Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 9th August 2026 (awful.systems)

submitted 2 months ago by BlueMonday1984@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

130 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid - welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned so many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard. Nearly forgot to put this up, whoops)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] ivyastrix@awful.systems 10 points 2 months ago

The waterboarding thing was introduced by Vibecamp's head of safety at other events, and a lot of the pdku programming seems to be in the area of light bdsm / boundary pushing. imo they work from some base general formula and try and differentiate / create intake funnels for other events.

[-] o7___o7@awful.systems 7 points 2 months ago

It all comes across as Synanon-lite, doesn't it?

[-] YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems 7 points 2 months ago

The fact that it's referred to as a potluck is also interesting because it suggests that participants also had to come up with their own torture method to inflict. I imagine "spend twenty minutes with the sort of person who participates in a torture potluck" was the equivalent of potato salad.

[-] nfultz@awful.systems 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Vice has a writeup - https://archive.is/ooVju - more of a bring-your-own-taser kind of thing I guess

The tortures varied wildly in nature, and were too numerous to list in full, but several stuck out for me: There was someone pinning clothespins to partygoers’ cheeks; a man called SirLemmings used some herbal powder to strip you of your sense of sweetness, then made you eat an Oreo to test the result; Avalon Warren, an actress resembling Lola Bunny sprung to life, made partygoers make the ahegao hentai face, and carried a fly zapper; other electric torments were also popular—several people carried tasers, and someone had an electric baton that transferred shocks between participants; someone else’s bit was asking you to yell compliments for Donald Trump, which was perhaps the most polarizing (SirLemmings told me that when he declared the president was an excellent comedian, he drew glares); yet another was writing unknown directives onto others’ foreheads. My friend Jahnik had “pls give me a smooch <3” penned on his, and afterward, received kisses throughout the night. Meanwhile all I got was “CTRL-ALT-Z,” making me wonder if they wanted to undo me from reality.

As for my torture? I was merely a journalist. A lazy choice, I felt, but for some it was the most terrifying of the bunch. One girl even walked away when I told her; before, she’d been nothing but smiles.

Another resident teacher was political satirist YouTuber JREG, real name Greg Guevara, who recently published a polemical video calling for Total Clanker Death, or the eradication of all would-be sentient machines.

youtube faves are implicated!?

[-] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 1 points 1 month ago

I would not recommend consuming strange powders from these people. Hazing with electricity goes back to club initiations in the 1920s or so.

[-] CinnasVerses@awful.systems 6 points 2 months ago

Introduced by the head of safety (!)

At least they accept the principle that "relationships across a power differential" can put the weaker party in a difficult position. They don't have a rule against this, or a requirement to disclose, but they accept the principle.

this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2026

13 points (100.0% liked)

TechTakes

2722 readers

225 users here now

Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

dgerard@awful.systems