Read on Twitter
So I& #39;m doing some thinking-in-progress about a word usage I& #39;ve notice increasingly often in leftist tweets/podcasts: the use of terms like "brain worms" or "brain rot" or "melted brains"
This is thought in progress, I& #39;m not cancelling anyone or unilaterally declaring anything a slur, because that& #39;s not how this works - I& #39;m just thinking through it. Because these usages make me feel Something.
They& #39;re used particularly with reference to conspiracy theories - QAnon, terfism, the particular kind of radically intransigent centrism that& #39;s terrified of Corbyn, etc. And with reference to spirals of radicalisation and loss of contact with reality.
Now. I am aware brain worms are not real. I know people do not have worms in their brain. This is not like the time worm twitter decided worms faced structural violence.
And I think the silliness of & #39;brain worms& #39; might be why it& #39;s being used by people who are trying to avoid other explicitly ableist terms with a history of being used as terms of abuse. It& #39;s & #39;safe& #39;, because clearly nobody has actual brain worms.
However... I don& #39;t know. I don& #39;t know if it gets far enough away to be & #39;safe& #39;, at least in the world I& #39;m trying to work towards. Because it& #39;s still situating moral and ethical and factual wrongness in the body.
It& #39;s still saying, these people are wrong, and as shorthand for that wrongness I& #39;m going to talk about an unwanted disgusting thing being lodged in their brains, and therefore their brains not functioning properly
It& #39;s so hard because the ableist core here is the stubborn link between moral wrongness and bodily deficit or dysfunction, and that is *so* embedded in our language.
And it& #39;s also hard because as a form of letting off steam, as a form of comforting each other about the terrifying social and political landscape we& #39;re in, we reach for ways of saying "this is beyond. this is laughable/terrifying at the same time. this is extreme"
Anyway I would welcome good faith discussion on this (please read the whole thread lest I am taken out of context as an idpol purity leftist who& #39;s trying to cancel worms)
