OTOH he thinks women saying “You should dress up as Santa for the children” is praise and not a put-down.
(Seriously I think it really depends on the tone and context.)
Any question which isn't asked with the intention of receiving a response can be considered snark, which while it may not directly be intended as a put-down, is still insulting because it is making light of the author who is not obviously partaking in unicycling to make people laugh.
Nobody is suggesting that humorous comments are an "attack". The point of the article was to differentiate between the joking comments made by men and the more benign comments made by women. Making light of someone's activity is still belittling, even if not a direct insult. Even if not said directly, the implication is "you're doing something I find funny."
> people go "huh that's weird I have to say something let's try gentle humor"
That seems to be the crux of the matter: people who a) believe they need to say something at all, b) decide that it must be something "funny", and then c) actually say it out loud. Have those people ever stopped to consider that their opinion isn't wanted?
Being born with 2 leg, they aren't "going out of [their] way" though..
Yes. I will frequently find what other people are doing to be funny, even absurd. I will often vocalize it. You will not convince me this a moral wrong. I am, however, open to other people vocalizing this about my behavior. Recently, I purchased one of every bran flake cereal in the cereal aisle to determine which was best. I received light jest from the public who viewed my cart. It made sense, because what I was doing was bizarre. I was not injured. It was not an attack. I probably shouldn't do it regularly.
I do attempt to avoid jest about things people have no or minimal control over (race, disability, disfigurement, sexual orientation) or that are core pieces of people's life (religion or lack thereof, financial status, spouse). I am willing to be corrected by someone passionate about a subject. I am also very willing to be wrong, if someone demonstrates that unicycling is actually a way better method of transportation.
They do not care about correcting you and why should they. No one has any reason to try to convince you about unicycle effectivity, regardless of reason they drive it for.
/hulkhogan
Especially when it's done frequently / regularly, the line between "consistent neutral-ish jokes" and "mild harassment" can become a bit blurred.
Not saying that such things should be outlawed or policed or whatever -- I just shrugged it off and didn't let it bug me. But if I'm trying to quantify it as positive or negative, it usually felt like a joking comment made at my expense.
Additionally: what motivations does one have to ride a unicycle instead of a bicycle? I can only think of reduced storage space being a practical benefit.
You're assuming a practical benefit but maybe people do it for fun, the challenge, or simply because of the novelty.
> Additionally: what motivations does one have to ride a unicycle instead of a bicycle? I can only think of reduced storage space being a practical benefit.
For me, it was more fun than walking, and was good balance practice. It was faster than walking, and unicycles are smaller than bikes. Additionally, I juggle, so this was a nice thing to practice to put into my act.
We are on a site named Hacker News, after all.
> Because it's there. — George Mallory
To put it perhaps more clearly, there are some of us men for which it definitely is true. Source: self.
For many men, this type of comment is frequently made without any malice. (The original archetype several levels up was "Run Forrest, run!")
This seems like it fits into the general tone of a large fraction of interactions I've had with other men. Either I missed a lot of intended aggression, or this large volume of interactions wasn't actually intended to be aggressive. Of course, it's possible for a short verbal communication to be understood differently than it was intended. But in this post, we are getting the recipient's interpretation of the intent. It appears to me, (also a biased source) that this recipient is very sensitive to perceived aggression and insults. There's some analysis and speculation based on their perceptions, that seems to take it as given that intents were correctly understood. From my reading, this is very much in question. I didn't have the benefit of hearing tone of voice and understanding full context. But in their written form most of the lines categorized here as aggressive would have been categorized differently by some other unicycle rider. Specifically, I'm thinking of me. Full disclosure, I don't know how to unicycle.
What I'm proposing, as a man, is that he mis-interpreted them.