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The other day, my friend decided to channel his inner comedian and impersonate the group of us during a hangout. At first, we were all flattered—we each got a turn in the spotlight! But as the impressions rolled on, the mood shifted. He exaggerated my obsession with coffee by pretending to drink fifteen cups at once, and then exaggerated my buddy’s deep voice to the point where he sounded like a cartoon bear. The grand finale? A spot-on rendition of our friend’s struggle to differentiate between “affect” and “effect,” complete with dramatic facial expressions that had us in stitches!
It was like watching a wacky highlight reel of our quirks play out, and suddenly we realized how ridiculous we must look to outsiders. The moment he started pretending to call someone out for being “too chill” on the couch, and then accidentally knocked over a pizza box in the process—well, that was just the cherry on top of a comedy sundae. We laughed so hard that I nearly spilled my own coffee, realizing all those embarrassing habits we try to hide were actually the key to our friendship!
F
Meanwhile my dog won’t poop unless I’m watching him- weird little earthlings. 🤷♀️
D
It’s the time they’re most vulnerable so they want to make sure you have their back. Definitely an odd eye contact moment.
J
I’ve always got my little bros back and he does the same for me.
F
“Watch me poop! Yeah you like that, don’t you?! Pick up my shit!”
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C
My mother’s dog smiles when I watched him poop. I kinda think he knows what he’s doing.
D
Dogs and cats follow you to the bathroom to protect you since you can’t fight back any danger if you’re shitting.
T
Cats especially like Party Shits. If you’re going to the bathroom and there’s a litterbox in there, all the cats in the house are also going to poop.
A
My cat won’t eat unless I stand guard and promise to thwart all incoming threats.
M
Also, the location must be precisely distanced from prior locations and the dog must be oriented correctly with the earth’s geomagnetic field.
S
Lol. That Audio book one is gonna sting some folk.
P
It’s the opposite for me, I’d love to be able to listen to an audiobook while driving, but being deaf kind of throws that out the window. I just have to read my stories on the shredded skin of dead trees like a pleb.
D
Reading while driving sounds dangerous. But don’t worry, you won’t hear it.
N
LOL in US it’s illegal to wear headphones in the car because you won’t hear sirens. But deaf people drive. In US it’s illegal to drive if you’re blind. But they make drive-up ATMs with Braille on them. In US it’s illegal to kill people or steal money, unless you’re an elected official where it’s just understood that’s what they do.
T
People mock the brail on the ATM thing all the time. But sighted folks can drive blind folks to the ATM and the blind folks can use the ATM thanks to the brail on the ATM. Critical thinking skills are useful.
A
WHAT?
P
If I had a penny for every time I heard that joke, I’d still be broke because I can’t hear shit.
_
I like you😄
M
Also not all ATMs are drive-through — why would you want the buttons to be different?
F
Fuck, you have drive through ATMs ?
W
For the second one there’s two reasons. The first is an assumption, but I imagine an ATM is an ATM and it’s just installed where it’s needed. They wouldn’t have separate models for walk up or drive up. Second, the blind person is presumably in the back seat behind the driver, and would do all their transactions from that window.
T
Or if your daughter says something bad about trump, then it’s cool.
L
Do AirPods fall under the “illegal” category? Lol I wear them all the time while driving and never have any problem hearing sirens
N
Yes it’s crazy. But those laws are from the 1980s when white people hated seeing black people wearing headphones. I wish I were kidding.
T
I’m not deaf but I tried listening to an audio book on my drives to and from work, and it’s like I miss too much paying attention to my surroundings. Like I can retain the crap my sports podcasts put out while I’m driving but I feel like I’m missing something listening to a book
A
Yeah same for me. I switched to podcasts for drives and listen to audio books when doing chores instead.
M
I like the podcast route for timing reasons too — a lot of it is in about 15-20 minute increments, which happens to align nicely with short car trips. I also find myself pausing the podcast if I want to think more about what was said, work through the implications, etc.
T
See I could see that working better for me, my drive is all rural roads and I like nature so I like to take it in
N
I use audio books for any rereads I want to do. That way it doesn’t matter too much if my attention is on other things for a moment.
F
If you’re deaf how are you reading this then?
P
With my fingers
L
Hopefully not while driving.
G
Them insurgents done stole all our Cocoa Puffs
T
They have electronic tree skins now. Much more lively than the dead ones.
