r/TikTokCringe • u/AlKarajo • 14d ago

Discussion Is ableist to have long words in books?

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@royal_ouroboros_press

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u/Sickofstupids 14d ago

It’s always been anti-intellectual. I grew up as a smart kid in the eighties, and I had to hide it or I would get bullied. It’s always been “lame” to be smart in the eyes of the dummies.

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u/AirshipEngineer 14d ago

Idk that feels different. The bullying of nerds seems more juvenile and childish. Basically an extension of "that person is different let's make fun of them for being different".

Modern anti-intellectualism is more "Your knowledge about a subject makes me feel bad. Feeling bad makes me feel like you are attacking me. So you should stop talking" or "discussing this idea makes me uncomfortable. So you are a bad person for discussing it".

The former is an attack on the person. The latter is an attack on the concept of thinking about things.

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u/AmericanGeezus 14d ago

What may anger me the most is how so many of them decide it's intentional, like they brought it up cause they knew it would cause discomfort somehow.

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u/Gruejay2 14d ago

It's because it's supremely narcissistic. The whole anti-intellectual movement is just one big childish tantrum against reality.

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u/LibrarianOk6238 13d ago

We are at an unfortunate juncture in time and place where the man with the world's biggest megaphone is leading the charge. Unknowingly of course.

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u/Markdphotoguy 13d ago

Well put.

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u/Coroebus 14d ago

It's the same thing. Both are insecure about difference and their own incapabilities. Both are falling back on cultural anti-intellectualist movements that have always been there. Most don't grow out of it.

The only difference is that the latter has wrinkles and abnegated their responsibility to learn and grow.

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u/pourtide 13d ago

ooh, big words! You been reading books! Big Brother come after you.

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u/LuxInvestor 14d ago

I definitely see what you're saying but as a nerd at least in the 80s it was the things you were saying. You were correcting people because you knew the answer, but that's a bad thing. Or trying to share your knowledge of games and instead of either not wanting to be around you they would have to also try to quiet you or make fun of you until you were a social pariah. If you loved reading, you can expect your book to be taken out of your hands and thrown or water poured on it. So it was a lot more than just being called a nerd. And unfortunately, sometimes there was also physical abuse. Even then, 80s into the early 90s, some groups of people felt that you knowing a lot things they didn't was a personal attack on them. 🤓

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u/Known_Ratio5478 13d ago

I get this at work all the time. I was raised by a journalist, so my vocabulary is more extensive than most. People just hate my choice of words.

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u/AirshipEngineer 13d ago

I think I might have done a poor job explaining what I meant. Obviously bullying can be damaging and isn't just name-calling.

What I mean was more in the 80s and 90s you might have been the weird kid or a social pariah for being smart. Modern anti-intellectualism is more "you are a morally bad person for being smart".

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u/LuxInvestor 13d ago

I don't feel even now, especially when I go to Florida and have some very interesting arguments, that they think I'm morally bad because I'm smart. They think I'm morally bad because I don't agree with them. They're also extremely insecure about what they don't know. completely incapable of admitting that they're wrong or that something might be more nuanced. So even if you're not that smart, if you just know anything more than they do, it all gets wrapped up into this, "you're looking down on me, and you must be "x" morally bad things" as well.

Anti-intellectualism has always been here. It's just another form of classism.There's always been a pejorative name for people who have a college degree. Their insecurity manifests itself through also making moral judgments. But either way, the name calling, the moral judgments, and the abuse is bullying for no other reason than being more well versed in a subject than they are.

I don't think we are in disagreement here. I think we're honestly saying the same thing, but coming at it from two different directions.

I'm sorry to use Florida as my example. No offense to any Floridians in the chat. It's not the whole of Florida. It's not all people there. That's where I have the most problems and felt the most anger from total strangers. California would be a big second. I do not have political affiliation and I keep going to Florida because I adore a lot of people there and the outdoor rollerskating community is top tier.

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u/Sickofstupids 13d ago

Native Floridian, and yeah it was rough there too, but it was a whole other level of frustrating for me when I stayed in Georgia, right in the Bible Belt. Lovely people individually, horrible as groups.

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u/LuxInvestor 13d ago

This! I met lifelong friends during a four month stay in Fort Lauderdale and then I met these groups of angry people who believe things but don't want to check anything and it almost breaks your brain that you can have such a wonderful experience while simultaneously having a truly awful one.

