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After reading this, I'll be kept awake at night with one question: Who is Fren???
by tempodox 2y ago
After reading this, I'll be kept awake at night with one question: Who is Fren???
- insonifi 2y agoIt's a slang term for "friend"[1]. [1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fren https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fren
- immibis 2y ago[flagged]
- ryanschaefer 2y agoI’m sorry… what?
- malux85 2y agoshibboleth
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lupusreal 2y agoIt's just a casual way of saying friend, used in the same contexts as "bro". Popular with young people, on discord, in games, etc. And yes, also on 4chan. There have been some people trying to retroactively turn it into an acronym for " Far Right Entho Nationalist", to spark a moral panic because they think that's funny. Probably the poster above was credulous enough to fall for that. The overwhelming majority of people who say fren are using it in the simple "bro" sense.
- sabellito 2y agoThis is grossly incorrect. It's just baby/funny talk for "friend", like typing "smol" instead of "small".
- skyyler 2y agoIt is used as a dogwhisle amongst a certain crowd. Plenty of examples in this old thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/bsl5ix/what_is_up_with_the_phrases_frenposting/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/bsl5ix/what_i... Part of the point of dogwhistles like this is that they sound insane to people that aren't initiated. I believe the comment you're replying to overstated the frequency with which the word is used as a shibboleth for racists, but it is legitimately used as a shibboleth for racists. The most notable example is probably the defunct "frenworld" subreddit.
- poincaredisk 2y agoYes, 4chan and similar subcultures use "fren" as a funny way to say "friend" or "bro". But I think you're committing a logical fallacy here. There's nothing wrong with the word "fren". It doesn't matter that some questionable people use it. For example, nazis liked beer most likely. It doesn't mean that liking beer makes you a nazi.
- skyyler 2y agoIt existed before widespread association with Apu. Fren, in a certain context, is a 4channer shibboleth. But you are overstating it a lot here. If someone joins your community and starts posting green frog comics and calls people fren a lot, there's a good chance they're doing the shibboleth you described. Outside of that context, I don't think it's often a racist term.
- kowabungalow 2y agoAn LLM is applying a statistical model.. If 4chan has fren with right wing rhetoric in hundreds of thousands of threads and other sites like HN use these only in occasional discussions of 4chan, you are hinting an LLM to generate content like a right wing diatribe.
- lupusreal 2y agoEven with frogs and green text, it may be a shibboleth for using 4chan (frogs alone wouldn't be, they have proliferated on discord and twitch), but even then it's not a racist term.
- skyyler 2y agoPlease look at posts from the now defunct "frenworld" subreddit. A certain crowd has absolutely coopted it as a racist term. That doesn't mean every usage of it is racist, of course.
- lupusreal 2y agoAn obscure subreddit which most users of the word have never heard of? Get a grip.
- kowabungalow 2y agoYou are staring at a prompt that uses Akashic and fren for specific statistical attacks based on relatively small volumes of material using these terms and saying that anyone who thinks there was a reason to use them is out of touch? The prompt creator was a red state hari Krishna who didn't like spell check and this would work in a rewording we all understand?