S
Ha! I hear ya. But I guess you don’t hear us, Shit.
M
The fact you gleam entertainment from the flayed and processed skin of dead trees is metal as fuck, when you word it as such.
D
Time to learn morse code and get a convenient, handsfree, vibrating device (Other safer ideas that totally aren’t dangerous are perhaps ticker tape just zooming across your windshield. Can’t think of any danger there. Something I invented, that has these visual representations of scenes in books, but they move, called a “MooV” [cuz it’ll be cash cow number 5] just playing on the passenger side. And then there’s the braile pager that is like an arm band that shoots metal pins into your arm in the shape of letters)
I
I travel a lot for work . Around fours hours a day . Audio books let me catch up on all the books I don’t have time to read at home
C
I hear my mother in laws voice talking shit as I type
S
The people who are stung by it think that reading is like some veggies they have to eat and feel upset when you say all those gross veggies they’re eating don’t even count. Like, count towards what? I read books and listen to audiobooks for my enjoyment, not to fulfill some imaginary metric. You’d think aliens would appreciate that.
J
>You’d think aliens would appreciate that. I mean, them saying “it’s not reading” is not necessarily them saying it doesn’t count. If someone can’t focus enough to *read* a book, then they’re just finding what works for them. (I love to read and I actually think I don’t have the focus to listen to a book; npr clips are hard for me and YouTube videos that can be consumed as a podcast I still need to watch). So people who get really hung up on the semantics and are really adamant that it *is* ‘reading’ are being pretentious. Of course it is possible that the aliens are also being pretentious but given the last bit, I’d wager nah. Anywho, small aside, ultimately I think we just need a new snappy word that encapsulates both reading and listening to a book. Next best option is to just let people use reading to mean both until the sense evolves to encapsulate both.
M
Shakespeare always comes to mind for me… You can read it, you can listen to it, you can watch it. All are going to be different experiences, and in this case, I think reading it is the worst option. Though all three are better than not doing any of them. It feels like we’re missing a word in the language. Listening is a short-term activity, like a part of conversation rather than a form of consumption.
D
I think you hit the word perfecfly. Consume. How do you like to consume your literature?
N
I do both, but just call it ‘listening’ to an audiobook… When I read a book I am using my eyes. But i definitely go through more audiobooks than written books. Mainly because I can listen while commuting. TBF I’m not listening to textbooks or any professional development while driving. Just popcorn material to keep me zen and not raging out on all the bad driving I see out there. Material retention isn’t a requirement just distracting enough to that part of the brain that likes to project stories and divine motives with little input. You know that part that looks for adversaries to beat at some metric. Keep that emotional part busy while operator mind gets my ass to work around the ragers, non-zipper mergers, “blinkers are an offense to my religion” people. Calm collected and cool. Just a nice little reality disconnect. Used to do news/podcasts but lately they all just feed me more information I hate to the point it becomes a distraction.
J
Sometime over the past year someone said something about it being perfectly fine to experience books as a transient thing. I don’t get hung up on the fact that soon afterwards I forget pretty much everything besides the general theme/plot of a book and the emotional takeway, but *while* I’m consuming something, I get insecure if I feel like I’m not retaining anything. That’s why I struggle with just listening to anything (besides music) because I ‘need’ to essentially lock in or I’ll be constantly rewinding.
D
>Next best option is to just let people use reading to mean both until the sense evolves to encapsulate both. Consuming is a word that includes both. Reading ain’t it.
H
When talking about a book, saying “oh I’ve read that” is more natural than either “I’ve listened to the audiobook” or “I’ve consumed it” (lmao)
J
It is, but that’s why I said snappy. We’re a silly lot at the end of the day.
O
I think your next best option is just the way it’s going to go, because there’s never any context where the difference is important to the conversation. What we are saying is “I internalized information from a collection”, the “how” doesn’t matter.
J
Yeah, practically, in a typical conversation, there’s no way for the person to know reading is being used to mean listening. My point is really more about two things: 1) people quibbling about the how information is being received and I wish that didn’t have to be the case 2) linguistically, under the context of grice’s maxim of quality, where without either party really knowing, there is a miscommunication occuring. It’s an entirely irrelevant miscommunication, but there’s that small silly part of my brain that wishes it didn’t have to be he case
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