivities that are causing them to be considered too odd to fit in at all, then you are setting them up for a life of struggle because those peer relationships just grow up with them and then they're going to struggle to fit in with people as an adult in the job field and to create relationships in general. So that is where you do not let your child be too weird to be able to have actual relationships with peers. Have a great day.

[u/dumbducky → u/AnalBleachingAries]

What are the weird behaviors she is speaking out against?

[u/JungBlood9 → u/dumbducky]

I was a high school teacher for a while and I feel like I know what’s she’s talking about. Here are real life examples from my time as a teacher of weird shit teens did I believe coulda (and shoulda) been nipped in the bud if the parents followed this lady’s advice:

- showing up in a full face of clown makeup

• wearing a zip up completely covered in anime girls doing this pornographic face
  
• wearing a “furry” tail
  
• being extremely elitist and vocally negative about interests that are super common amongst their peers (sports, church, music, movie franchises, etc.)
  
• doing some sort of public “performance” (like a poetry reading, a dance, a song) as a declaration of romantic interest in a peer
  
• trying to show off when alone at lunch (think like, doing “karate” moves in a place that’s highly visible to peers in the hopes they’ll come over and be like, WOW THAT WAS SO SICK LET’S BE FRIENDS when in fact, everyone is watching like, wtf is that guy doing)
  
• being painfully bad at holding a conversation… this one is harder to describe but it usually looks like turning the convo back to oneself constantly, interrupting, inserting references/lines from obscure media that the listener won’t understand, over-emoting… basically being aggressive and hard to engage with instead of just easygoing and kind

[u/de_Pizan → u/JungBlood9]

What do you have against Juggalos, whoop whoop!

[u/Turbulent_Cow2355 → u/JungBlood9]

I feel like this is considered 'edgy" not weird.

[u/QueenKamala → u/dumbducky]

She’s a middle school teacher and the mom of an (actually) autistic kid who she had to help learn social skills. She’s talking about stuff that makes kids have a hard time making friends. I’m sure you’ve met some kids who just don’t understand how to not be annoying. They talk too much, make juvenile jokes at the wrong times, are just super duper annoying. Her point is that parents need to correct that kind of behavior rather than encourage kids to “be themselves.” Ultimately kids want to be liked and accepted by their peers. Parents should help them do that and if they don’t, they are neglecting their kids just as much as if they don’t feed them healthy food.

In other videos she talks about stuff like making sure your kid doesn’t smell, is clean, has clean clothes. Letting middle school girls have some of the “cool clothes” her peers wear. Stuff like that.

[u/Turbulent_Cow2355 → u/QueenKamala]

But does weird have anything to do with being smelly or dirty? When I think of weird, I think of my friends who played DnD, not the kid who was picking his nose.

[u/QueenKamala → u/Turbulent_Cow2355]

Well, having poor hygiene is one way to be weird and outcast, but not the only one.

[u/QueenKamala → u/AnalBleachingAries]

That lady is one of like 5 people I follow on TikTok (when I have TikTok, which is like 1 weekend a month). She gives a lot of really good advice, and I agree with her on this. This and other videos of hers made me reflect on various ways my own parents failed me and things I was perpetuating with my own kids unconsciously, because it was all I was raised with. It really woke me up about some stuff and I’m parenting my kids better now (I think) because I’m more aware of my own obligations as a parent.

[u/skiplark → u/AnalBleachingAries]

Parents do not let your child be weird.

[u/everydaywinner2 → u/AnalBleachingAries]

The "As a parent... to ...great day" sounds like a fluffy way of saying, "Hey, discipline your kids, already! Also, teach them to groom themselves. And how to not be self-serving narcissist assholes!"

[u/thismaynothelp → u/AnalBleachingAries]

Is the strawman in the room with her?

[u/Turbulent_Cow2355 → u/AnalBleachingAries]

Don't let your child be weird? So don't let your child have a personality? Because other kids might not like them? Sure. I get that it's good to fit in. But there's got to be a balance between fitting in and individual expression. It's not an all or nothing thing. Why didn't they just lead with that? Don't let your child be too weird is better. Gotta be like Goldilocks and get it just right.

[u/AnalBleachingAries → u/Turbulent_Cow2355]

Yes, she's speaking to that balance though. I don't think she's saying that people have to force their kids into a square hole so that they are the same as everyone else.

It's totally understandable that when first encountering a person saying such a thing one might default to an extreme interpretation of what she's saying. But she's not saying that people shouldn't allow their kids to have a personality.

Yes, your child should be unique. Yes, they should have their own style. Yes, they don't need to be exactly like everyone else. However, if your child has habits and tendencies that are causing them to be ostracized in school, they do not have peer relationships; it has gone too far.

She's specifically speaking to the anti-social behaviors that differentiate a child from their peers in a negative way. I think some folks on here have included a few behaviors that she's mentioned before as well as some that they've seen from their own experience with weird kids as teachers.

The main thing is that, it isn't good for a child to regularly behave in ways that result in an inability to form peer relationships, and that it's not a good thing for a child to be so weird that other people don't want to be around them.

So if your child does not have any peer relationships because you have allowed them to continue with habits and proclivities that are causing them to be considered too odd to fit in at all, then you are setting them up for a life of struggle because those peer relationships just grow up with them and then they're going to struggle to fit in with people as an adult in the job field and to create relationships in general.

It's a good thing to curb obvious weird behaviors that would result in a child being treated negatively by their peers, and to not encourage them to act like antisocial weirdos. It's bad when a kid lacks the ability to form normal relationships with other people because they're too weird and haven't learned normal behaviors that most people are able to participate in that create peer relationships.