Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 18th January 2026 (awful.systems)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by BlueMonday1984@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

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Want to wade into the snowy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid.

Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned so many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

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[-] istewart@awful.systems 15 points 2 weeks ago

This is genuinely horrifying throughout. It reinforces my conviction that I don't really want to know or gossip about the details of these peoples' lives, I want to know the barest details of who they are so that I can set firm social boundaries against them.

A quote the author offers, that stands out to me:

A man who is considered a TPOT ‘elder’:

TPOT isn’t misogynist but it’s made up of men and women who prefer the company of men. it’s a male space with male norms.

this makes it barely tolerable for the few girls’ girls who wander in here. they end up either deactivating, going private, or venting about how men suck.

I'd never been particularly ardent about believing it, but this right here is firm evidence to me that existing in a rigid gender binary is mental and spiritual poison. Whoever this person is, they're never going to grow up.

I don't wish to belittle the author's suffering, but I do hope she is able to reconsider her participation in these scenes where hierarchy, contrived masculinity, and financial standing (or the ability to generate financial gain for others!) are the signifiers of individual participants' worth.

[-] swlabr@awful.systems 7 points 2 weeks ago

I’d never been particularly ardent about believing it, but this right here is firm evidence to me that existing in a rigid gender binary is mental and spiritual poison. Whoever this person is, they’re never going to grow up.

Honestly i feel like my role in many of my friendships is simply telling people that they don’t have to follow these prescriptions and are allowed to do things outside of them, and that following these prescriptions isn’t some magic pill that is going to fix their lives, and is more likely a poison. So yeah if you started ardently believing that, I would not be opposed.

These people are bitter and sad because they are trying to perform in hypermasculine roles that only exist as fiction in marketing and propaganda. I’m bitter and sad because:

these people exist
i have to acknowledge that part of their ignorance is sustained by capitalist pressure and isn’t their fault
i also have to acknowledge that these people are ruining the world and still need to be destroyed because they never show signs that they can be rehabilitated

this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026

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