this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

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[–] vodkasolution@feddit.it 3 points 13 hours ago

Sorry guys, that also happened 40 years ago in the form of "retired guy has some free time and starts buying 2 newspapers, one of which is just political propagabda"... That's definitely not on social media, they just amplified the phenomena

[–] WereCat@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My parents are already fully indoctrinated. I don't think there's a way back

[–] Clairvoidance@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

What they should do is one of those replace-words add-ons making rightwingers talk positive about DEI or talk shit about anti-immigration, see how quick people above 60 nationally change their mind

[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

Social media sites thrive on the engagement that comes from those people doom scrolling so this whole premise is antithetical to the purpose of social media sites and the only reason they aren't doing the same to children is because the law prevents them from doing so wholesale (but they will try to edge around the law every chance they get).

[–] Pulptastic@midwest.social 12 points 1 day ago

That’s a feature, not a bug. They show that stuff intentionally.

[–] Surp@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Man so much hate in this thread I'm not about what's happened at all with the USA but I'll still protect my family and show them a better way rather than let them rot and die. So many self righteous people thinking they know whats good.

[–] Cocopanda@futurology.today 17 points 1 day ago

My parents are full blown terrorists. But their so fat they can't actually do anything about their beliefs. I've warned them that if a Civil War starts. They will be the first to die because medications wont be available to keep them alive and I won't care when it happens. They voted for this and support this trash.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 21 points 1 day ago (6 children)

My wife stayed at an Airbnb last week, I tried to convince her to turn the parental controls on and block OAN and Fox.

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[–] Absaroka@lemmy.world 77 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Any time you hear Republicans argue 18 year olds shouldn't be able to vote, and they want to increase the age to 21/25, tell them "OK - then anybody over 65 isn't allowed to vote either."

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago (9 children)

I would settle for no one can be elected if their age is younger or older than 30 and 60.

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[–] jonne@infosec.pub 142 points 2 days ago (3 children)

If you set up parental controls on your parent's devices I can guarantee they won't find a way around it.

[–] TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 day ago (2 children)

my grandpa with dementia installed OVER 40 solitaire apps because he would go to the app store and install one every time instead of opening the ones he "couldn't find"

now he has parental controls blocking app downloading

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

I hope you guys checked for subscriptions he may have added. Might still be paying for a dozen of those games.

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[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 36 points 2 days ago (3 children)

They will, usually by accident. Source: my father in law.

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[–] cokeslutgarbage@lemmy.world 111 points 2 days ago (10 children)

My mom mentioned that my dad has been watching some concerning (in her words, "annoying") YouTube content lately. Last time she said that it was America's Got Talent, but this time it's white men arguing with cops. I visited and asked if he would show me. He jokingly said "are you gonna violate my rights?" And I very seriously said "yes. I need to make sure it's not Jordan Peterson or Joe Rogan or someone even worse". He got a little bit offended and said "you know me better than that, I'm smarter than that". But the thing is, you start by watching something innocuous like some idiot sovcit arguing with cops and the algorithm pipeline feeds you nazi shit from there and you don't even know it.

For context, my parents are the kind of leftists that don't know what leftists are. My mom calls herself a bleeding heart liberal, and my dad sees the media say things like "radical liberals" and jumps up off the couch screaming "you bet your ass im a radical liberal!" But they're left of liberal, they just don't have the language for it.

I'm not worried that my dad is gonna seek out nazi propaganda, im worried it's gonna find him anyway and I want to throw his phone in a lake.

Maybe shower thoughts wasn't the right community for me to have my existential crisis. But I wish i could block "sovcit" on my dad's phone and "trad-anything" on my mom's phone, not because I think they're dumb (okay maybe a little) but because this shit is so toxic and intrinsic and scary and my parents are so dumb.

