On "Yucking" Someone Else's "Yum"

Good Morning My Confidants

I hope this finds you well.

I am finding myself embroiled in a lot lately and I am doing my best to get un-embroiled! I am going to...vent (?) about one of them this morning. I hope actually that you see I do have something worthwhile to say.

And one of the major ones is the phrase that has become popular these days, "Don't yuck somebody else's yum."

To yuck someone's yum means to disparage something they enjoy. Most often, people say this phrase as yuck your yum or yuck my yum, when talking about disparaging remarks they've made or received. *

I've done my fair share of that.

Someone made a post waxing poetic about how much the love Hawaiin pizza, and I would tell them how much I hated it. And I would wax poetic about it. And when they got understandably mad about it, my response would be, "Hey! You're posting this in a public forum! Therefor you are inviting responses!"

But I have come to see this in a different light. I've changed my mind. I don't feel that way anymore. After a few people kindly explained why they felt it was a wrong thing to do—without attacking me—and I'll admit, getting made when someone did the same kind of thing to me, a little lightbulb went on—PING!—and I decided that I didn't want to do that anymore.

That said! If someone is actually inviting opinion, when they say, "I just love Hawaiin pizza and it makes my husband sick to watch me eat it, what do you think?" Well, that is different. They are asking for opinions.

But when someone writes a gleeful post about how much they liked the movie Barbie, and how happy they were at its success, and then someone says something like, "I found it vey [sic] dull and stupid," now that is a horse of a different color. Especially if in the post, the person who posted never once included anything about, "I would love to know if you liked it or not!" The post was made because they were all aglow about something that they liked, and to slam the movie was just crass. Rude.

I don't know how I didn't see that. It's so obvious.

Okay, but, here's another thing I wanted—needed—to say.

People are taking "Don't yuck somebody else's yum" to a place it was never, ever intended to go.

When we write essays, posts, tweets, whatever, we are voicing our opinion. We, in the United States at least, have that Constitutional right.

The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

What this means of course is that you very much can jump onto someone else's essays, posts, tweets, whatever, and say things like, "I found [whatever the poster was saying] to be very dull and stupid."

But it's rude. I often ask if their parents taught them any manners.

People don't like to be asked that.

HOWEVER—my point, and I do have one—is that anyone has the right to make their own post saying that they thought that the Barbie movie was very dull and stupid or that Hawaiin pizza is disgusting or that they hate the color red or that the song "Padam Padam" by Kylie Minogue sucks the big one.

Someone writing about, in their own space, that they don't like something is NOT yuck somebody else's yum! If we couldn't give our opinions of things, well, that would mean we woke up in a communist country. We couldn't review restaurants unless we had something good to say about it, and the true point of a restaurant review is to let people know about the food. We couldn't review a movie—Barbie or Oppenheimer or whatever—unless we liked it! And who the heck wants to live in that world?

If a person writes on social media anywhere and says whatever they want, that is NOT yucking someone else's yum!

That's voicing an opinion. We might not agree with them, it could annoy us, it could piss us off, especially if they are dissing something we really like. And most especially if they do it because they intend to hurt people. As in saying that anyone who likes Hawaiian pizza has rat-sh*t tastes or liked Barbie is an idiot.

But that is a different story.

From this day forth, anytime I make a post anywhere expressing my opinion—and that opinion was that I didn't like something—I am simply going to point them to this post.

And that's all I have to say on the subject. Agree? Disagree? That's up to you.

I doubt you're going to change my mind on this one.

Because if all I was "allowed" to post on social media was cute pictures of my dogs or funny memes (and I would have to be careful there because I am going to offend someone), this world would be a pretty boring place.

And who wants that?

AND if I post something that offends you, know that I didn't do it to offend you. It isn't about you, it's about me. I'm sorry that you allowed yourself to get offended by that when there is so many wonderful, beautiful things in the world to not get offended about.

I will occasionally make a post I am sure where it might look like I am going off my rocker, but check me out. 98% of the time, my goal is to spread love.

And I am sending love your way,

Namaste,

BG "Gentle Ben" Thomas

January 25, 2024, Entry #025

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* Yuck Your Yum: https://slang.net/meaning/yuck_your_yum#:~:text=To%20yuck%20someone%27s%20yum%20means%20to%20disparage%20something,talking%20about%20disparaging%20remarks%20they%27ve%20made%20or%20received