One love. Forum talk. Come one, come all.

[codetocontra]

Start a thread in the music section. We need more collaborations. Been a while. Drod had a monthly song challenge going for a bit, we all fell off but it was a fun 3 months. At least for me, it was a good reason to hit record to capture some sounds in a meaningful way.

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

Perhaps that is my fault for the thread title and the context. I dunno. I fuck up sometimes here.

Well, this, to some extent. Pretty much the thing I have found the most offputting about ILF is the sniggering locker-room talk and teenage-boy homoerotic bro culture. (circle jerk, bilf, the family that blanks together, bonerz, etc. etc.) It's something I haven't seen anywhere for, well, decades, and in my experience it was always a veiled bullying cover for (what I would now call as an adult) heteronormativity and excluding people. Not that I think that anyone's being bullying here, to be clear, but it just leaves a bad vibe with me.

As to the wider context of the thread, I arrived via the mtl.asm sub-forum (like, I think, some of the other newer people here) and rather slowly decided to be pulled in more. I certainly don't think I have any cool points here, or am even particularly known to the clique (if there is a clique) but it's kinda just in the nature of the thing that probably everyone thinks that the people that were at the party before them are all from the cooler parts of town and are all each others' buddies.

And also, I don't care about Instagram, or using social media to follow and be befriended by commodities, even cool ones like pedals. I'd rather be on a janky, half-broken forum any day. Like the ghost village full of weirdos at the end of the gravel road, it'll still be staggering along when the shiny technopolis has collapsed due to starvation, class war, etc.

[Benn Roe]

Well, this, to some extent. Pretty much the thing I have found the most offputting about ILF is the sniggering locker-room talk and teenage-boy homoerotic bro culture. (circle jerk, bilf, the family that blanks together, bonerz, etc. etc.) It's something I haven't seen anywhere for, well, decades, and in my experience it was always a veiled bullying cover for (what I would now call as an adult) heteronormativity and excluding people. Not that I think that anyone's being bullying here, to be clear, but it just leaves a bad vibe with me.

This, all day long. It's really only a handful of people, but it's super tedious and off-putting, as well as coming across as really forced and disingenuous, on a forum that's otherwise pretty great.

[Pepe]

Yes, it's as annoying and off-putting as (for example) a bunch of MAD Magazine loving forumites in a Franco-Belgian comic forum who put "Ka-Tchoonka! Ka-Tchoonka! Ziiiiiip-Zoingggg!", "Bukkida Bukkida Bakkida Bakkida - Shtoink!" and "Arrrghl! Heeeelp, Mister Fonebone!!!" in every second thread title.

[Jwar]

Perhaps that is my fault for the thread title and the context. I dunno. I fuck up sometimes here.

Well, this, to some extent. Pretty much the thing I have found the most offputting about ILF is the sniggering locker-room talk and teenage-boy homoerotic bro culture. (circle jerk, bilf, the family that blanks together, bonerz, etc. etc.) It's something I haven't seen anywhere for, well, decades, and in my experience it was always a veiled bullying cover for (what I would now call as an adult) heteronormativity and excluding people. Not that I think that anyone's being bullying here, to be clear, but it just leaves a bad vibe with me.

Just to touch on this for a moment. How many people feel this way? I say "my boner" all the time. I say it about things that excite me and am using sex as a form of expression for my desire for said item. It's not sexual, it's purely out of the LOL's for me, even if no one found it funny.

I can see the locker room talk thing for sure though and am obviously guilty of it. I don't understand how the "family that blanks together" fits into that mold but the others I get. I guess I literally don't understand that one? Huh. Anyway, if it bothers people a lot, I can try and stop saying it. I'm all for making myself a better person, so if I need to stop throwing boners around, I would.


The bro culture is stupid, and I always thought we were all kind of sarcastically making fun of it this whole time. I mean, none of us are real bros that I know of. haha. BUT! You guys are all my bros (buddies, pals, loves...what have you). So, I use that term interchangeably with dude or homie or anything similar in nature.

