[squigz]

> Also notably, you will find people with similar beliefs using expressions like "y'all" and other Southern US regionalisms, even if they're white Northerners. From my observations this seems to be intended as an act of solidarity. "Folks" arguably also belongs in this category.

This is uh... well, seems a bit of a stretch to me. Not once in all my years saying "ya'll" have I ever even remotely put it in this framing, nor have I ever heard of anything like this.

[zahlman]

I was speaking from personal experience, but see e.g. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20211119-why-more-peopl... and https://www.npr.org/2025/07/16/nx-s1-5467295/yall-word-histo... .

[squigz]

I like when the news takes a simple trend in a community and blows it out of proportion.

I bet there's news stories talking about how the finger guns meme is actually an act of silent protest or some such.

[perching_aix]

It's like the ok emoji being an "alt right hidden signal" all over again.

Came across a so-far hopefully untainted, different memetic phrase yesterday: "millenial grey".

The girl in her video [0] successfully identified that it is largely rooted in a 2023 media campaign. She then proceeded to feature two supposedly "completely average" friends of hers as definitely unbiased anchors, and held a community poll, also supposedly unbiased. Predictably, everyone knew what "millenial grey" was, and quickly agreed it was the worst thing ever.

She even made a fun little browser-based pixel art minigame where people could customize a room with a number of colorful options, and an extra bland rendition of "millenial grey". I especially appreciated the false implication that your choices in dressing up a pixel art room definitely translates to your taste in real-life house décor; just like watching gangbangs on pornhub means you'd be interested in taking part in one, of course.

Considering this was the very first time I've ever heard this phrase uttered, to see it being used as if it was something you learned after saying mum and dad as an infant, it was approximately the most living-in-a-bubble type thing I've ever laid my eyes upon. She somehow managed to socialize so perfectly tuned around this, she had absolutely zero chance of actually recognizing it for what she clocked otherwise immediately: a manufactured outrage over basically nothing.

But then I do also keep my own - so far, rather short - list of political dogwhistles, so maybe I'm just being uncharitable with my parallels.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NyeK_Vi0Kc

[zahlman]

I'm not saying this is an expression of ideology. I'm saying it's consistent with other observable signs of in-group identification.