Yeah, jeeze, maybe there's a reason I didn't list *kicked the bucket* as one of the respectful ways to talk about death and that in the context of talking about a serious issue seriously maybe neither of them is a good option
Replies
Clearly I was using an example to illustrate the difference between a goofy phrase and a neutral one. And the topic of this is its use in character dialogue in a novel, not mainstream news articles or obituaries.
aug 7, 2025, 1:05 am • 0 0 • view
Except that your initial response was to someone talking about tasteful ways to talk about it, so if you're still implying that even in a novel 'unalived' suddenly becomes a way for a character to tastefully talk about death, I'm saying you're outright wrong.
aug 7, 2025, 1:08 am • 0 0 • view
That wasn't my initial response, that was someone responding to me. They suggested there are other ways to talk about death which is true, but it doesn't make using the word unalived distasteful. U dont have to like the word but it's not a morally wrong choice to use it & might be incharacter 4 them
aug 7, 2025, 1:14 am • 0 0 • view
I disagree, I think 'unalived' is a fundamentally unserious word used for pretty inevitably serious topics. It's not as bad as 'graped' but it's pretty close. All these terms to me revolve around making people's traumatic events into 'content'.
aug 7, 2025, 2:14 am • 0 0 • view
I do think there's a conversation to be had over peoples' trauma becoming content. I can see it feeling distasteful in that context but that happens whether or not people use the real words. Sometimes alt words are used to talk about things that are otherwise suppressed to stop them being silenced.
aug 7, 2025, 2:21 am • 0 0 • view
I mean, frankly, I see the censorship thing thrown around way more as justification for these words than I've ever seen these words deployed in actual serious discussion. People who want to take these subjects seriously, in my experience, don't use these words.
aug 7, 2025, 2:23 am • 0 0 • view
I guess that depends on where you're seeing those types of discussions primarily? I've seen it used more so on tiktok in serious convos but tiktok censorship tends to be more extreme and biased then most other sites I frequent. It seems mostly said by people who use it a lot in my experience.
aug 7, 2025, 2:28 am • 0 0 • view
That may be, I don't use Tiktok so I tend to see these words on other sites where the actual words they're replacing aren't censored (or at least as censored). Though, frankly I'd rather a video not go up at all than use 'graped'.
aug 7, 2025, 2:33 am • 0 0 • view
On most other apps I feel like it's fine to use the real words without the risk of losing your accounts. Other than maybe Youtube, their rules seem to change a lot.
aug 7, 2025, 2:39 am • 0 0 • view
Ah, I see. On tiktok it tends to be used to talk about cases people feel are already ignored by mainstream news. Like MMIW cases or lately Epstein mentions are getting removed w/ strikes on accounts. So if youre trying ti tell a story u feel is being silenced/ignored, getting around censors matters.
aug 7, 2025, 2:38 am • 1 0 • view
I mean to be frank I think the answer is people need to stop using tiktok, there are other video sites, but c'est la vie. But I maintain there's got to be a better way to talk about serious topics than resorting to baby speak.
aug 7, 2025, 2:40 am • 1 0 • view
(That being said I think there's situations where it'd be appropriate to have a character use this kind of terminology, just like you could have a character set in the 90s/00s use leetspeak. Though like with leetspeak, I think you have to be pretty careful how you use it or it'll come off as stilted
aug 7, 2025, 2:17 am • 1 0 • view
Fully agree yeah, it needs to make sense in context otherwise no sense in it being there.
aug 7, 2025, 2:22 am • 0 0 • view