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That's not what woke means though. You don't let trolls dictate what you understand of any other words, do you? Woke in this context means insincere and/or hypo

That's not what woke means though. You don't let trolls dictate what you understand of any other words, do you? Woke in this context means insincere and/or hypocritical support of liberal causes, as wikipedia and urban dictionary clearly list as definitions.

ben_w 5y ago
Both UD and Wikipedia also list other meanings of the word. I mean, sure, for all I know the common use where you are really is exactly what you’re saying, but one thing I’ve never noticed (caveat: easy to miss when it’s text and no faces) is a member of a minority saying “stop being woke, you don’t get us at all” (everything after the coma, yes, but never calling that “woke”). Given how big the anglosphere is (and the fluid nature of language), I don’t don’t that this use has happened at least once by someone in a position to actually use it appropriately, but I mainly see one majority person saying something and another majority person saying the first guy is woke without any apparent involvement from whichever minority is the topic. Or, indeed, the “that’s just woke” accuser insisting that the token minority person who agrees with the first person that $thing is bad is wrong and needs to shut up. Of course, I also accept that what I see on news shows is basically entertainment these days, so I don’t trust even that experience much either. > You don't let trolls dictate what you understand of any other words, do you? Well, the derogatory use appears to have been created by those I would call trolls, but as for other words? Heathen, do-gooder, bleeding heart, papist, yokel, redneck, fag, nerd, socialist… trolls have [re]defined words as insults throughout history.
4ggr0 5y ago
> as wikipedia and urban dictionary clearly list as definitions. Wikipedia absolutely does not list it as a hypocritical or insincere thing. Wikipedia defines it as "alert to perceived racial prejudice and discrimination" The Wikipedia definition you quote funnily enough is the one I described, "Opponents of progressive social movements often use the term mockingly or sarcastically, implying that 'wokeness' is an insincere form of performative activism." So you're confusing me quite a bit, first you tell me I shouldn't let trolls dictate what words mean, only for then doing exactly that yourself, citing the definition trolls and opponents use. And another thing - Urban Dictionary can certainly be used to get to know what online slang, memes mean. Using it as an official definition for a word is a bit wrong though, seeing as how UD is more about tongue-in-cheek joke definitions. So in the end, I frankly don't really know what you want to tell me, not meaning this in a rude way.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  > Wikipedia absolutely does not list it as a hypocritical or insincere thing. Wikipedia defines it as "alert to perceived racial prejudice and discrimination" Wikipedia absolutely does. "using the term woke, often in an ironic way, as an insult for various progressive or leftist movements and ideologies perceived as over-zealous, performative, or insincere." Which is basically what the top urban dictionary results say. I use that because it reacts a bit faster to contemporary usage. And it's obvious that is the definition was being used here. > And another thing - Urban Dictionary can certainly be used to get to know what online slang, memes mean. Using it as an official definition for a word is a bit wrong though, seeing as how UD is more about tongue-in-cheek joke definitions. That's not how English works, there is no "official" definition except how people use words. Dictionaries, whether Urban or Oxford, record their observations about the language, they do not define it. Woke is widely used exactly as urbandictionary and the quoted part of the wikipedia page say. Don't take this in a rude way, but I'm frankly flabbergasted that people have such a difficult time comprehending this usage of the word. I suspect a lot of it is insincere, and all of it stems from not liking the definition or the people or comments that tend to use the word.
  - 4ggr0 5y ago
    > Wikipedia absolutely does. Well, yes, I wrote myself that Wikipedia quotes it as a negative thing, but in the chapter where they list examples of people using it wrongly. The official definition they write in the beginning of the article is not negative. The section we're both quoting from is literally called "Woke as a pejorative term". > I'm frankly flabbergasted that people have such a difficult time comprehending this usage of the word I know how people (mis)use the word. There's the original and official meanings, - "aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues" - Merriam Webster - "alert to perceived racial prejudice and discrimination" - Wikipedia Then there's people who use woke as an insult and changing the meaning of the word completely, the definitions we now both talked about and can be found on UD and on Wikipedia, and I'm repeating myself here, but in the section where they list the pejorative(!) usages. One other funny detail of using UD as official definition is that it has 60 pages filled with different interpretations. Even funnier to me is that the 6th most upvoted definition is a quote by Paul Joseph Watson, a far-right conspiracy theorist. I still don't understand why you pretend like I don't know the different meanings of woke. I was complaining about people using the word woke to just complain about anything left from them they don't like, which is as embarrassing and childish as people on the left labeling everyone they don't like as a fascist and thus also completely misusing a pretty well-defined word. But it seems to me that this is exactly the strategy of someone like Paul Joseph Watson. Taking a word which is used positively by people he doesn't like, start to use it negatively while hoping that this trend catches on until the word has the opposite meaning of what it once meant, while at the same time discrediting people who used it in a positive way.

