[dragonwriter]

> When did it become acceptable to straight up disrespect someone to their face for their personal choices?

That time is lost in the mists of history, though which choices this is acceptable for have been different in different times and places.

[BucketSort]

Yeah, I guess I should have said "mainstream personal choices." If one does something deviant, politeness has typically always gone out the window. These days people pick fights just so they can put themselves in some virtuous light. It's really annoying.

[dragonwriter]

No, these days behaviors which you remember being unquestionably mainstream are now on the disputed boundary where some substantial number of people see them as deviant.

[pjc50]

These are defined the other way round: "mainstream" is the set of things people accept, and "deviant" is what they call things they don't.

[notacoward]

A peer comment to yours nicely illustrates the point. Everyone wants to appropriate "mainstream" for themselves, even as they also want to be recognized as the vanguard of whatever movement they are (transiently) promoting.