4 ms·

Kids mostly forgot and adapted back. It is adult, mostly men, who just cant get over fear of vaccines, injury of having to do something a little uncomfortable f

by watwut 29d ago

Kids mostly forgot and adapted back. It is adult, mostly men, who just cant get over fear of vaccines, injury of having to do something a little uncomfortable for someone else.

fabioborellini 29d ago
Trivialising this to fear of vaccines misses the point. The lack of human communication being the new normal, cut friendships and shattered communities are the real killer here. Especially for ones that didn’t have a lot of social life or family to begin with.
- moron4hire 29d ago
  Almost every single meetup group in Northern Virginia was completely destroyed and did not grow back. I watched as dozens of local meetups, several running for many years, disappeared over night. I managed one as well and my crew held on to ours for as long as we could. We managed to keep it running online for several more years. But the social damage was done. After running the thing for 12 years, not being able to find anywhere that was willing to host us in-person again, and all of us original organizers having moved to different cities, there was nobody willing to take over.
- kbelder 29d ago
  And the massive damage this did to children's education. I think people who didn't have a child in the school system at the time might not understand how poorly the schools functioned during that time. My child had two intelligent and supportive parents, including a stay-at-home mother, and it was still rough. Many of her classmates just flat-out lost a year of education. There's still obvious effects on her cohort years later.
- preg_match 29d ago
  The lack of human connection has been a trend for many decades now, covid just accelerated it all at once. Not like there was much choice, lots of people died, we did what we had to. The communities that did exist were always running on fumes, basically only existing due to inertia. When the inertia was cut, even if only for a couple weeks in some places, they were done. That’s it. The social damage has been here, and we’ve been zombie-ing our way through it. Covid just let the undead stay dead, and turns out we can’t revive it.
- watwut 28d ago
  > Trivialising this to fear of vaccines misses the point. We had concerted anti-vaccine campaign. Literally trying to make you feel afraid of vaccines or feel sorry for kids that might get them. And yes, it was fear spread by men who fancy themselves manly men. > The lack of human communication being the new normal, cut friendships and shattered communities are the real killer here. I am particularly salty about this one. Because the exact same ideological and political groups who are throwing complete temper tamptrum over lockdown are the ones who want women to be stay at home moms. I did not, lockdowns were easier, you had a lot more communication and everybody was in the same position so you could realate. Lockdowns were an easy mode compare to the thing they want force women into.
dofm 29d ago
I live in a relatively wealthy town and most people here had a pretty safe series of lockdowns (bit hair-raising for me as a freelancer but ehh). We are collectively massively pro-vaccine; I know only two people who loudly resisted (and one of them nearly died in hospital from COVID). But I can tell you that our collective sense of (unusually strong) community has taken six years since the first lockdown (four and a half years since the end of mask restrictions) to truly return to what it was before. So even in this quite cushioned place I think we didn't really return to a sense of proper ordinary community positivity for quite a long time (it helps that we had a pretty great summer). Last summer things still felt very disjointed. Kids, young adults, I can assure you, resent what happened and how poorly we managed it. In other towns where community was weak, a lot of damage has been done, and you can see that in how little collective spirit there is in dealing with new challenges. Even around where I live, things like reduced footfall and contribution shortages in community services have been used as a pretext to cut them entirely. We have done damage to young people by simply deleting community things we benefited from that they no longer will.
- preg_match 29d ago
  Of course kids and young adults resent it: a part of their childhood and formative years sucked ass. But the resentment isn’t towards the handling, it’s towards the reality. It sucks covid happened and it shouldn’t have. But there’s nothing that could have been done to save their youth; it was already ruined for those years. I mean, if the lockdown didn’t happen and instead a few million more people died, would they have preferred that? I doubt it, especially considering such a situation would inevitably result in even stricter restrictions going forward. After all, lockdown was a reaction. If you make the thing it’s reacting to even bigger, even more of a problem, then… well… the reaction will be more extreme.
  - dofm 29d ago
    > But the resentment isn’t towards the handling, Oooooh yes it is. They are so mad at how badly we handled it. And they are right to be. > I mean, if the lockdown didn’t happen That isn't their complaint. Their complaint is not the first one (except that in our case in the UK it was idiotically weeks late and major sporting events happened; the older ones understand how stupid that was). It's the fact that we subsequently undermined it, and then did it again. And again. And again.
account42 28d ago
Ah yes, lets throw in casual sexism in with your victim blaming.

