7 ms·

Don't you consider revealing any personal information about yourself, including gender, a fad?

after_care 5y ago
I think that's a long enough running practice that it cannot be classified as a fad.
viraptor 5y ago
Keep in mind that many languages are inherently gendered and to ask someone "what did you today?" for example in Polish, you need to use the right gender. Answering anything will also reveal you gender.
- KSPAtlas 5y ago
  Only if you declare yourself masculine or feminine, doesn't go any further. Someone could be non-binary and declare themselves more feminine than masculine
  - matkoniecz 5y ago
    In some languages it is impossible to avoid this.
    - languageserver 5y ago
      well, luckily most languages are modernizing to accommodate marginalized people! Historical patterns are no excuse to deliberately misgender or genderify language. E.g. for Spanish a lot of people use an X or @ instead of -o -a, same in German. In Scandinavia hön as a pronoun. In mean eyes what is most important: grammatical correctness or kindness?
      - janto 5y ago
        Truthful description of relevant info is most important. The constructed profile of the person I'm talking to online is uninteresting to me. You might actually be a dog for all I know. If you want me to play along so you're never confronted with being identified as a dog... then I'm not sure I'm really doing you a favor. Maybe the kindest thing is not to play along with your language game.
        languageserver 5y ago
        > Maybe the kindest thing is not to play along with your language game. My comment was in response to someone indicating that certain European languages forced you to know the gender of the person you were speaking to. So, the "language game" is already ongoing. This is why people have constructed careful expansions to the grammar, to make language non-genderized. What is the alternative? To assume everyone identifies as a male?
        fruitsnacksbaby 5y ago
        Yes.
        janto 5y ago
        To understand that terms like mankind already refer to all humanity is a small part of it. Another part is that communication serves us in finding suitable mates and manipulation of language towards social goals is likely to have outcomes that are eventually counter to what is meaningful to us as individuals. I'd also disagree that expanding a language carefully is what is being done here. It is unlikely towards the goal of expressing ourselves more clearly.
        languageserver 5y ago
        This is exactly why people are aiming to change this forced behavior. Language reflects society and the only reason why male terms are considered "general" by some parts of the population is because men for centuries repressed the female populations and the non-binary. this is unfortunately one of those times where "I have no opinion" is an opinion
      - leephillips 5y ago
        “a lot of people” who don’t live in Spanish-speaking countries. Grammatical incorrectness is unkind to anyone who has to listen to you.
        languageserver 5y ago
        In the USA, one of the world's most populous spanish-speaking countries, Spanish communication is often conducted using -x ending, even by the president.
        leephillips 5y ago
        The US is actually #2, behind Mexico (closely tied with Spain). > Spanish communication is often conducted using -x ending That’s true if by “Spanish communication” you mean NPR reporters sprinkling a couple of “Latinx”s into their English-language articles. > even by the president This does not make the case you might be hoping it makes.
        languageserver 5y ago
        I wrote the following reply to the person adjacent to your comment, and I will paste it hear as I feel your comment had the same spirit: Some languages have unfortunate misogynistic and transphobic/monogendered built-ins. This is problematic for a large minority of the LGBTQ+ population and many Native/Indigenous/First nations with different linguistic cultures. The USA is one of, if not the, most diverse country in the world with people from all over. It is to me beautiful that the country can embrace both the latinx/hispanic population and at the same time say to these marginalized groups "we hear you, we listen to you, and we understand you." To me the fact that the WH and President Biden use these important ungenderizations is a very important step, just like the federal desegregation of schools. It demonstrates how far we have come in just two generations. I have though met many latinx people who prefer latin@ instead, while others say that it reduces the language for non-binary folks.
