EDIÇÃO IMPORTANTE (5 DE JANEIRO DE 2025) PARA PESSOAS NÃO-FLUENTES EM INGLÊS: A PALAVRA “BITCHES” NÃO SIGNIFICA “PUTA”, E QUALQUER PESSOA NATIVA LHE DIRÁ QUE HÁ TODO UM HISTÓRICO DE NATURALIZAÇÃO E RESSIGNIFICAÇÃO DA PALAVRA, QUE PASSOU A SER ENCARADA PELA PERSPECTIVA DO EMPODERAMENTO E DA BRINCADEIRA. NUNCA CHAMEI NINGUÉM DE “PUTA”, E O GOOGLE FAZ UM PÉSSIMO TRABALHO COM TRADUÇÕES ERRADAS.

“Oh, the days when journalistic integrity was the most acclaimed skill set of the democratic world! Do you wanna look at democracy, really? What a joke. This post will be short.

Not confusing politics with personal life or diving into the public health concerns over how social media shaped young people’s realities, and skipping also the debates around security and privacy, here’s what you need to know if you wanna have fun on the web, whether it’s on your phone or on your laptop, desktop, tablet, and that’s it, because I don’t think the Apple Watch is anywhere near useful:

1) Setting up a profile

Everyone assumes the web is visible to the general public, and in fact, even the most open-minded parents are going to explain that people can see what you post and publish as well as your descriptions of yourself and pictures, depending on how you set things up.

Let’s go with the most common thing: the Snapchat profile.

Girls will set up a public profile with pictures on it, and data is showing us that a lot of them exceed thousands of contacts on a single account. If they wanna post a hamburger, they will, and to their very low-standard excitement, someone will slide up and comment “yum”. Others, as some of us know very well and others want to ignore so hard that it’s like they’re fully aware they have diarrhea, but the toilet is being used (or worse, they’re on the subway), will comment: “eat deez nuts instead”.

Is that normal?

Yes. And to investigate the ethos of the phrase “eat deez nuts”, we bring internet history. Know Your Meme says that the rapper Dr. Dre introduced the term, or rather, popularized it, in 1992. One could imagine that for someone to use the phrase as a song title, it must’ve been popular by then. The thing that people don’t seem to realize is that we’re in 2024, and the author of this text was born in 1989. So, basically, when I was a baby, “deez nuts” were alreaddy popular. Not mine, though. Let’s avoid misinterpretation. I did write a few songs involving “nutting” and nuts in general, but the point was to make you see how pervasive this particular phrase is.

If the AI is being trained with entries like that, we have to wonder, who labels it as “sensitive content”, “humor”, “sexual harassment” or “inappropriate behavior”? Jesus, some people would file a lawsuit over “sexual abuse” (as if, by saying “deez nuts”, or even showing my actual nuts, with the aid of technology, I was in fact standing in front of someone, teleported to another continent, suddenly naked, as a stranger, and grabbing my fucking balls, in violation of society’s norms — even though two people were communicating privately — and ending up with a claim of “attempt against moral” — or, in Portuguese, “atentado ao pudor”).

You see, we have to realize that we’re at a point in time where nobody gives a shit if you’re a lawyer, because they have access to information that proves every point about their angle on what the laws should be, and we’re here debating “boring stuff” like who pays what taxes, instead of realizing Elon Musk is trying to shove his dick in our mouthes and grab a fucking pair of scissors (or maybe wirecutters? Hm…)

Imagine the X lawyers analyzing the impact of sex worker accounts. A widely feminine landscape. The joke “deez nuts” is not relevant anymore, but “these tits” might work (if they have a nice pair). It’s all about the female body, and the performances, and how much they can drive men insanely horny with what they do. But you see, X’s CEO cares for KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act) and doesn’t want kids to see this kind of thing. If they wanna use the internet, they need to issue government ID. And if they want, in any scenario, to participate in any activity that involves their sexual expression with the aid of technology, that’s going to result in either of two things: suspension from the platform or labelling of CASM (Child Abuse Sexual Material). I wonder who was abused. You can’t ask the question “does Google abuse its power?” or whatever big tech company you wanna aim at, because they’ll have a ready-made response (if it’s not genAI), saying that no, Google doesn’t abuse power, doesn’t abuse children and its products are great. That’s why they have Section 230 in place: platform are not responsible (even though they’re the ones who sell data, but never mind that, it’s a “different subject”), the users are. Users, who are not people.

I mean, if you’re a “kid”, you’re not “people”. Haven’t you realized it yet? And if you’re a “teen”, you’re a “kid”. To give you consolation, people don’t listen to Bernie Sanders either, and he was born way before 1989. So I know that what I’m basically telling you is that we can’t win, but like, at least everybody loses and we can congregate. Unless you wanna have the same amount of money as a tech industry leader…

And then the questions get more complicated, of course. They say they’re doing everything they can, taking the utmost precautions and adopting streamlined, top level policies that are designed for the common good. Then you take one look at your daughter’s Spotify playlist. Wait a second, is this “a hoax”? Oh noooooooo!

I mean, it’s all a fucking joke, man.

2) Actually talking to people

Let’s imagine that you want a serious relationship. Ha, loser! Sorry, you disagree? You think that pursuing a serious relationship is a noble thing to do, and maybe not even noble, but at least decent and less troubling and stressful than giving attention to a thousand people who don’t give a shit about how you feel? I mean… interesting point, honey. Will you marry me? I’ll steal a bank. Didn’t SBF do it? Or even Musk himself?

So you gotta talk about the real stuff that you believe in, care about and get information from. Could the internet be “adulting”? We’d have to think twice about that, if we were to look at LinkedIn… but we’re talking about personal life, not professional. You were just looking for a bitch, but you fell in love. Cool story, bro!

Oh, you actually think that’s what happened, huh? How exotic. On the web? You found “real love”? Ok. Congratulations. Are you gonna see each other? Ah, right, trade war and shit. Deportation, I see. Well, at least you can rely on technology to talk to each other every day. Oh no, don’t tell me that they’re collecting your data and selling it on the market… What, “live AI monitoring”? What the hell is that, Robocop? Idk, maybe it’s all different in California.

From my perspective, everything needs to change. But that’s not a serious article. I’m making fun of the whole “ethos” of the web. Because people are ridiculous, but you can choose critical thinking in your life, at least for a brief moment.