• LesserAbe@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Not calling you out specifically, but I see this phrase everywhere and don’t understand its popularity. It would be more concise and equally “clever” to just say “Sounds like this guy works in the US”. What is the appeal that everyone keeps typing this?

    • arandomthought@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      AFAIK it’s been a challenge some people did on… twitter I think?
      Basically it’s “Tell me you’re XYZ without telling me you’re XYZ” and people responded with funny answers.
      At some point that got turned around and people satrted to use that sencence structure to indicate that the thing they are commenting on would have been a great answer for that challenge.

      • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Thanks yeah, I’ve seen that sort of thread. If anything in this particular case it would make more sense if the comment was “tell me what country you’re from without telling me what country you’re from.”

      • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Lol, well I didn’t mean specifically “tell me you’re from the US” just the general phrase “tell me X without telling me X”.

        And can confirm that plenty of Americans aren’t thrilled with how things are run in America. We’re running democracy v0.1 beta

        • Bob@feddit.nl
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          4 months ago

          Someone said it on Twitter once so I suppose it’s stuck. I find it a bit long-winded and all.

    • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      It’s a colloquialism of Internet denizens that I’ve seen floating around for many years. In fact it’s somewhat baffling to me that you haven’t seen it until now.

        • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          Right, my bad. I guess I’m hinting at your comment needing a bit of a massage until it says what you mean. My suspicion is you actually just don’t like the turn of phrase, not that you don’t get why it’s used, right? Which is perfectly fine yo.

          Hell, the way you phrased not liking something as "not getting it’ and yor statement just now with the “?” At the end of it are both standard interwebby colloquialisms.

          Not fighting, just saying

          • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Well like other people were saying, there’s a trend of people posting this prompt, and then others responding with funny answers. You’re right, I don’t like it when people use the same formulation in response to a comment. I also don’t get why people are doing it, for the same reason: I don’t think it’s funny, and it doesn’t really add anything to the conversation.

            Usually memes are funny because there’s a familiar pattern and then people riff on the pattern and make little unexpected tweaks. The type of usage I don’t like and don’t get is when people are just saying “you’re this” in a more wordy way. It has the form of a joke with no punchline.

            • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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              4 months ago

              I get what you’re saying bout the repetitiveness of the way people communicate. Someone it can feel like a bunch of LLMs slapping together the same 10-15 lines together to mimic speech.

              I attemt to say things in different ways and have a “voice” you can hear to fight this repetitiveness, and out of sheer boredom towards the ways things are commonly said. THAT said I’m “guilty” of using memespeech too, and if course it can be clever shorthand to convey feeling if used properly.

              Dunno where I’m going with this but i do feel ya.

              • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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                4 months ago

                Personally I think this was a good use of the phrase. I was thinking it already when I read it. Good comment.

    • ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      It may be coming from those popular AskReddit threads, such as: Tell me what you do for a living without telling what you do for a living.

    • x00za@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 months ago

      Not calling you out specifically, but I see this phrase everywhere and don’t understand its popularity. It would be more concise and equally “clever” to just say “Sounds like this guy works in the US”. What is the appeal that everyone keeps typing this?

      Tell me you’re from the US without telling me you’re from the US.

    • Noxy@yiffit.net
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      4 months ago

      Why did you type out “what is” when “what’s” is shorter and as clear?

      and did you really need that “just” in there?