        leephillips 5y ago
      - matkoniecz 5y ago
        In Polish language it is flatly impossible, male/female/neuter is strongly built into grammar. It would require remaking significant part of language, it is not a minor tweak like singular they in English. Demanding this is a runaway imperialism.
- ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago
  > Answering anything will also reveal you gender. Well, in the internet no one knows you're a dog. Some women used to answer using masculine conjugation as a default, to avoid their gender to distract from the things they did or had to say. Some men did the opposite to get attention or more eager responses. I know it's inconvenient and to some may be considered even insulting as a suggestion, and I don't think it should be the norm. However, it's still a choice you're free to make.
  - JYellensFuckboy 5y ago
    This seems like the ultimate manifestation of old adage "there are no girls on the internet." I suspect that females (especially those not in the tech industry) tend to overwhelmingly hold accounts in their real name, whereas the vast majority of pseudonymous posters are men. It makes a lot of sense from a social conditioning perspective of communication: that females tend to be more relationship-focused whereas males tend to be more object-focused. As a result, for girls, getting misgendered under a pseudonymous account is seen as danger that comes with the territory. And of course they take it in stride, because that's just what women do all the time.
magicalist 5y ago
> Don't you consider revealing any personal information about yourself, including gender, a fad? We're coming up on twenty years since Myspace, so, anyone guessing it was a fad was wrong.
hkt 5y ago
It beats everybody saying "asl????" all the time, something I always found a bit unsettling.
- Handytinge 5y ago
  14/f/cal u?
enneff 5y ago
I don’t think people expressing their identity markers online is going to stop happening anytime soon. Gender is a pretty fundamental part of most people’s identity.
- JYellensFuckboy 5y ago
  The fad in question doesn't concern how closely people identify with their gender in real, normal life. It concerns their aptitude to announce their gender prior to any online interaction whatsoever.
memish 5y ago
Yes, it used to be a fad to not identify anything.
- exikyut 5y ago
  Albeit one that arguably lasted for a very, very long time. From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30943039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30943039 recently (also posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23732384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23732384 a couple years ago): > ...[N]etworks like Friendster, MySpace, YouTube, and, later, Facebook and Twitter were dissolving the boundaries between social groups that had long shaped personal relations and identities. Before social media, you spoke to different “audiences” — family members, friends, colleagues, and so forth — in different ways. You modulated your tone of voice, your words, your behavior, and even your appearance to suit whatever social “context” you were in (workplace, home, school, nightclub, etc.) and then readjusted the presentation of yourself when you moved into another context. > On a social network ... all those different contexts collapsed into a single context. Whenever you posted a message or a photograph or a video, it could be seen by your friends, your parents, your coworkers, your bosses, and your teachers, not to mention the amorphous mass known as the general public. And, because the post was recorded, it could be seen by future audiences as well as the immediate one. When people realized they could no longer present versions of themselves geared to different audiences — it was all one audience now — they had to grapple with a new sort of identity crisis.
anshorei 5y ago
No, it's all a ruse by companies that want to sell your data. I grew up with "don't use your real name online", "don't post pictures of yourself", etc. And I still believe that's how it should be.