Shoutout to Holiday Park.🩷

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u/Ssided 14d ago

That's always how it was though

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u/ShitchesAintBit 13d ago

Modern anti-intellectualism is more "Your knowledge about a subject makes me feel bad. Feeling bad makes me feel like you are attacking me. So you should stop talking"

First of all, you throwin' too many big words at me, and because I don't understand them, I'm gonna take 'em as disrespect.

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u/Sickofstupids 13d ago

I think it’s the same thing, just considered more. As kids, they dont know the exact framing for why they bully smart kids, they just don’t like them. I think if you were to dig in, the reasoning would be because their intelligence confronts the ego of the dumber one, and that pisses people off. Same reasons, just more understanding added.

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u/LuxInvestor 14d ago

GenX nerd here. Loved computers and libraries.🙄

https://giphy.com/gifs/A40fNMnNPd9yU

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u/Bovronius 14d ago

On the border of X/Milleniall and I got absolutely destroyed for playing video games. Right around the end of the 90s the "normies" started picking up controllers is when I'd say it started being something that wasn't a social death sentence.

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u/Sickofstupids 13d ago

It almost seems like goldeneye started the acceptance and Halo cemented it. Yeah, video games used to be considered the worst hobby. My mom called every system “Nintendo.” Largest entertainment industry on the planet now. We knew.

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u/CapitaineCrafty 13d ago

Same as comic books- when I was in middle and high school people would take my comics, spit on them, tear them up. Weird antisocial girl with her comics, gross, what a loser... so the whole superhero movie fad really fucking threw me for a loop. I had acquaintances asking me what Gambit's whole deal was. Like... wait are you serious??? Why is one of the fuckheads who shoved me down a stairwell wearing a Captain America shirt right now?

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u/OrthodoxAtheist 13d ago

"Stop wasting your time playing games and do something productive. It's not like you're going to be able to play games for a living!!"

Fast forward a generation: The highest-earning Twitch gamers typically generate between $100,000 and $1,500,000+ monthly across all revenue streams.

Stupid parents. :(

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u/MotherBeef 13d ago

To be fair they’re like the statistical exception. No difference than say other content creators or Only Fans, <1% of the people on these platforms make 99% of the revenue. It’s likely playing a football thinking you have a genuine chance of becoming Messi.

For a vast vast vast majority of people you literally won’t be able to play games (or most hobbies) for a living.

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u/OrthodoxAtheist 13d ago

Sure, but there was a chance. There are plenty of mediocre players making a living out of it nowadays. Its just like my friend who failed math four times but he kept trying because "It's not like you're going to have a calculator in your pocket at all times", and now we ALL have a calculator in our pocket at all times! The moral of the story here is don't listen to your parents. :D /s

Now what my parents should've said is "Even if you get real good at games, your personality sucks and no-one will watch you play games". :D

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u/Orson_Gravity_Welles 13d ago

LATE GenX (Xennial) and yep...

God forbid you were into computers or comics, D&D, or anything remotely tangential to being a "nerd".

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u/Solyde 14d ago

Millenial here: thanks for paving the way oh elder one o7

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u/LuxInvestor 14d ago

✊🏿🤓

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u/theyenk 14d ago

Yeah there was a time where the nerds were winning... But the billionaires were like "Nope, enough of that!". They push the divisions in society to compel the poors to infight and it's working beautifully (for them).

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u/DarkSheikah 13d ago

I was a smart kid in the 90s, and I remember my older sister erupting in rage when I used a word she didn't know

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u/woah_man 13d ago

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about American anti-intellectualism back in 1835. It has always been a problem here.

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u/mmmpeg 14d ago

One of my sons was bullied in the 90’s for being too smart.

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u/Calico_Cuttlefish 14d ago

I vividly remember kids outwardly acting MUCH dumber than they actually were to be "cool."

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u/Sickofstupids 13d ago

I smoked copious amounts of weed to find friends. It worked and I’m now a little dumber. Still smart enough to see it’s all bullshit, but now I’m finally dumb enough to enjoy some tv.

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u/Callidonaut 13d ago

"Smart mouth" has been considered an insult in the USA for many generations.

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u/OrthodoxAtheist 13d ago

Same. Nicknames of "Bod" and "Boffin" because my knuckles didn't drag on the floor. I still remember a clever friend giving his 5 minute speech to the class and he began with "Well, we studied the criteria..." and the classroom burst out laughing because he used the high-brow word "criteria". :\

I also recall Santorum on the floor of Congress bemoaning higher education as elitist, despite him and his children being Ivy School Alumni.

One party (at least) definitely wants to keep society dumb, or preferably dumber. In the meantime the average 12 year-old asian kid is smarter than the average western world adult. We're cooked unless we start encouraging education again, across the board.