I’m in my early 40s, grew up in the rural midwest, was quite autistic and didn’t understand the concept of ribbing. I didn’t get that until I was like 30, at which point I looked back in horror at so many friendships that had died when people became “hostile” suddenly.
But that was the rural midwest in the 1990s. I went to a tiny high school. We had like seven popular bands on the radio and two TV stations as our cultural milieu.
Me and my friends could rip into one another, and we did. Not so much the ribbing stuff, which I didn’t understand until later in life. But philosophical discussions, politics, jokes, we said some raunchy, cutting stuff to each other because we knew each other could take it.
These days, there are a lot more cultures overlapping and mixing, and changing rapidly. The shared context is much less. The places it’s safe to rib people are smaller.
It sucks, but it’s reasonable too, given the circumstances.
Also, kids are much more used to relying on text as the primary driver of whether communication is hostile or friendly. Because they grew up having text-only conversations. Creating friendships, learning to socialize, finding themselves, all in this text-only realm.
Just culturally speaking, using the nonverbal cues as the location of the “friend or foe” information is a thing from my generation’s upbringing.
Sort of like in The Expanse how the Belters nod with their fist instead of their head, because a vac suit obscures head movements.
Different circumstances growing up, different cultural assumptions, different communication channels and different sets of communication channels.
We’re used to:
- Friendly = friendly tone, [any words, friendly or unfriendly]
- Unfriendly = unfriendly tone, [any words]
They’re used to:
- Friendly = friendly words
- Unfriendly = unfriendly words
When we are online:
- Friendly = non-insults, over-the-top-obviously-ineffectual insults that don’t fit well enough to land, generosity of interpretation
- Unfriendly = insults that land, non-generosity of interpretation
When they are in real life:
- Friendly = friendly words
- Unfriendly = unfriendly words
