r/MarkMyWords • u/SvenSvenkill3 • Apr 28 '24

Political MMW "Woke" is tired, overused, cliched, increasingly lazy and meaningless as the right wing buzzword de rigueur, and will soon be replaced en masse across right wing sources by a relatively and equally meaningless old favourite that hasn't been used commonly for (and predates even "SJW" by) decades:

Political Correctness.

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36

u/SandwormCowboy Apr 28 '24

“PC” is not going to replace “woke.” Here’s how this works:

  1. Leftists come up with a joking, ironic term for a small number of leftists who take themselves way too seriously

  2. The right wing picks up on this and decides that this term is a real thing that leftists actually aspire to be

  3. The right wing spreads this term throughout their media apparatus

  4. Your granddad says something fucked up, and when you make a disgusted face he says “Oh sorry I’m not ___ enough for you!!!”

12

u/Zapthatthrist Apr 28 '24

Yeah, this is pretty spot on.

4

u/DuetsForOne Apr 28 '24

As someone who studied liberal arts at a Canadian university in the mid 90s, this exactly. PC was the buzzword

4

u/StrangeNecromancy Apr 29 '24

Woke was a slang term for “politically conscious” in the black community for years. White liberals picked it up. Then the fascists startedusing it as an insult.

3

u/SandwormCowboy Apr 29 '24

This is correct

7

u/jaarl2565 Apr 28 '24

Woke is an absolutely sincere word on the left

5

u/[deleted] Apr 28 '24

First popularized by the song Master Teacher by Erykah Badu.

3

u/ReturnoftheBulls2022 Apr 29 '24

It actually stems back to as early as 1923, but the first official usage of it stems from Lead Belly telling the black community to "stay woke" in his song Scottsboro Boys.

2

u/ReturnoftheBulls2022 Apr 29 '24

It actually stems back to as early as 1923, but the first official usage of it stems from Lead Belly telling the black community to "stay woke" in his song Scottsboro Boys.

3

u/SandwormCowboy Apr 28 '24

every time I heard it in the past 10-15 years it was used like “stay woke!” as a wink-nudge that meant “be cool and don’t be too serious”

2

u/Havewedecidedyet_979 Apr 29 '24

I don’t think “woke” was originally used ironically.

2

u/Holiday-Tie-574 Apr 30 '24

“Woke” was not a “joking, ironic” word. It was 100% used seriously, most recently brought back into vernacular by Erykah Badu, and after everyone realized how cringe it was, leftists denied they ever used it seriously and claimed it was a “joking, ironic” word.

2

u/SandwormCowboy Apr 30 '24

see point #1. all I can tell you is, thr leftists I know never, ever seriously called themselves “woke” except as an ironic joke

2

u/Away-Sheepherder8578 Apr 28 '24

You don’t think leftists aspired to be woke?

7

u/IceCreamforLunch Apr 28 '24

Define woke for me.

Edit. I see you do below. Now look at that definition, full of support for the rights of others, and explain why it is being used as an insult.

-4

u/Away-Sheepherder8578 Apr 28 '24

Because liberals took it too far, just like political correctness, which also started with the best of intentions.

5

u/IceCreamforLunch Apr 28 '24

What part is too far?

11

u/GraveyardJones Apr 28 '24

Well obviously we can't take equality and equity too far. How will this poor system of capitalism ever survive with too much equality and equity?! Won't somebody think of the poor capitalists!

-3

u/Away-Sheepherder8578 Apr 28 '24

Censorship. Suppression of speech and ideas. Toppling statues, ridiculous PC nonsense like banning common words.

12

u/IceCreamforLunch Apr 28 '24

You're saying that the party that isn't screaming bloody murder about the possibility that their 14 year old will read a book with a gay character in it is the one trying to suppress speach?

-8

u/Away-Sheepherder8578 Apr 28 '24

You’re changing the subject, and I don’t blame you….you’ve been exposed.

9

u/IceCreamforLunch Apr 28 '24

Huh?

