Culture, Race, and Ethnicity

This has been bugging me since Alison Brie was forced to apologize for voicing Diane Nguyen, a Vietnamese Amercian character from BoJack Horseman.

Simply put, I find the entire situation ridiculous. It is the nature of actors' job to play someone they are not! "Cancelling" performers for accepting a role when character's race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or other feature doesn't match that of the actor is just as absurd as, say, charging Claire Foy with lèse-majesté because she, a commoner, played Queen Elizabeth II.

Can you explain the reasons for outrage and change my view?

With anime getting more popular, there's a strong rise in "waifu" culture. If you been to an anime convention or been to some anime online stores, there's a strong emphasis on selling stickers, posters, shirts & figures based on female anime characters. Hell, go on and there's multiple 3x3s of waifus.

My thoughts: While I don't think it's a problem (especially since I got some waifus of my own, as an anime fan myself), it's sorta emblematic of male loneliness with stuff like Gatebox are anything to go by. But the downside is that they'll overshadow the MC, since they're made to be self-inserts and nothing else. But otherwise, I think it's fine as long as the girl you're simping for is above legal age or at least aren't creepy about it

But that's just my take, feel free to share your thoughts?

I'm so tired of this, I just want a genuine human connection, I'm tired of the soulless algorithms and horror stories about approaching the wrong person.

I'm tired of the ghosting and shitty communication, if you like someone TELL THEM, if you don't TELL THEM. I'm tired of trying to insert terrible jokes into a profile to try and get interest or taking new photos because the current ones aren't working.

I'm tired of all the playing games and the well meaning recommendations to take classes or join social groups that cost $100 to do anything. I'm tired of having my life together and being happy with myself and having no one to share it with.

Is it so wrong to want to find someone who is your everything and wants to experience everything life has to offer together?

I'm just so tired of how the current dating culture works

Alright rant over, wow that felt good to get out

It seems to me that we’re getting more and more places using digital payment means to promote tipping in Australia. When you pay by card, you have to go through the tipping questions before being able to pay. Some places now have a QR code where you order and pay for your stuff at the table with no interaction from a server, and the process still asks for a tip. We need to fuck this shit off.

What countries were your ancestors/current relatives from?

How is the feeling of constantly seeing people who are looking different than you? Do you like the feeling of working with various races of people everyday? Do you like, hate, or just be neutral to this, though?

I don't know if it's coincidence but lately I've been reading so many posts on social media mainly about Europeans saying the US has no culture. Coincidentally I also saw the post where Fallout game sales rose 7500% in Europe after the show which I find hilarious. I'm not even American, but if Fallout is not like the most American culture thing you can watch/play I don't know what is. The game is full of Americana. Same thing with games like Farcry, Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead fkn Redemption, etc.

Ah yeah and not to mention the shows (most popular in the world) everyone binge watches like Breaking Bad, Full house, Friends, blabla. Totally doesn't depict American culture at all, it's just shows normal global life. I'm sure Indonesians can totally relate to these things because it's non-cultural /s

And the music, hip hop, rock n roll, blues, jazz, the creole/cajun cuisines, the American sub cultures. How everyone wears and buys American products or travels to the US to do American specific things but yeah, USA totally doesn't have a culture.

I am originally from Mexico but live in Texas temporarily (and I live ina town 95% full of Mexicans like I don't even need English). And when I go back to my family they say I adapted American values and culture. But how? if it doesn't have any culture? /s

What defines a culture anyway? Clothing, traditions, cuisines, mannerisms, way of thinking, architecture, accents? The US has all of those

I (45f) come from an evangelical Christian family. From our young age we have been taught that girls should stay a virgin till their marriage. I grew up with this thought as well. I stayed the good girl that everyone thought I was. We weren't even allowed to see kissing in the movies. I got married at a very young age at 17 to a man who was 29 at that time. I got pregnant 5 times. I was always told that only a woman who is devoted to her husband and pleases him will go to heaven. I didn't even know women could have orgasms. Sex with him was always uncomfortable but in my mind if I denied him, I was committing a sin. I didn't even reject him when I was 5 weeks post partum. Though I should have but I was afraid of him.

