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[Flying Dice]

Do you mean the idea of cultural appropriation being bad, or the actual act of cultural appropriation?

From the context, I'm assuming the thing itself, in the sense of taking little snippets of culture and warping them into something wholly different.

Like, take Chinese restaurants in the U.S. Those are an excellent example: the food, decor, &c. are allegedly Chinese, but everything about those places is essentially an American creation which vaguely apes Chinese culture.

That's not to say that that's the only sort of cultural appropriation, just that the negative stuff is what tends to be referred to. On the same subject (appreciation for foreign food), take as an example a Thai restaurant in my city. It's out in a crappy neighborhood (in a dead strip mall with a coin-op laundry on one side and an empty storefront on the other), owned and operated by a family of Thai immigrants, and it's heavily patronized by people from all over the city, mostly 'cause the food's great, they use actual spices instead of those fucking dried red pepper flakes, and the old guy who runs it is an excellent dude. If you applied the same standards to that that this crowd does to other things which have been "culturally appropriated", it's wrong for anyone who isn't Thai to eat there.

[Neonivek]

The phrase "cultural appropriation" sounds really pretentious.

Because it originally was invented as a way to say "Stealing from a culture" but make it sound sophisticated instead of silly.

[Akura]

So, apparently while I was at work, there was a wreck on the highway leading up there with like 12 or 13 cars or something, which has two things about it.

First, I forgot my boots and we had to go back when we first left, had I not forgotten my boots, my mother probably would have ended up in the middle of it after dropping me off.

Second, apparently a semi-truck caught fire. Like, it seems to have just burst into flames.

You don't live on Long Island, do you? I think something similar happened near where I work yesterday. Fortunately, it happened out of the way though the redirected traffic did make getting home slow.

[Amperzand]

Google autocomplete brought me to this during legitimate scholarly research as to average number of hours spent driving.

I genuinely fail to even.

[Steelmagic]

So, apparently while I was at work, there was a wreck on the highway leading up there with like 12 or 13 cars or something, which has two things about it.

First, I forgot my boots and we had to go back when we first left, had I not forgotten my boots, my mother probably would have ended up in the middle of it after dropping me off.

Second, apparently a semi-truck caught fire. Like, it seems to have just burst into flames.

You don't live on Long Island, do you? I think something similar happened near where I work yesterday. Fortunately, it happened out of the way though the redirected traffic did make getting home slow.

No, I live in Tennessee so I'm quite a ways away. It doesn't seem like anybody was killed, at least. As far as I know.

[Graknorke]

Google autocomplete brought me to this during legitimate scholarly research as to average number of hours spent driving.

I genuinely fail to even.

think of it in terms of what the units are in:
horns on a unicorn is unitless (just 1)
teaspoons are m^3 (volume)
acres are m^2 (area)
lightyears are m (length)

[TheBiggerFish]

Google autocomplete brought me to this during legitimate scholarly research as to average number of hours spent driving.

I genuinely fail to even.

[Akura]

Tried to call in sick. I get an automated system:

"To talk to a store associate, press 1. For store hours, press 2."

*presses 1*

"Store hours are..."


And no, I did not accidentally press 2. I called again to make sure.

[Sergarr]

Try pressing 2 intentionally, maybe they've switched them around for a communist corporate reason and forgot to change the voice message.

[Akura]

Pressed 2, and all I got was a sales pitch for the store's club card.

[scriver]

I think there's some confusion here between cultural melting-pottyness and absorption and cultural appropriation. Cultures mixing is automatic and natural, although it can sometimes be sad, and will always happen on both individual and societal levels. It is not inherently either good or bad, rather whether it is depends wholly on the value of what's being spread.

Cultural appropriation, however, is however culture spreading by one group taking something from another and not acknowledging where it came from or denying the first group any part of it. A good example is American music businesses taking music written by black people and giving it to white musicians without due credit. A very closely related concept is so called "cultural whitewashing" or the sequential removing of black people from a concept. To stay with the music examples, country music is today seen as "white people music" in the US, while around a hundred years ago it was very much music by and for both black and white people of the south. As it gained in popularity, particularly with the more "refined" classes, black artists found it increasingly hard to remain part of the scene.

So yeah, in my mind, cultural appropriation has inherently negative connotations, because as I have understood it is culture exchange but through bad means.

[TheBiggerFish]

Pressed 2, and all I got was a sales pitch for the store's club card.

Try three?

[Sergarr]

Oh, oh! Try pressing zero!

[Akura]

Pressing three gives a different phone directory that was given at the end of the other options. Zero actually did get the front desk.

You'd think they'd actually give that option.

[Teneb]

Pressing three gives a different phone directory that was given at the end of the other options. Zero actually did get the front desk.

You'd think they'd actually give that option.

But then they'd have to talk to the customers! And that's terrible!