ben_w 5y ago

Both UD and Wikipedia also list other meanings of the word. I mean, sure, for all I know the common use where you are really is exactly what you’re saying, but one thing I’ve never noticed (caveat: easy to miss when it’s text and no faces) is a member of a minority saying “stop being woke, you don’t get us at all” (everything after the coma, yes, but never calling that “woke”). Given how big the anglosphere is (and the fluid nature of language), I don’t don’t that this use has happened at least once by someone in a position to actually use it appropriately, but I mainly see one majority person saying something and another majority person saying the first guy is woke without any apparent involvement from whichever minority is the topic. Or, indeed, the “that’s just woke” accuser insisting that the token minority person who agrees with the first person that $thing is bad is wrong and needs to shut up. Of course, I also accept that what I see on news shows is basically entertainment these days, so I don’t trust even that experience much either. > You don't let trolls dictate what you understand of any other words, do you? Well, the derogatory use appears to have been created by those I would call trolls, but as for other words? Heathen, do-gooder, bleeding heart, papist, yokel, redneck, fag, nerd, socialist… trolls have [re]defined words as insults throughout history.

4ggr0 5y ago

> as wikipedia and urban dictionary clearly list as definitions. Wikipedia absolutely does not list it as a hypocritical or insincere thing. Wikipedia defines it as "alert to perceived racial prejudice and discrimination" The Wikipedia definition you quote funnily enough is the one I described, "Opponents of progressive social movements often use the term mockingly or sarcastically, implying that 'wokeness' is an insincere form of performative activism." So you're confusing me quite a bit, first you tell me I shouldn't let trolls dictate what words mean, only for then doing exactly that yourself, citing the definition trolls and opponents use. And another thing - Urban Dictionary can certainly be used to get to know what online slang, memes mean. Using it as an official definition for a word is a bit wrong though, seeing as how UD is more about tongue-in-cheek joke definitions. So in the end, I frankly don't really know what you want to tell me, not meaning this in a rude way.

throwawaylinux 5y ago
> Wikipedia absolutely does not list it as a hypocritical or insincere thing. Wikipedia defines it as "alert to perceived racial prejudice and discrimination" Wikipedia absolutely does. "using the term woke, often in an ironic way, as an insult for various progressive or leftist movements and ideologies perceived as over-zealous, performative, or insincere." Which is basically what the top urban dictionary results say. I use that because it reacts a bit faster to contemporary usage. And it's obvious that is the definition was being used here. > And another thing - Urban Dictionary can certainly be used to get to know what online slang, memes mean. Using it as an official definition for a word is a bit wrong though, seeing as how UD is more about tongue-in-cheek joke definitions. That's not how English works, there is no "official" definition except how people use words. Dictionaries, whether Urban or Oxford, record their observations about the language, they do not define it. Woke is widely used exactly as urbandictionary and the quoted part of the wikipedia page say. Don't take this in a rude way, but I'm frankly flabbergasted that people have such a difficult time comprehending this usage of the word. I suspect a lot of it is insincere, and all of it stems from not liking the definition or the people or comments that tend to use the word.
- 4ggr0 5y ago
  > Wikipedia absolutely does. Well, yes, I wrote myself that Wikipedia quotes it as a negative thing, but in the chapter where they list examples of people using it wrongly. The official definition they write in the beginning of the article is not negative. The section we're both quoting from is literally called "Woke as a pejorative term". > I'm frankly flabbergasted that people have such a difficult time comprehending this usage of the word I know how people (mis)use the word. There's the original and official meanings, - "aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues" - Merriam Webster - "alert to perceived racial prejudice and discrimination" - Wikipedia Then there's people who use woke as an insult and changing the meaning of the word completely, the definitions we now both talked about and can be found on UD and on Wikipedia, and I'm repeating myself here, but in the section where they list the pejorative(!) usages. One other funny detail of using UD as official definition is that it has 60 pages filled with different interpretations. Even funnier to me is that the 6th most upvoted definition is a quote by Paul Joseph Watson, a far-right conspiracy theorist. I still don't understand why you pretend like I don't know the different meanings of woke. I was complaining about people using the word woke to just complain about anything left from them they don't like, which is as embarrassing and childish as people on the left labeling everyone they don't like as a fascist and thus also completely misusing a pretty well-defined word. But it seems to me that this is exactly the strategy of someone like Paul Joseph Watson. Taking a word which is used positively by people he doesn't like, start to use it negatively while hoping that this trend catches on until the word has the opposite meaning of what it once meant, while at the same time discrediting people who used it in a positive way.