Are people actually deeply offended by things they read on the interest? Or are people looking for reasons to be "offended"? Because the latter seems far more often the case.
Did you actually read the article? Or did you just look at the title and see a "witty quip" opportunity? Because the latter seems far more likely given your comment seems unrelated to the article's content.
No, I didn't read it. From a quick skim, the article doesn't look worth reading, given its length. Are we not allowed to discuss the title of submissions, only the body of text?
> Are we not allowed to discuss the title of submissions, only the body of text?
You're certainly allowed to do anything you wish for, just as you're allowed to discuss novels based solely on their title. However you seem quite offended, is that some sort of meta-acting demonstrating your original thesis through the medium of yourself?
Nevertheless, if you're discussing the title and ignoring the body, you're quite literally missing the forest for the tree, or in this case missing the forest for a signpost. This article is not a Cosmo listicle, its title is neither its meat nor its thesis, it's a starting point.
This is very often a bad idea as titles are often not written by the articles' authors, and are often written to generate clicks rather than to accurately summarize the article. IMO it's to be discouraged.
Edit: It's kind of like discussing the layout of the site. There are occasions when it's reasonable to do so, but generally people want to discuss the content.
You can judge actions, moderate actions, reward actions... But feelings are harder to identify.
Which was sorta the point of this article, I guess. There's a good chance that everyone is offended... So, what are we gonna do about that? If everyone is offended - and if we stop trying to sort out who has a "right" to be and who doesn't - then these notions that some bad behavior is justified kinda start looking silly: if we're gonna welcome everyone into the proverbial pool, then we can't let anyone get away with abuse, including the system itself.
Yes, I agree that other people's feelings are hard to know. (Possibly unknowable.) I just can't recall ever in my life having been offended, so I'm skeptical.
What you're doing is translating your experience to the human experience. With 7,000,000,000 of us, there's more than a fair chance that someone else's experience is different than yours.
Put simply, (but not meant as an insult) you're not thinking about anyone but yourself.
Yes, I realize that there are all sorts of human experiences that I've never, and will never, have. I'm simply asking if anyone else here has truly been offended by something they read on the internet. Because the concept is completely foreign to me.
And yes, I see the potential for irony- that I'm on my soapbox, much like someone who is offended might be. But I'm not offended by anything that's been said. I'm not against criticism or disagreement or reasoned arguments. I'm just frustrated by the chilling effects that the prevailing cultural climate, which is humorless, politically-correct, and context-free, has had and will continue to have on public discourse.
Well, the other problem here is that you can't know for sure how you come off to others; again, they can't know whether your actions reflect ACTUAL offense any more than you can know the motivation for theirs; we can take you at your word, or decide that your actions are what matters and react accordingly.
Going back to the article, we have no way of knowing if Fry was ACTUALLY offended by the response he got on twitter. Perhaps he is as dispassionate as his post alleges. But he's walking a path well-worn by the offended.
If I had a nickel for every person who ranted about some perceived slight, words dripping with the common indications of hurt and ire, while repeatedly assuring readers that they were perfectly calm...