I think that's a long enough running practice that it cannot be classified as a fad.

Keep in mind that many languages are inherently gendered and to ask someone "what did you today?" for example in Polish, you need to use the right gender. Answering anything will also reveal you gender.

KSPAtlas 5y ago
Only if you declare yourself masculine or feminine, doesn't go any further. Someone could be non-binary and declare themselves more feminine than masculine
- matkoniecz 5y ago
  In some languages it is impossible to avoid this.
  - languageserver 5y ago
    well, luckily most languages are modernizing to accommodate marginalized people! Historical patterns are no excuse to deliberately misgender or genderify language. E.g. for Spanish a lot of people use an X or @ instead of -o -a, same in German. In Scandinavia hön as a pronoun. In mean eyes what is most important: grammatical correctness or kindness?
    - janto 5y ago
      Truthful description of relevant info is most important. The constructed profile of the person I'm talking to online is uninteresting to me. You might actually be a dog for all I know. If you want me to play along so you're never confronted with being identified as a dog... then I'm not sure I'm really doing you a favor. Maybe the kindest thing is not to play along with your language game.
      - languageserver 5y ago
        > Maybe the kindest thing is not to play along with your language game. My comment was in response to someone indicating that certain European languages forced you to know the gender of the person you were speaking to. So, the "language game" is already ongoing. This is why people have constructed careful expansions to the grammar, to make language non-genderized. What is the alternative? To assume everyone identifies as a male?
        fruitsnacksbaby 5y ago
        Yes.
        janto 5y ago
        To understand that terms like mankind already refer to all humanity is a small part of it. Another part is that communication serves us in finding suitable mates and manipulation of language towards social goals is likely to have outcomes that are eventually counter to what is meaningful to us as individuals. I'd also disagree that expanding a language carefully is what is being done here. It is unlikely towards the goal of expressing ourselves more clearly.
        languageserver 5y ago
        This is exactly why people are aiming to change this forced behavior. Language reflects society and the only reason why male terms are considered "general" by some parts of the population is because men for centuries repressed the female populations and the non-binary. this is unfortunately one of those times where "I have no opinion" is an opinion
    - leephillips 5y ago
      “a lot of people” who don’t live in Spanish-speaking countries. Grammatical incorrectness is unkind to anyone who has to listen to you.
      - languageserver 5y ago
        In the USA, one of the world's most populous spanish-speaking countries, Spanish communication is often conducted using -x ending, even by the president.
        leephillips 5y ago
        The US is actually #2, behind Mexico (closely tied with Spain). > Spanish communication is often conducted using -x ending That’s true if by “Spanish communication” you mean NPR reporters sprinkling a couple of “Latinx”s into their English-language articles. > even by the president This does not make the case you might be hoping it makes.
        languageserver 5y ago
        I wrote the following reply to the person adjacent to your comment, and I will paste it hear as I feel your comment had the same spirit: Some languages have unfortunate misogynistic and transphobic/monogendered built-ins. This is problematic for a large minority of the LGBTQ+ population and many Native/Indigenous/First nations with different linguistic cultures. The USA is one of, if not the, most diverse country in the world with people from all over. It is to me beautiful that the country can embrace both the latinx/hispanic population and at the same time say to these marginalized groups "we hear you, we listen to you, and we understand you." To me the fact that the WH and President Biden use these important ungenderizations is a very important step, just like the federal desegregation of schools. It demonstrates how far we have come in just two generations. I have though met many latinx people who prefer latin@ instead, while others say that it reduces the language for non-binary folks.
        leephillips 5y ago
    - matkoniecz 5y ago
      In Polish language it is flatly impossible, male/female/neuter is strongly built into grammar. It would require remaking significant part of language, it is not a minor tweak like singular they in English. Demanding this is a runaway imperialism.
ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago
> Answering anything will also reveal you gender. Well, in the internet no one knows you're a dog. Some women used to answer using masculine conjugation as a default, to avoid their gender to distract from the things they did or had to say. Some men did the opposite to get attention or more eager responses. I know it's inconvenient and to some may be considered even insulting as a suggestion, and I don't think it should be the norm. However, it's still a choice you're free to make.
- JYellensFuckboy 5y ago
  This seems like the ultimate manifestation of old adage "there are no girls on the internet." I suspect that females (especially those not in the tech industry) tend to overwhelmingly hold accounts in their real name, whereas the vast majority of pseudonymous posters are men. It makes a lot of sense from a social conditioning perspective of communication: that females tend to be more relationship-focused whereas males tend to be more object-focused. As a result, for girls, getting misgendered under a pseudonymous account is seen as danger that comes with the territory. And of course they take it in stride, because that's just what women do all the time.

magicalist 5y ago

> Don't you consider revealing any personal information about yourself, including gender, a fad? We're coming up on twenty years since Myspace, so, anyone guessing it was a fad was wrong.

hkt 5y ago

It beats everybody saying "asl????" all the time, something I always found a bit unsettling.

Handytinge 5y ago
14/f/cal u?

enneff 5y ago

I don’t think people expressing their identity markers online is going to stop happening anytime soon. Gender is a pretty fundamental part of most people’s identity.

JYellensFuckboy 5y ago
The fad in question doesn't concern how closely people identify with their gender in real, normal life. It concerns their aptitude to announce their gender prior to any online interaction whatsoever.

memish 5y ago

Yes, it used to be a fad to not identify anything.

exikyut 5y ago
Albeit one that arguably lasted for a very, very long time. From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30943039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30943039 recently (also posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23732384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23732384 a couple years ago): > ...[N]etworks like Friendster, MySpace, YouTube, and, later, Facebook and Twitter were dissolving the boundaries between social groups that had long shaped personal relations and identities. Before social media, you spoke to different “audiences” — family members, friends, colleagues, and so forth — in different ways. You modulated your tone of voice, your words, your behavior, and even your appearance to suit whatever social “context” you were in (workplace, home, school, nightclub, etc.) and then readjusted the presentation of yourself when you moved into another context. > On a social network ... all those different contexts collapsed into a single context. Whenever you posted a message or a photograph or a video, it could be seen by your friends, your parents, your coworkers, your bosses, and your teachers, not to mention the amorphous mass known as the general public. And, because the post was recorded, it could be seen by future audiences as well as the immediate one. When people realized they could no longer present versions of themselves geared to different audiences — it was all one audience now — they had to grapple with a new sort of identity crisis.

anshorei 5y ago

No, it's all a ruse by companies that want to sell your data. I grew up with "don't use your real name online", "don't post pictures of yourself", etc. And I still believe that's how it should be.