silexists

[silexists]

I’m gonna start coining tumblr specific cognitive biases and logical fallacy terms…here’s the first ones I’ve theorized so far. (I’m using “actor” here meaning “the person, acting out the fallacy or bias for us all to see.”)

1. The unique contribution fallacy—reading a post of over 10k notes and the actor thinks of something they surmise is very clever to add. The actor imagines themselves to be the first special unique soul to contribute this add, when OP has actually received this “clever” comment 5000 times of those 10,000 notes driving OP up the wall.

2. The whataboutism bias— reading a post on any given particular topic, and believing that OP should say every single thing that you could possibly say about that topic under said single post. The actor doesn’t know they have a personal agenda on the topic and expects OP would have that same bias to talk about the side of the given topic that correlates to the actor’s personal bias, instead of allowing OP to be somebody who just writes what they wanted to write. This often works in tandem with… 

3. The TLDR bias— seeing a post that is actually extremely long and thoroughly well written, often times with sources, numerous added threads of detail etc. but the actor doesn’t actually read the content of the FULL post. Then, in reblogging it or commenting on it, “adding” something that OP definitely originally said, and revealing oneself as somebody who doesn’t even read the detailed things that they re-blog or add on comments about.

3. The literal URL fallacy— not understanding the total chaos that is the Tumblr URL, in this fallacy the actor thinks that someone’s username is ALWAYS telling you exactly what the content of their blog might be. I’ll illustrate this one in like a totally random example way… Let’s say that you hypothetically made a blog that was all about calling out bigots back in the days of yore, the early twenty teens. And yet somehow, despite the fact that every other user around you seems to not be taken literally by their URLs, the actor decides that everything that you post is therefore bigotry…….even if what you’re posting is your own original content that you’re writing, calling out bigots. Too bad, so sad! Because in this fallacy, the actor is going to see you as what your URL says, literally, always.

4. The missed URL fallacy— this of course is the exact opposite of number three. It is where a blog has a very particular theme and format to it, that is the most important thing you can notice to understand the context of a post. So, again, just a random example here… But let’s just say that the intent of a blog is to always post submitted weird ass dreams people had, but the actor doesn’t realize this in their relogging and thinks that somebody is reporting a real life situation that was definitely, very specifically a wild fever dream.

5. The throw the baby out with the bathwater bias— a fan favorite among left leaning and social justice corners of the site, this bias is when the actor reads a post where somebody doesn’t use the most optimal, virtue signaling language for them personally, so the actor ignores the whole entire point of the post. It could be something as serious as and attention demanding as genocide, but somebody uses a word like “crazy” or “stupid” or “bitch” in it and so the actor’s worldview and general proclaimed values are casually tossed aside because the language that was used to deliver it was not “perfect.”

6. The choose your own reality bias—The actor reads a post and reblogs it, adding commentary that is responding to things that are definitely not said in the original post and definitely not anything in the realm of what OP was talking about. Close cousin to…

7. The this is definitely about me/self-own fallacy— this one is actually one of my favorites to spot out in the wild because it is SUCH a tell. It is like a slightly more specific version of the “choose your own reality bias” but this is when the actor reads a post and blogs it, adding commentary that is responding to things that are definitely not said in the original post as if OP is talking about them personally, and therefore revealing themselves as potentially shady or suspect in someway because why did they make it about them, if it’s not about them, you know?

8. The zombie post fallacy—in this one, the actor most likely does not have time stamps enabled on their dash because that isn’t something that happens here by default, and this site has a higher presence of zombie posts (by the way its designed and how it functions) than any other social media site I know. So when a zombie post from 2011 shambles across their dash in 2024, they react to that content as if it is completely new and relevant information or news or a situation to be dealt with in the modern era.

What needs added?

[silexists]

I went to this Northwest Passage museum once where they had the white explorers' journals on one side of the exhibit and the native people's accounts on the other side of the exhibit and the explorer journals were like "our canoe had almost sunk when we encountered some kindly Indians" and the native histories were like "we watched a bunch of strangers come down the river in the shittiest canoe you'd ever seen. Also, they had no rain gear"

[silexists]

“the heart wants what it wants”? okay well the heart is fucking stupid can we let someone else have a turn? maybe the spleen wants to have a go?

[silexists]

SOUND ON.

[silexists]

You may have heard that giraffe and their closest cousins, the okapi, can lick their own eyeballs.

Both species have got super long tongues and this makes sense in theory but... sometimes you have to see it how it actually works to believe it's a real behavior.

There's no grace involved. It's nothing like the ethereal, fae-like aesthetic these guys have most of the time. They just yeet their tongue backwards out of their mouth and bounce it off their face, repeatedly. It cracks me up every time I see it.

This is Sekele, at the Denver Zoo. Enjoy.

[silexists]

[silexists]

Highly recommend parents sign kids up for things they’ve never tried before so they can try a variety of things.

Highly don’t recommend parents continue to force their kids to stay in activities after the kid has given it a proper try and said they don’t like it.

[silexists]

im tired of people making fictional characters they dont like randomly homo/transphobic it's always way funnier when character who suck are inexplicably allies

[silexists]

The sentences "Asexuals can still have sex" and "Aromantics can still date" need to go up on the high shelf for everyone except aces and aros talking about their own experiences. From now on, everyone else has to use the revolutionary new phrase "Asexuals and aromantics can do whatever the fuck they want forever."

[silexists]

Girl did you just quicksave

[silexists]

I procrastinate so much that I have a gaping hole of dread inside my chest where I think my other emotions are supposed to go. unless a potential employer is reading this, in which case I don’t do that & I have all the normal emotions that human beings have & I love capitalism

[silexists]

In one of my film classes last semester we had to tell a story in 3 pictures for a mini assignment so my friend and I did this

[silexists]

Reblog to give a trans person a fresh and perfectly ripe mango wait huh

It's the wikipedia image??? How big could it be

What

Huh???

[silexists]

i got a robot vacuum as a present, and while it is very convenient and useful, i forgot how needy these things are

why are you screaming at ME when you were the one who hunted down a sock under the couch and tried to eat it???

that was YOUR decision

[silexists]

smut that is NOT tasteful. smut that IS like other smut. smut that does NOT exist to be an exploration of character. smut that IS designed to titillate. for that matter let's start calling it "pornography." I am tired of half-hearted defences of some types of pornographic writing in only some contexts. pornography is not inherently morally suspect because of its sexual nature.

[silexists]

people in books and tv shows are always getting so upset they throw an untouched meal in the trash. that would never be me. i'd receive the worst news of my life and still be like Let me put this in the fridge.

[silexists]

*in the middle of a breakdown* Omg wait. this is just like the character