Two flavors of pedantry
Jan. 1st, 2025 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dismallyorientedFirst post of 2025 and it's a completely inconsequential one. I can be a somewhat literal and pedantic person, in a way that can sometimes ruin other people's attempt at A Funny Bit, or lead to me running headlong into a hypothetical question that wasn't meant to be answered at all. There are two terms I've coined/borrowed to describe some particular ways in which I Get Got by this pedantry.
The first is "getting smoothsharked", which is in reference to a beloved tumblr meme. The artist Branson Reese posted a comic with a punchline about sharks being smooth, and then began baiting pedants in the twitter replies by repeatedly insisting on shark smoothness in increasingly ludicrous ways. Naturally, it also attracted a similar crowd of pedantic corrections on tumblr, with other users taking up the mantle of trolling them. Most people see this thread as like, a cautionary tale against wanting so hard to be Smart or Right that you've blinded yourself to the situation, though I've seen some autistic folks critique the thread as being cruel for its social deception. Which also makes sense; being wound up by people being willfully wrong is also a bullying technique. I use "smoothsharked" here for when I'm slammed into the position of the pedants - people are participating in a comedic bit about being intentionally wrong, and I am too irritated or upset by the inaccuracy to participate. Smooth sharks don't do it, but the "birds are a conspiracy" meme Especially gets on my nerves. Things that are important to me, or remind me too much of things like climate denialism and other politically and socially dangerous ignorance, will smooth my shark right to hell, even when I recognize it's not meant in that way.
Getting "nerdsniped", meanwhile, comes from this xkcd comic. In the original comic, it's about presenting a nerd with a problem that's so compelling that they're distracted into inaction and get hit by a truck. In my usage however, it refers to when a piece of media contains a factual inaccuracy relating to my field of expertise, which renders me entirely unable to focus on anything else. The difference between nerdsniping and smoothsharking is that a nerdsnipe isn't based on intentional inaccuracies - it's based on an imprecise or mistaken understanding of a concept, and also the fact that I am Cursed With the Exact Knowledge that makes an otherwise inconsequential detail Annoying As Hell. For example, there are plenty of reasons to hate The Big Bang Theory, but instead of all the more substantial reasons, the one that sticks in my craw the most is the theme song. Specifically the lyric, "The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool". Autotrophs are organisms that make their own food - photosynthesizers, chemosynthesizers, etc. Usually plants or single celled organisms. Notably, none of these organisms have salivary glands. They are literally incapable of drooling.
Does anybody care about this? No! Absolutely not! It's a funny phrase that rhymes and fits the meter and evokes primordial slime. It does not matter in any meaningful sense. Will this specific lyric still drive me into an indignant rage every time I think about it? Yes! Fuck![1]
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[1] To be fair, some of that rage is due to fatigue and irritation. In 2023 my job contracted with a boat where one of the crew members would have Big Bang Theory playing on a loop all the dang time. It was his favorite show and unfortunately it meant 2 weeks straight of hearing that goddamn theme tune and seeing the same episodes over and over again. This is also excepting an additional trip where he left his dvd player running on the title for nearly 30 min. If I did not hate the show before, I certainly do now.
The first is "getting smoothsharked", which is in reference to a beloved tumblr meme. The artist Branson Reese posted a comic with a punchline about sharks being smooth, and then began baiting pedants in the twitter replies by repeatedly insisting on shark smoothness in increasingly ludicrous ways. Naturally, it also attracted a similar crowd of pedantic corrections on tumblr, with other users taking up the mantle of trolling them. Most people see this thread as like, a cautionary tale against wanting so hard to be Smart or Right that you've blinded yourself to the situation, though I've seen some autistic folks critique the thread as being cruel for its social deception. Which also makes sense; being wound up by people being willfully wrong is also a bullying technique. I use "smoothsharked" here for when I'm slammed into the position of the pedants - people are participating in a comedic bit about being intentionally wrong, and I am too irritated or upset by the inaccuracy to participate. Smooth sharks don't do it, but the "birds are a conspiracy" meme Especially gets on my nerves. Things that are important to me, or remind me too much of things like climate denialism and other politically and socially dangerous ignorance, will smooth my shark right to hell, even when I recognize it's not meant in that way.
Getting "nerdsniped", meanwhile, comes from this xkcd comic. In the original comic, it's about presenting a nerd with a problem that's so compelling that they're distracted into inaction and get hit by a truck. In my usage however, it refers to when a piece of media contains a factual inaccuracy relating to my field of expertise, which renders me entirely unable to focus on anything else. The difference between nerdsniping and smoothsharking is that a nerdsnipe isn't based on intentional inaccuracies - it's based on an imprecise or mistaken understanding of a concept, and also the fact that I am Cursed With the Exact Knowledge that makes an otherwise inconsequential detail Annoying As Hell. For example, there are plenty of reasons to hate The Big Bang Theory, but instead of all the more substantial reasons, the one that sticks in my craw the most is the theme song. Specifically the lyric, "The earth began to cool, the autotrophs began to drool". Autotrophs are organisms that make their own food - photosynthesizers, chemosynthesizers, etc. Usually plants or single celled organisms. Notably, none of these organisms have salivary glands. They are literally incapable of drooling.
Does anybody care about this? No! Absolutely not! It's a funny phrase that rhymes and fits the meter and evokes primordial slime. It does not matter in any meaningful sense. Will this specific lyric still drive me into an indignant rage every time I think about it? Yes! Fuck![1]
---
[1] To be fair, some of that rage is due to fatigue and irritation. In 2023 my job contracted with a boat where one of the crew members would have Big Bang Theory playing on a loop all the dang time. It was his favorite show and unfortunately it meant 2 weeks straight of hearing that goddamn theme tune and seeing the same episodes over and over again. This is also excepting an additional trip where he left his dvd player running on the title for nearly 30 min. If I did not hate the show before, I certainly do now.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-03 03:02 am (UTC)(and thanks for posting about this because we forgot to respond on discord until the convo has massively moved on)
no subject
Date: 2025-01-09 02:35 am (UTC)You poor man. I would've committed murder and been thrown off the boat for the (smooth) sharks.