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Edit: As @bdonvr@thelemmy.club points out below
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this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2026
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Memes
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Post memes here.
A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.
An Internet meme or meme, is a cultural item that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. The name is by the concept of memes proposed by Richard Dawkins in 1972. Internet memes can take various forms, such as images, videos, GIFs, and various other viral sensations.
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Laittakaa meemejä tänne.
- Odota ainakin 2 kuukautta ennen meemin postaamista uudelleen
- Ei selkeän poliittista sisältöä (poliitikoista, poliittisista tapahtumista, vaaleista jne) parempi paikka esim. !politicalmemes@lemmy.ca
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Most people default to "this entity is male" without more context. I do it too, it's a bit of an issue I try to be aware of but regularly fail. Male is default, female is marked; that's why the stereotypical "girl" character in video games is just the "boy" character but with eye lashes and lips and maybe high heels. (And non-binary doesn't exist, obv /s)
So I can see this as making the non-genderedness explicit.
Edit: I don't have the spoons to elaborate on "male is default". Can someone else maybe jump in? Thx.
Its a fucking cartoon logo, I've never once thought about its gender identity or called it any gender for that matter. I click on it, and that's the extent of my interaction or consideration.
Yes, cool. It's awareness.
I have a hard time wrapping my head about this sentence. I don't think about the gender of any entity without more context because it's usually completely irrelevant.
So, I didn't grow up in an english speaking country, but if I hear "the baker" I don't automatically assume it's a man. I think it's a person that bakes bread and pastry. The same with "the mechanic", "the engineer", etc. It's all - by default - a person.
Now, if we were to talk german, there is actually a difference. As "the baker", for example, we have "Bäcker" as Male and "Bäckerin" as female. The reason why male is "the default" in german is because it's shorter. That's it. If you say "Der Bäcker", it's as you'd say "the baker" in english, you don't automatically make an assumption about the gender. If you say "Die Bäckerin", you are referring to a female baker specifically.
Honestly this feels more like a mockery of people that identify as non-binary than raising any kind of awareness. Kinda has some "apache combat helicopter" vibes.
I grew up in a very male-as-default English-speaking culture. Any animal, robot, or plant would be referred to as it or he, unless that creature/thing has additional female markers such as wearing pink, makeup, etc.
For examples look at the designs of Mickey and Minnie Mouse or Babs and Buster Bunny. If you draw a little blob with eyes, people will say "He's/It's cute." If you put a pink bow on it, they will say "She's cute."
You can even look at the word "woman" itself. "Man" originally just meant any person, but "woman" was invented to speak specifically about a "wife-man." Going to your German examples, why did they make special words for female bakers, etc. and none for male bakers? It's because male is the default and female is a deviation from that norm. You don't need a special word to describe the default assumption.
There's this old riddle:
It plays on one's assumptions about gender.
They're not talking about language with the male-as-default, but rather for example this:
The depiction with less discerning features is what we assume to be male. If you want to express female, you have to add a dress or long hair or curves etc..
There's actual scientific research on this bias existing, although I don't know in what way this extends to animal depictions.
If not binary then how made of 1s and 0s?
Have you ever seen 1s and 0s out in the real world, outside your smarty-pants books? Thought so. Maths don't real, checkmate atheist.
That highly depends on the language.
Example in Czech: Generic Fox (Liška) is a girl Generic Wolf (Vlk) is a boy
Because our words themself have genders. Fox: Liška (girl) Lišák (boy) but default if you don't knoe the sex of the animal is in this case the girl version.
This differs per language. And in german (if I'm not mistaken) fox is Der Fuchs, so boy.
I'm using boy/girl instead of male/female, because ... I don't know, that is how I think about it.
That's true, but the grammatical gender has nothing to do with the actual gender. Nobody thinks that all foxes are male, just as nobody thinks that spoons (Der Löffel) are male or the street (Die Straße) are female. They can also change depending on the amount. For example, if we take "Haus", which means house, we say "Das Haus" if we talk about a single house, which would be neutral, but refer to multiple houses as "Die Häuser", which would be female. Nobody thinks houses become female once there's more than one tho.
to be honest, 99% of people don't even think about gender at all without being prompted to. especially when it comes to mascots like the firefox logo. its a browser.
this seems like a PR move by mozilla and nothing more.