iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 29/09/2026

I'd love to know more about this cultural phenomenon, where people demand deeper meaning in cheap (often children's or YA) entertainment media instead of just directly learning about the things they want to learn about.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 25/09/2026

I'm realizing just now that the Wayfair stuff might have been filling a gap in the public panic market, during a time when the longstanding kidnapped-in-a-mall-parking-lot myth rang less true because people weren't shopping in person as much.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 25/09/2026

IMO it picked up *in* 2020, which was the peak of not only "Epstein didn't kill himself", but also a related conspiracy theory: "Wayfair is running a child sex trafficking ring by listing products under certain names and unusually high prices". Married real social anxieties to cuckoo bananas stuff

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 21/09/2026

I think there are a few things going on. - The average atheist: liberal, reliable Dem voter - The reddit atheist: New Atheism-inspired, thinks all religion is christian fundamentalism and thinks babby's first counter-apologetics makes them a genius - The 4chan atheist: Hitler reincarnated

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 14/09/2026

I'm the King of Evil, and I need $5.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 04/09/2026

The main identifier I've noticed is dropping "to be" out of sentences. "The car needs to be washed" -> "The car needs washed". I don't know if this is a real phenomenon, but it feels like regionalisms have shifted from specific vocab to specific grammar. I'm fascinated by the positive "anymore".

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 04/09/2026

IME "Yinzer" doesn't really exist in the wild anymore. I've heard it dropped in natural speech exactly once since I moved here five years ago. Otherwise it seems relegated to marketing and "Did you know Pittsburgh has its own dialect?" listicles.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 01/09/2026

Do you feel like expanding on this? I've been thinking recently about American evangelicals as functionally atheist (and generally adopting a Nietzschean worldview, perhaps without realizing it) and I'd like to hear more.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 27/08/2026

And eventually the GOP base got tired of being strung along.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 27/08/2026

"Dem tea party" is a truism at this point but I do think there's a parallel here, where the pre-Trump GOP elites thought there was some mutual was winking and nodding along with all of the psycho rhetoric with the base and that they didn't *actually* believe it.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 27/08/2026

The most infuriating thing about the Kushner/Hasan 1-2 is that it makes obvious the fact that Jeffries doesn't believe that Trump and Republicans represent a grave threat that requires our immediate and undivided focus, despite that being an essentially unanimous belief among his party's voters.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 21/08/2026

FWIW I'm not confident this style of criticism is particularly effective nowadays, especially in online spaces. It relies on the assumption that racists are embarrassed enough to not publicly state their beliefs, which Cofnas clearly isn't.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 29/07/2026

I think much of US cultural phenomena since 2020 can be explained through the lens of "I owe *nothing* to the people around me". The proliferation of gambling, the rise of violent conflict as content (pedo hunters, harassing homeless), Trump 2024, promotion of AI slop. Its a suicidal social movement

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 29/07/2026

I think it's, in part, because covid was a truly radicalizing period for conservative America (far more than I was aware of at the time), and as they prepare for a full-throated denouncement of democracy, they're returning to the well that first gave them a taste of abandoning social responsibility.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 19/07/2026

I get highly annoyed with this flavor of "Nothing Ever Happens" because it's insanely myopic for how defeatist it is. We're looking at about two decades of American politics and writing off the ability to ever change.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 19/07/2026

And on the other, you're saying a generation has gone by without justice having been brought against the last crop of villains, so to ever do so in the future is presumed to be impossible.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 19/07/2026

Can you see why I'm baffled by this position? On one hand you're asking leaders to be specific about the punishments this country's villains should face (which I agree with and think would be good!).

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 19/07/2026

"Consequences" aren't some superstition that the savvier among us know better than to believe in. To think otherwise is to believe that the public at large has zero power to enact its political will, which is demonstrably not true.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 19/07/2026

What's the point of this response? What do you want people to say -- "They're evil people, but nothing's going to happen to them, so let's all just shut up about it"?

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 28/06/2026

shoutout to everyone who recommended Apteka in pittsburgh. one of the best meals i have had this year

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 02/07/2026

He hilariously weasels his way out of the question by shoving in "Are Catholics cannibals?" and then answering that question, not the one that precedes it. He completely leaves out the question of substance.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 11/05/2026

Iran's already laid mines, haven't they

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 07/04/2026

We don't ever deserve forgiveness for what we're doing. How could we be vain enough to ask for it?

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs.

The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

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Read the book Read Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell) @jphillll.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Bovino out is a great indicator. It’s a great start. But none of us can be appeased right now. It’s still abolish ICE. It’s still prosecute these fascists. It’s still destroy the whole apparatus that has been terrorizing and disappearing and murdering our neighbors.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 26/01/2026

Renée Good and Alex Pretti will not have died in vain. We will live in a freer America because of their sacrifice. It's now our responsibility to bring it into being.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 26/01/2026

I'm in awe of their ingenuity, discipline, and resolve. They will be the blueprint for the rest of this country as we fight for freedom. Study what happened there.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 26/01/2026

The people of Minneapolis are an inspiration. These folks rallied together against a violent siege enacted by their own government and won. They reminded powerful men that they aren't invincible, and they reminded us that loving your neighbor is the greatest weapon we have.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 15/01/2026

Greatest website ever created by far. I want to see the day when the ideals of open access to knowledge and global collaboration are reflected everywhere in society.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 15/01/2026

I don't know if all insurers do it this way, but for mine I only had to enable the tracking for one drive to get the discount. I turned it off without any issues since.

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

Still need more baseball? We found a CD in our archives containing dozens of unused voice lines from MLB Slugfest 20-03 rejected by the MLB. Here's some of our favorites.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 31/10/2025

My favorite bit of family history trivia is that my Slovak GGF on my father's side and my Italian GGF on my mother's side immigrated to the US aboard the same ship (Konigin Luise). Its first route was Bremen -> NY, and later Naples -> NY.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 31/10/2025

I just started doing exactly this! It's great seeing artifacts from the ships around the time my ancestors would've traveled, including menus (though they were steerage passengers and almost certainly weren't eating that good).

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 28/09/2025

What's it called when every social encounter feels like I'm playing guitar hero and hitting 65% of the notes

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 14/09/2025

What exactly does a plan to get out look like? People throw this out as if it's a realistic possibility for folks but it really, truly is not. It is difficult for Americans to emigrate and establish a permanent living situation in a country that is desirable, let alone safe for trans people.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 30/06/2025

Do you know which Dem didn't vote?

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The Serfs (youtube.com/theserfstv) @theserfstv.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

China connecting the entire country via high speed rail and revolutionizing EV tech. The US:

MSNBC reports that Trump directs JD Vance to go after 'woke zoos'

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 22/03/2025

oh i think this is exactly right. people care about your views but they ALSO care about whether you seem real and authentic

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 20/01/2025

Milk is $20 a gallon here. My family can't take more of this.

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competentcuttlefish @cuttlefish.club · 14/01/2025

Almost every day I have had to tell myself that the best thing I can do to make the world a better place is to show kindness when others don't but boy is it hard sometimes.

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