Take care of yourself and your loved ones xx

[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 50 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (8 children)

I was interested in Diablo IV when it was released which, after a few videos, led YouTube to recommend Asmondgold. I watched one or two of his videos and the next thing I know my feed is full of maga and manosphere trash. Most of it had innocuous titles and thumbnails but a few minutes in I was being bombarded with lies, bad faith arguments, logical fallacies. Don't even get me started with where funny Garand Thumb videos will lead. All I could think of was how Al Queda and ISIS recruited people with videos posted online.

EDIT: For the most part, I liked Asmondgold, but the algorithm leads from him to very dark places.

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[–] reluctant_squidd@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 day ago (4 children)

It’s the right idea, but too narrow of a demographic. It’s not the old people that seem to be the problem. At least not only them. It’s the uneducated or intellect impaired that should be reined in. The ones that are just smart enough to use Facebook, but would struggle to understand the concept of the Dunning–Kruger effect

The amount of younger people that are sucked in hook, line, sinker, rod, boat, trailer and truck is staggering.

It’s like they decided that reality didn’t work for them, so let’s just ignore it in favour of “insert discriminatory slogan or catchphrase here”.

It’s bonkers.

[–] Doctor_Satan@lemm.ee 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The amount of younger people that are sucked in hook, line, sinker, rod, boat, trailer and truck is staggering.

That demographic is a whole other problem that requires a whole other solution. Conservatives have spent a decade building the online right-wing pipeline with podcast bro's and streamers aiming their content at young teenage boys. Now all those kids are of voting age, and a big chunk of them have spent half their lives being raised on manosphere bullshit that taught them that they are owed the world on a silver platter.

I will hand it to conservatives; they are frighteningly good at organizing and staying on message in ways that the Left can only dream of. If we could get half as organized as them, they'd never win another election.

[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

JK Rowling is doing something extremely similar to teenage girls, and this isn’t really on many’s radar.

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It’s the uneducated or intellect impaired that should be reined in.

Are you aware that this genuinely sounds like some nazi shit? Let's maybe not start controlling what the "intellect impaired" can do with their lives...

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[–] CompostMaterial@lemmy.world 53 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

I constantly refer to my parents and in-laws as children. Why? Because they behave exactly like my 11 year old. They have no critical reasoning skills, no emotional intelligence, are easily offended, and can not be reliability left on their own without screwing something up.

At some point around retirement age, humans seem to cognitively revert back to children and those of us in middle adulthood are left to parent our actual children and our childish parents.

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[–] TheColonel@reddthat.com 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I can’t speak for everyone but I raised my mom right and kept her away from that trash.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I recently thanked my dad for not going all crazy. He fixes up old cars and takes pictures of birds.

[–] gamer@lemm.ee 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'm jealous. Mine watches far-right extremist content on tiktok and youtube. What's an affordable hobby that wouldn't make an insecure man-child feel emasculated?

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[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 22 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Simpler still: disenfranchise senile boomers. Of course you don't target boomers specifically, any old person with very little time left to live and severe disconnect from reality shouldn't be allowed to vote on what affects the rest of the world long after they are dead.

https://old.reddit.com/r/DownWithIncumbency/

[–] TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

severe disconnect from reality

Something about that doesn't sit right with me. Seeing how far the definition of an "illegal alien" is being stretched for deportation, I have a feeling people with autism, ADHD, depression, etc, would all be added to the list of people who are "disconnected from reality"

Not to mention some people are dumb enough to argue being trans is a mental illness aswell. (~~dysphoria is~~ NVM it's a diagnosis, being trans is not)

The better solution imo is to inform people about what's going on around them and how to watch out for pipelines.

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[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's what router settings do. Sorry, X is not reachable from here.

[–] davetapley@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I love this in general, unfortunately for me my dad is a retired network engineer 😫

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[–] StarlightDust@lemmy.blahaj.zone 35 points 2 days ago (8 children)

I just keep their Facebook accounts logged in on my phone. Every few months, I will go onto their profiles and unlike pages like "Wear your poppy with pride" and deradicalize their algorithm. Poppies for British boomers on Facebook are like Elsa and Spiderman on YouTube for babies.

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