The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
serious crayons:
Has everybody read the one from a couple of weeks ago about the woman in rural Afghanistan? It's long and took me forever to read. It seemed a bit like a duty article, but in fact it's extremely compelling and it changed my entire view of Afghanistan -- and, for that matter, the U.S. military.
Women in cities hate the Taliban for the obvious and very valid reasons. But in rural areas, women and men like the Taliban -- men have been joining in droves -- because they're so much less violent than the careless, murderous Americans. The writer shows in many different ways how awful the Americans were, constantly killing or enabling killing of civilians and children.
This is what my son has been talking about all along and why he hates Obama (not that Obama's the only guilty party, of course, but he did send more troops -- my son, leftie though he is, loves puncturing liberal beliefs). I always knew civilians and children sometimes got droned, but this article describes case after case. By talking to people and comparing death records and eyewitness accounts, the writer calculated that every family in the town from which he was reporting had lost 10-12 civilian members.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on October 04, 2021, 02:41:37 pm ---I'm not sure I understand. Were they in the same sentence or paragraph, so it sounded clumsy and/or insensitive because TNY wasn't acknowledging? I'm not sure there are any synonyms for social-media viral unless it's "read by millions" or something like that. No one-word term, is there?
--- End quote ---
See page 37, Sept. 27 issue, in "The Damage Done," by Dhruv Khullar. The full quotation is this:
--- Quote ---At the time, there were scattered reports of coronavirus cases, but few people admitted to being infected, and her social-media posts went viral.
--- End quote ---
I think it's kind of unintentionally funny, in a gasp-inducing, OMG, maybe even groan-inducing kind of way (not to say--OK I'll say it--bad editing), to have a sentence that says posts about a virus went viral. It's like an unintentional (I hope unintentional) pun. I love puns as much as the next person, but not in this context. I get it that the use is that posts go viral, but, c'mon, really? Did the writer and the editor (whoever edited the piece) even realize what they were saying? And if they did ... ::) I think it's inappropriate.
Front-Ranger:
There aren't any good synonyms for "go viral": https://www.powerthesaurus.org/go_viral/synonyms
But, before the Internet, I used to have several words I would use, like "exploded" or, my favorite, "mushroomed". People I wrote for hated all these and insisted that I substitute the word "increased".
serious crayons:
Hmm. I guess it doesn't bother me in either the blundering way or the offensive lame-joke way. Maybe slightly clumsy -- they could have written COVID instead of coronavirus. But you kind of have to use "viral" in that context -- saying "her posts exploded," "mushroomed," or "increased," would be at least slightly unclear, whereas the meaning of viral is instantly recognizable.
As far as clumsy editing at the TNY, I far prefer the virus/viral case to those "'This election was stolen,' Donald Trump, who may have cheated the government out of millions on his taxes, which have been subpoenaed as part of a process that may eventually lead to a conviction, said." (Made-up example.)
But to each his/her own. I'm probably more immersed in internet culture than you, Jeff, so the word doesn't stand out as much to me.
Front-Ranger:
THere's another phrase to say in place of "go viral" that I like. It's "go into warp drive." ;D
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