• LesserAbe@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Not calling you out specifically, but I see this phrase everywhere and don’t understand its popularity. It would be more concise and equally “clever” to just say “Sounds like this guy works in the US”. What is the appeal that everyone keeps typing this?

    • arandomthought@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      AFAIK it’s been a challenge some people did on… twitter I think?
      Basically it’s “Tell me you’re XYZ without telling me you’re XYZ” and people responded with funny answers.
      At some point that got turned around and people satrted to use that sencence structure to indicate that the thing they are commenting on would have been a great answer for that challenge.

      • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Thanks yeah, I’ve seen that sort of thread. If anything in this particular case it would make more sense if the comment was “tell me what country you’re from without telling me what country you’re from.”

      • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Lol, well I didn’t mean specifically “tell me you’re from the US” just the general phrase “tell me X without telling me X”.

        And can confirm that plenty of Americans aren’t thrilled with how things are run in America. We’re running democracy v0.1 beta

        • Bob@feddit.nl
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          4 months ago

          Someone said it on Twitter once so I suppose it’s stuck. I find it a bit long-winded and all.

          • LesserAbe@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Well like other people were saying, there’s a trend of people posting this prompt, and then others responding with funny answers. You’re right, I don’t like it when people use the same formulation in response to a comment. I also don’t get why people are doing it, for the same reason: I don’t think it’s funny, and it doesn’t really add anything to the conversation.

            Usually memes are funny because there’s a familiar pattern and then people riff on the pattern and make little unexpected tweaks. The type of usage I don’t like and don’t get is when people are just saying “you’re this” in a more wordy way. It has the form of a joke with no punchline.

    • ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      It may be coming from those popular AskReddit threads, such as: Tell me what you do for a living without telling what you do for a living.

    • Noxy@yiffit.net
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      4 months ago

      Why did you type out “what is” when “what’s” is shorter and as clear?

      and did you really need that “just” in there?