Plus I don't to grow up man. Getting old sucks.

[Chankgeez]

I don't understand how the "family that blanks together" fits into that mold but the others I get. I guess I literally don't understand that one?

Not sure there's really anything to understand about that.

"The family that purples together, nurples together" is, like most things I type out, nonsense.

Anything that descends from that is just copycattin'.

Anybody who places any significance in it is just reading what they want into it. (Unless it's evolved into something I don't understand. Which's entirely possible.)

[MrNovember]

Perhaps that is my fault for the thread title and the context. I dunno. I fuck up sometimes here.

Well, this, to some extent. Pretty much the thing I have found the most offputting about ILF is the sniggering locker-room talk and teenage-boy homoerotic bro culture. (circle jerk, bilf, the family that blanks together, bonerz, etc. etc.) It's something I haven't seen anywhere for, well, decades, and in my experience it was always a veiled bullying cover for (what I would now call as an adult) heteronormativity and excluding people. Not that I think that anyone's being bullying here, to be clear, but it just leaves a bad vibe with me.

Just to touch on this for a moment. How many people feel this way? I say "my boner" all the time. I say it about things that excite me and am using sex as a form of expression for my desire for said item. It's not sexual, it's purely out of the LOL's for me, even if no one found it funny.

I can see the locker room talk thing for sure though and am obviously guilty of it. I don't understand how the "family that blanks together" fits into that mold but the others I get. I guess I literally don't understand that one? Huh. Anyway, if it bothers people a lot, I can try and stop saying it. I'm all for making myself a better person, so if I need to stop throwing boners around, I would.


The bro culture is stupid, and I always thought we were all kind of sarcastically making fun of it this whole time. I mean, none of us are real bros that I know of. haha. BUT! You guys are all my bros (buddies, pals, loves...what have you). So, I use that term interchangeably with dude or homie or anything similar in nature.

Plus I don't to grow up man. Getting old sucks.

I've always understood these jokes to be sarcastically making fun of the bro culture and I've never personally found them offensive, but I definitely see how they support heteronormativity, would lead to excluding certain members on the forum, and may prevent members from joining the forum. Again, I know that's not the intention, but I know we have some female members here and I am positive most of them aren't interested in joining in on a discussion about circle jerks. I also would not doubt in the slightest that we would have a more diverse forum if these jokes weren't as prevalent.

[Jwar]

You're probably right.

[Ugly Nora]

So no more "bass players do it deeper" jokes, mmmkay? It's a myth anyway.

[01010111]

I mean, at least we don’t have anymore porn threads and you don’t really have to worry about seeing random wieners when opening threads anymore? But it’s true, that kind of terminology is one of those things that makes it harder to be involved in the forum if you’re a newcomer.

[Bassist_Diver]

So no more "bass players do it deeper" jokes, mmmkay? It's a myth anyway.

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

I'm all for making myself a better person

All one can ask, was totes not trying to get on your case.

[Paul_C]

Having said that, I feel a little outside the "group", but that's because most of you have been here way longer than me so no wonder. I don't see it as a problem just how things are.

I gave this a little more thought, and realised that whether it's been forums, bands, work or anything else, I tend to hang around on the edge of things feeling a little outside of everything.

So no-one's fault but my own, as it's clearly where I prefer to be

[Eivind August]

Anything that descends from that is just copycattin'.

"You can't copyright thread titles really." - Ed Sanner
"The thread title market was really nothing more than a bunch of beggars and thieves, all building off one another's work." - Dan Armstrong

[Eivind August]

But yeah, the "bro that's what she said my boner", like all irony, can become a slippery slope. Suddenly we say it all the time, and lo, we become the very beasts we wished to mock. We joke and have fun obviously, and I don't want that to stop, but the repetition of our three or four jokes can become stale. So, basically,

A forum is only as good as what is talked about

If we want the love to carry on, all we need to do is talk about stuff we find interesting. I see that some people have said that they are vary to post at times, feeling that their post will be stupid or uninteresting. I'd like to see them regardless.