Ohio Republican U.S. Senator J.D. Vance published a 1203-word diatribe Monday night filled with falsehoods and feeble hypocrisies, demanding that Democrats "tone down the rhetoric" while insisting he opposes "censorship." Critics are accusing the GOP vice presidential nominee of hypocrisy and gaslig...
  • TheDannysaur@lemmy.world
    6·
    3 months ago

    I thought the same thing. People are obsessed with the word gaslighting.

    This seems more like textbook hypocrisy. Person doing thing talks about the harms of others doing that thing.

    • ravhall
      318·
      3 months ago

      People love to use it because it makes them the victim.

      • TheDannysaur@lemmy.world
        4·
        3 months ago

        … What?

        Is this some weird “victim mentality” thing?

        People love to use it because it got popular and grew to mean more than the original definition to the point where it just got generic to encompass a wide range of things. It’s the same as cringe.

        • ravhall
          213·
          3 months ago

          It didn’t grow. People misuse it. Dumb people

          • reliv3@lemmy.world
            3·
            3 months ago

            By this metric, one can argue that we currently “misuse” a lot of words in the English language, but the reality is language evolves. Think about how the definition of “nice” has evolved from meaning “ignorant or stupid” in the 1300s to it’s current meaning.

            • ravhall
              23·
              3 months ago

              So gaslighting should change to what? Telling someone they are doing something that they feel they aren’t?

              You’re nice.

              • nomous@lemmy.world
                1·
                3 months ago

                I’ve noticed this a lot the last 5-10 years. Nobody uses words wrong anymore it’s all “language evolves” and “language is descriptive not prescriptive.”

                People are just using the word wrong.

                • ravhall
                  3·
                  3 months ago

                  It’s just crappy education mixed with “don’t tell me what to do” mentality. A lot of it is probably social media, where a popular person starts using a word wrong and that quickly spreads and is often used assuming the listener knows about the inside joke.

                  I was talking with someone IRL who was a very big Twitter and TikTok user. They are also (diagnosed) autistic. It was difficult to follow them because most of what they would say sounded almost meme-like, very accusatory, and rude. I would ask them not to talk to me like that and it was dismissed a “obviously a joke” or “sarcasm” or “deadpan.”