by watwut 29d ago

Kids mostly forgot and adapted back. It is adult, mostly men, who just cant get over fear of vaccines, injury of having to do something a little uncomfortable for someone else.

fabioborellini 29d ago

Trivialising this to fear of vaccines misses the point. The lack of human communication being the new normal, cut friendships and shattered communities are the real killer here. Especially for ones that didn’t have a lot of social life or family to begin with.

moron4hire 29d ago
Almost every single meetup group in Northern Virginia was completely destroyed and did not grow back. I watched as dozens of local meetups, several running for many years, disappeared over night. I managed one as well and my crew held on to ours for as long as we could. We managed to keep it running online for several more years. But the social damage was done. After running the thing for 12 years, not being able to find anywhere that was willing to host us in-person again, and all of us original organizers having moved to different cities, there was nobody willing to take over.
kbelder 29d ago
And the massive damage this did to children's education. I think people who didn't have a child in the school system at the time might not understand how poorly the schools functioned during that time. My child had two intelligent and supportive parents, including a stay-at-home mother, and it was still rough. Many of her classmates just flat-out lost a year of education. There's still obvious effects on her cohort years later.
preg_match 29d ago
The lack of human connection has been a trend for many decades now, covid just accelerated it all at once. Not like there was much choice, lots of people died, we did what we had to. The communities that did exist were always running on fumes, basically only existing due to inertia. When the inertia was cut, even if only for a couple weeks in some places, they were done. That’s it. The social damage has been here, and we’ve been zombie-ing our way through it. Covid just let the undead stay dead, and turns out we can’t revive it.
watwut 28d ago
> Trivialising this to fear of vaccines misses the point. We had concerted anti-vaccine campaign. Literally trying to make you feel afraid of vaccines or feel sorry for kids that might get them. And yes, it was fear spread by men who fancy themselves manly men. > The lack of human communication being the new normal, cut friendships and shattered communities are the real killer here. I am particularly salty about this one. Because the exact same ideological and political groups who are throwing complete temper tamptrum over lockdown are the ones who want women to be stay at home moms. I did not, lockdowns were easier, you had a lot more communication and everybody was in the same position so you could realate. Lockdowns were an easy mode compare to the thing they want force women into.

dofm 29d ago

I live in a relatively wealthy town and most people here had a pretty safe series of lockdowns (bit hair-raising for me as a freelancer but ehh). We are collectively massively pro-vaccine; I know only two people who loudly resisted (and one of them nearly died in hospital from COVID). But I can tell you that our collective sense of (unusually strong) community has taken six years since the first lockdown (four and a half years since the end of mask restrictions) to truly return to what it was before. So even in this quite cushioned place I think we didn't really return to a sense of proper ordinary community positivity for quite a long time (it helps that we had a pretty great summer). Last summer things still felt very disjointed. Kids, young adults, I can assure you, resent what happened and how poorly we managed it. In other towns where community was weak, a lot of damage has been done, and you can see that in how little collective spirit there is in dealing with new challenges. Even around where I live, things like reduced footfall and contribution shortages in community services have been used as a pretext to cut them entirely. We have done damage to young people by simply deleting community things we benefited from that they no longer will.

preg_match 29d ago
Of course kids and young adults resent it: a part of their childhood and formative years sucked ass. But the resentment isn’t towards the handling, it’s towards the reality. It sucks covid happened and it shouldn’t have. But there’s nothing that could have been done to save their youth; it was already ruined for those years. I mean, if the lockdown didn’t happen and instead a few million more people died, would they have preferred that? I doubt it, especially considering such a situation would inevitably result in even stricter restrictions going forward. After all, lockdown was a reaction. If you make the thing it’s reacting to even bigger, even more of a problem, then… well… the reaction will be more extreme.
- dofm 29d ago
  > But the resentment isn’t towards the handling, Oooooh yes it is. They are so mad at how badly we handled it. And they are right to be. > I mean, if the lockdown didn’t happen That isn't their complaint. Their complaint is not the first one (except that in our case in the UK it was idiotically weeks late and major sporting events happened; the older ones understand how stupid that was). It's the fact that we subsequently undermined it, and then did it again. And again. And again.

account42 28d ago

Ah yes, lets throw in casual sexism in with your victim blaming.