In my mind he was a good husband because he didn't beat me. But he did financially and sexually abuse me. I was told that the more you suffer, the more likely you will be Lord's favorite. My breaking point came when I found my husband was having an affair. I confront him and he said to stay out of it. That he is a man and it is in his right to have multiple women. Even in the school that we went has taught us it is perfectly ok for a man to have multiple women but not for a woman to have multiple men because it messes their head.

For 5 years straight I had to endure my husband's infidelity, his abuse, his neglect. During this time, I got on the internet and met some other religious women who were taught the same. They made me realize that I am a human too, my feelings matter and what was happening to me it is not right. I didn't have a job and I never worked a day in my life so it was not possible for me to get a divorce. But someone told me that in my state I do not need a job to file.

And since I have been out of work for 20 years, I can easily get alimony. It was a long battle. Long story short, my parents disowned me. My husband has tried multiple times to delay the divorce but it was of no use. I got alimony but lost the custody of my kids. My oldest one doesn't want to talk to me. Our kids were hurt a lot. But I think it was for the best. Because I was still broke and a mess. It took me a while to build a foundation for myself. I am still not in a good place. I am in therapy.

After my divorce, I started dating. I casually dated few people. And people have given me way more love and affection than I have ever received in my own marriage. I will never forget that one guy who made me orgasm for the first time. I cried when that happened and he held me. In my marriage my husband rarely ever hugged me or showed affection towards me. I never knew my body could even do that. I didn't think I would be still desirable after my body was broken after having 5 kids. I wish I didn't get married sooner. I wish I dated a bit more before settling down. I can never get back the years I have lost. I think I am now a bit comfortable about sharing my story. I hope if one person sees this learns that marrying early and a virgin doesn't guarantee you a better life. I see a lot of people criticizing women and saying nonsense that a woman who is a virgin till her marriage will always be happy. But they never speak about how many of us are dying inside.

Has anyone else noticed a trend of restaurants starting to push a tipping culture here? Around 20-30% of restaurants over the last few months have started bringing you the receipt and saying "if you want to add a tip, write it down in this spot", or giving you the EFTPOS machine and telling you that you can select a tip or choose to skip, and then standing 50cm away from you as you make your decision.

I consider myself a fairly assertive guy, so in each of these situations, I have opted out of tipping, smiled and thanked them for everything. But even so, it leaves me feeling guilty because everything was good. Which is frustrating because that's what the US expects - if everything is good, then you tip. But we pay our hospitality staff an actual living wage, so I've only tipped if the service goes above and beyond what's expected (eg a certain staff member is absolutely lovely, or they throw something in extra for free). I imagine many more people don't have the same social/emotional strength to say no in the moment and would rather give $10 than look bad, and because of that, it seems almost predatory to ask for a tip to begin with. We all know how to tip; if we want to give extra money to say thanks, we don't need instructions.

Normalise opting in for tips, not opting out. This is so frustrating that the social obligations seem to be shifting at restaurants.

I recently hit the gym again after not going for about 8 years. (Only to rehab a sports injury).

Back when I used to gym regularly in my twenties it was a social place where strangers would chat to each other in between sets and strangers would spot other people at random.

None of that happens anymore. Also my wife warned me not to even look in the direction of a woman working out else i might get reported and kicked out of the gym. Has it gotten that bad?

Of course gyms back then had 1 or 2 pervs, but that didn’t stop everyone else from being friendly, plus everyone knew who the pervs were.

Edit: Holy crap, didn’t expect this to blow up like this. From the replies it seems it’s a combination of wireless earphones, covid, and tiktok scandals are the main reason gyms are less social than before.

For clarification, when I say chat between sets, I literally mean a handful of words. Sometimes it might be someone complimenting your form, or more commonly some gym bro trying to be helpful and correct your form.

No one’s going to the gym to chat about the latest marvel movie or what they did last weekend.

Eg. I’ve moved to freeweight shoulder press a month or two back and sometimes my form isn’t great without a spot. I might not be remembering correctly but back when I’d do free weights, if I was struggling to keep form I’m sure most of the time some stranger would come spot me for that set at random.