#issue or Scandal-Gate

[nc-1701]

Which is the stupider fixture of modern political discourse?

 

[Leoreth]

The latter. #issue is annoying but far from being Hashtag-Gate.

I also submit we revise all history books so that they refer to Watergate-Gate.

 

[warpus]

I don't hang out on tumblr, or wherever this stuff is discussed. Can you explain both of these.. things?

@Leoreth

Spoiler :

Link to video.

 

[Leoreth]

I've always shared David Mitchell's penchant for overproportionate reactions to that kind of nonsense

 

[cybrxkhan]

I think hashtags in theory are fine, but either they sometimes focus to much on being gimmicky or are kind of abstract and vague. Kinda like how people don't care about vague descriptions of Aristotelian physics.

Scandal-gate, it's pretty annoying on the other hand. Now I of course wasn't alive when Watergate was first a thing, and I am assuming the first few times people used it it made sense and was amusing, but now we just applying -gate to not just every scandal but anything that is remotely controversial. Gamergate, emailgate, modgate, Obamagate, CFCgate, chickengate, Xwedodahgate... well, guess I can't do much about it.

 

[Leoreth]

Incidentally I found out recently that a German evening talk show changed its name from Beckmann to #beckmann. It kind of takes away from the allure of the generally most respected TV news on German television if the announcer introduces the following program as literally "hashtag beckmann".

#whathassocietycometo

 

[Antilogic]

My preferred scandal moniker now is the suffix "-ghazi" but it hasn't caught on yet.

 

[warpus]

Lol I just figured out what this thread is about. Yeah, at times I can be slow.

I vote for the German translation of gate - Tor. I think. #scandalTor

 

[Zack]

I've always felt that calling every scandal -gate slanders the paragon of virtue that is Richard Nixon.

 

[cybrxkhan]

My preferred scandal moniker now is the suffix "-ghazi" but it hasn't caught on yet.

You gamerghazi fiend!

But, et, more seriously, is it used anywhere outside that context? I thought it was just limited to that.

 

[Antilogic]

I was trying to get #chipotleghazi or #tipghazi to catch on.

 

[Leoreth]

Now that you allude to it, Gamergate is really the worst of the bunch, because it contains next to no information what the "scandal" even was about. Suddenly everyone was just talking about it and I had no clue what was going on.

 

[Cheetah]

#WarOnIssuegate!!!

 

[Lohrenswald]

The hashtag I think make it look less serious.

However, overall I think it's way more stupid to stick -gate at the end of something.

 

[warpus]

How did people refer to scandals before twitter and watergate? Can we just do that?

 

[CivCube]

It's the 21st century. Ain't no thing. I have more of an issue with doxxing people who express an opinion others don't like.

 

[Light Cleric]

My preferred scandal moniker now is the suffix "-ghazi" but it hasn't caught on yet.

Honestly it doesn't work that well because people were actually killed in it.

Like I'm not talking about any of the politics involved in it(even though that is the point of the suffix), just that it, well, happened.

 

[Phrossack]

They both suck. "-gate" is worn-out, and "#" makes everything it's in front of look like it's some unimportant issue that a slacktivist or a young media/PR-intern came up with to "raise awareness." Something along the likes of "Give us enough 'likes' on Facebook and make Boko Haram #BringBackOurGirls !!!"

 

[warpus]

Imagine if there is a scandal about hash tags

#gate

 

[Leoreth]

I mean the hashtag thing is alright where it makes sense, for instance on Twitter. And honestly I blame TV news media that are desperately trying to seem current for this to bleed into the overall discourse.