Dad Safari: This has been going on a while over on Flickr. Its the clandestine act of taking picture of “hot guys” and posting them to the interweb. I’m sure the rush is fun but the act itself, to me, seems like an utter violation of that person’s privacy. While whole communities try to stave the onslaught of CCTV cameras in England, US and here in Canada, we now have to worry about some dork with a cell phone camera posting your picture online, displaying your face like some neanderthal hunter displaying heads on his den wall. Okay, he’s cute, I get it. Put your dick back in your pants and wait ten seconds, there’s going to be another “hot guy” along in a moment.
Yummy Mummy: No offense should be taken by any woman who is a mother, but do we have to categorize them with a word that implies edibility? To make motherhood cute and juvenile within the connotation of sexuality just smacks of cannibal-paedophilism. I know there are sexy moms out there, that’s why we have “MILF”.
Hypermililng: For American brethren who might not have heard this new word, it means to drive economically to save gas, to save money at the pumps. Created by a Torontonian, it implies that when you drive accordingly, you will either stretch out your gas millage or the two Imperial Cruisers might just catch you. The concept is easy: drive slow, drive constant, drive safe. So… don’t drive like a douchenozzle (like you should be doing ANYWAY) and you might save money? (swats head)
6 thoughts on “Word Trends I Despise”
no worries, DR. i didn’t mean to sound harsh, but that’s my default setting so i again emphasise that i meant what i said as commentary, not judgement and acrimony.
“I am sure some of those guys would choose not to be displayed on someone’s flickr account they didn’t know personally. And in some cases, against their sexuality.”
aww… poor straight guys getting back a smidgen of what they’ve inflicted on women for the past few thousand years. it brings a tear to my eye, it does. heh.
Know that the post was 90% “in fun” much like everything else I write about. It just bothers me that some guys out there need to project their sexuality on some unsuspecting person.
Andrew, you make a good point. I read on boingboing daily of rent-a-cops roughing up people with larger than average cameras in public spaces just because the Terrorists have won. The loss of public photography *is* a slippery slope we shouldn’t be going down. But generally that’s with regards to buildings, not people. I see “dad safari” as a loss of personal control: I am sure some of those guys would choose not to be displayed on someone’s flickr account they didn’t know personally. And in some cases, against their sexuality.
I see your point. I do write about people I come in contact with. But off the top of my head, I think I’ve only directly identified two (Zanta, Francis the crack head) who live in the public eye. I do write about friends and photograph them with their permission, of course. It’s probably why they don’t call much anymore! But I take care not to mention names. It’s thin and near useless, I know, but at least the respect is there.
Lex: It is a sad world we live in where we need to empower women because they’re having low self esteem while creating a baby. Again, it’s tongue-in-cheek comments from me, really, not being able to gestate a larve.
Based on my friends the “Yummy Mummy” term is something that new mothers & expectant women are embracing to remind themselves that parenthood does not remove all sexuality from a woman.
I’m not a fan of the term either, but having seen how empowering it can be for women at that stage and dealing with those issues, I’m keeping my big mouth shut when they use it and giggle delightedly.
oh, and ‘yummy mummy’: you forgot that the boys using this term are excited by infantilism. i find that particular kink to be viscerally unattractive and unappetising, but since i want people to allow me my kinks, i pay it no attention (other than quietly gritting my teeth and hoping for an untimely diaper-pin stabbing).
the whole dad safari thing is annoying (and titillating, i confess), but what’s to be done? surely you didn’t need to see the flickr group (or any of a few hundred blogs) to realise that large numbers of people have no respect for one another or know what boundaries are.
consider the phenomenon as one of the less-appreciable offshoots of the current drive toward freedom of information. technology has advanced more rapidly than we have been able to adjust our sense of responsibility – it would have been unthinkable not so very long ago to have the ability to show more than a few people secretly obtained photographs of others, unless the distributor were an uppity-up in a media empire. now any person with a cheap camera and some webspace can direct and influence the way in which individuals are viewed, and that is no small power. the technology is not going to vanish and i have very grave doubts that we’ll suddenly become more polite and discriminating in our behaviour, so we’ll collectively have to adapt. there’s really not much choice, other than having a bunch of humourless politicians and corporate lobbyists decide to create legislation that horribly complicates public photography. as much as i value my privacy, i’d live life naked in a translucent ball in the centre of yonge/dundas square before i’d trust that dullwitted incompetent harper to draft any new laws.
i also wonder why this freaks you out, DR. you write about people on here all the time who you have not asked whether or not you may describe and burp up all sorts of intimate details about. i realise we are visual creatures, but words are powerful and the characterisations you assign are more likely to prejudice or alter our views of these people than a simple snapshot would, in many (probably most) cases. i know far more about some of your friends and acquaintances via your descriptions of them (not to mention your photo gallery here) than i could ever know about some gormless lout highlighted on dad safari. in fact, all i know about him is that the creep taking his picture found him attractive, and that says nothing of the subject in the photo and much about the flickr member.
on reading, this seems like a rant, which it was not intended to be. i didn’t mean to admonish you, just point out that the world is changing and that we’re all a little disrespectful in our own ways.
Your use of the term “hot” in reference to those guys is problematic. lol 😉
Much prefer DILF and MILF, meself.