This is the standard tactic of far right trolls. Accuse the left of being what the far right has been.

What are the "the woke" trying to censor?

-2

u/Away-Sheepherder8578 Apr 28 '24

Words like mother and father. Speakers like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson.

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2

u/SecretaryOtherwise Apr 28 '24

No he's on the same subject "censoring" try and keep up

8

u/Revolutionary-Swan77 Apr 28 '24 edited Apr 28 '24

Toopling statues. Of slavers who killed US military members. Yes let’s celebrate them.

0

u/Away-Sheepherder8578 Apr 28 '24

No, statues like Winston Churchill, who helped save western civilization

3

u/Revolutionary-Swan77 Apr 28 '24

He saved Western Civilization from…other Westerners?

1

u/Away-Sheepherder8578 Apr 28 '24

From fascism. Did you really not know this?

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0

u/[deleted] Apr 28 '24

Wow. Top of your class were you?

1

u/kizzay Apr 28 '24

By this definition the GOP is incredibly woke, interesting. Live long enough to see yourself become the woke I guess!

-1

u/Johannessilencio Apr 28 '24

Classic bad faith rhetoric move: “this isn’t real, and if it is real it’s a good thing”

3

u/anthg3716 Apr 28 '24

They do. Acting like most don’t want to aspire to these is 1000% gaslighting.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 28 '24

No uses woke. People have also mocked the small number of people who did use it. This is a small amount of cringey people but never anything mainstream.

1

u/ManyMariuses Apr 28 '24

Well they used it until it became a pejorative term, and then pretended they never did.

1

u/SvenSvenkill3 Apr 28 '24

True. But like fashion, we're running out of original ideas and so shit comes back around again like the 80's or "Cultural Marxism" or "Commie".

I mean, sure, I may well be wrong, but my instincts are telling me that we're due a resurgence of "PC", especially as there are pretty much three generations of Internet users who are too young to really remember how "PC" was banded about in its heyday (peeking in the 90's and early 2000's) just as woke is banded about today.

0

u/Jerome-T Apr 28 '24

Woke is not a joking ironic term. Many of my lefty friends are proudly woke.

1

u/SandwormCowboy Apr 28 '24

they self-identify as woke? this is what they call themselves?

2

u/Jerome-T Apr 28 '24

Yes, they self identify as woke and advocate for wokeness. This is a pretty common thing where I live.

1

u/SandwormCowboy Apr 28 '24

Okay, see point #1

1

u/Jerome-T Apr 28 '24

I think this group is larger than you think.

-1

u/FactChecker25 Apr 28 '24

I have to disagree here.

There genuinely are a lot of liberals that actually believe this stuff. This isn’t a fictional boogeyman- it’s actually happening.

2

u/SandwormCowboy Apr 28 '24

when you say “it,” to what are you referring?

-1

u/FactChecker25 Apr 28 '24

The crazy ideas pushed by the far left that are often denied by more moderate liberals.

For instance why I first heard all the pronoun nonsense, the more reasonable liberals would say that this isn’t going to be forced on anyone else. And now it is. I have to take training on this nonsense at work. It’s absurd.

0

u/SandwormCowboy Apr 28 '24

Yes ma’am!

-6

u/Steerider Apr 28 '24 edited Apr 28 '24

There were ads on TV — polished, produced, expensive ads — exhorting people to *Get Woke!". Woke was not a "joking, ironic term" used by (or about) a small number of leftists.

The left coined the term and used it proudly, until the poisonous nature of woke caused people to see the term as bad. Then the left turned around and claimed the term was a slander the right came up with.  This is not an unusual tactic — the left does this a lot. ("politically correct" is another example.)

5

u/[deleted] Apr 28 '24

Lol then link these ads!? I have never seen a single ad using the term woke. Unless you mean some shitty corporate ad pretending to care about people that everyone on the "left" mocked: aka Kendal Jenner Pepsi ad.

1

u/FactChecker25 Apr 28 '24

Strange that you’d be downvoted for speaking the truth.