this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

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[–] jonne@infosec.pub 139 points 3 days ago (3 children)

If you set up parental controls on your parent's devices I can guarantee they won't find a way around it.

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 35 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They will, usually by accident. Source: my father in law.

[–] jballs@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You block Fox News using a Pi-hole?

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

He only watched Tagesschau, but no matter what we did with his phone to make it secure, he'd manage to fuck it up and get to places he shouldn't get to and change settings he shouldn't have been able to get at. His PC was also a barrel of fun.

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[–] TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 days ago (2 children)

my grandpa with dementia installed OVER 40 solitaire apps because he would go to the app store and install one every time instead of opening the ones he "couldn't find"

now he has parental controls blocking app downloading

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[–] StaticFalconar@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

Thats all good for kids since they dont know any better to begin with. Parents will bitch and complain they can no longer watch Fox news to enough people, and 'the problem' will get fixed.

[–] cokeslutgarbage@lemmy.world 110 points 3 days ago (9 children)

My mom mentioned that my dad has been watching some concerning (in her words, "annoying") YouTube content lately. Last time she said that it was America's Got Talent, but this time it's white men arguing with cops. I visited and asked if he would show me. He jokingly said "are you gonna violate my rights?" And I very seriously said "yes. I need to make sure it's not Jordan Peterson or Joe Rogan or someone even worse". He got a little bit offended and said "you know me better than that, I'm smarter than that". But the thing is, you start by watching something innocuous like some idiot sovcit arguing with cops and the algorithm pipeline feeds you nazi shit from there and you don't even know it.

For context, my parents are the kind of leftists that don't know what leftists are. My mom calls herself a bleeding heart liberal, and my dad sees the media say things like "radical liberals" and jumps up off the couch screaming "you bet your ass im a radical liberal!" But they're left of liberal, they just don't have the language for it.

I'm not worried that my dad is gonna seek out nazi propaganda, im worried it's gonna find him anyway and I want to throw his phone in a lake.

Maybe shower thoughts wasn't the right community for me to have my existential crisis. But I wish i could block "sovcit" on my dad's phone and "trad-anything" on my mom's phone, not because I think they're dumb (okay maybe a little) but because this shit is so toxic and intrinsic and scary and my parents are so dumb.

Take care of yourself and your loved ones xx

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Must be nice to have parents that haven't turned out to be fascist sociopaths.

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[–] Absaroka@lemmy.world 74 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Any time you hear Republicans argue 18 year olds shouldn't be able to vote, and they want to increase the age to 21/25, tell them "OK - then anybody over 65 isn't allowed to vote either."

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago (4 children)

I would settle for no one can be elected if their age is younger or older than 30 and 60.

[–] madame_gaymes@programming.dev 13 points 2 days ago (3 children)

There already is a lower limit (must be 35), just need to add the upper

[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

I'm not talking about just the president. I don't think we need anyone older than 60 deciding the future. I'm less than a decade from 60 but have been ruled by people much older than me my whole life. It isn't any better and in some ways worse than it was when I was in my twenties.

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[–] CompostMaterial@lemmy.world 51 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (5 children)

I constantly refer to my parents and in-laws as children. Why? Because they behave exactly like my 11 year old. They have no critical reasoning skills, no emotional intelligence, are easily offended, and can not be reliability left on their own without screwing something up.

At some point around retirement age, humans seem to cognitively revert back to children and those of us in middle adulthood are left to parent our actual children and our childish parents.

[–] BoulevardBlvd@lemmy.blahaj.zone 27 points 3 days ago

Unfortunately I think that's just our parents and not all old people. My parents are the same way, but it seems to me more that maturing is a choice and active process that requires effort, and many people are unwilling to put in the work and vigilance required and it leads to the above

I don't think they're children, I think they're selfish lazy assholes, but the result that they need to be treated like children is the same

[–] thingAmaBob@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago

At some point around retirement age, humans seem to cognitively revert back to children

I haven’t seen that happen to everyone I know around that age. Many still have their wits about them and see the current state of affairs as a clown show. Some are even out here on the streets protesting.

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[–] StarlightDust@lemmy.blahaj.zone 34 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I just keep their Facebook accounts logged in on my phone. Every few months, I will go onto their profiles and unlike pages like "Wear your poppy with pride" and deradicalize their algorithm. Poppies for British boomers on Facebook are like Elsa and Spiderman on YouTube for babies.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

How are poppies radical on Facebook?

[–] Fluke@lemm.ee 16 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

Because the wearing of poppies has become synonymous with the now defunct BNP and the rest of the British right wing for a lot of us.

You can thank Stephen Yaxley-Lennon for that.

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[–] boreengreen@lemm.ee 8 points 3 days ago

Facebook slowly pushing more shit and you shoveling the shit away. Nicely done!

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[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 21 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Simpler still: disenfranchise senile boomers. Of course you don't target boomers specifically, any old person with very little time left to live and severe disconnect from reality shouldn't be allowed to vote on what affects the rest of the world long after they are dead.

https://old.reddit.com/r/DownWithIncumbency/

[–] TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

severe disconnect from reality

Something about that doesn't sit right with me. Seeing how far the definition of an "illegal alien" is being stretched for deportation, I have a feeling people with autism, ADHD, depression, etc, would all be added to the list of people who are "disconnected from reality"

Not to mention some people are dumb enough to argue being trans is a mental illness aswell. (~~dysphoria is~~ NVM it's a diagnosis, being trans is not)

The better solution imo is to inform people about what's going on around them and how to watch out for pipelines.

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[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 21 points 2 days ago (6 children)

My wife stayed at an Airbnb last week, I tried to convince her to turn the parental controls on and block OAN and Fox.

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[–] Guns0rWeD13@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago (39 children)

no, WE THE PEOPLE should have global networks that simply remove that kind of brain rot and delete the people that perpetuate it.

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[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That's what router settings do. Sorry, X is not reachable from here.

[–] davetapley@lemmy.world 22 points 3 days ago (5 children)

I love this in general, unfortunately for me my dad is a retired network engineer 😫

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[–] toy_boat_toy_boat@lemmy.world 19 points 3 days ago (2 children)
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[–] boreengreen@lemm.ee 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think it would be better to make social media unprofitable with heavy regularion on data collection, trading and sharing.

[–] lemmy_outta_here@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago

Totally agree. Especially since in my country, young people are swallowing far-right propaganda at a higher rate than boomers. Canada's Tater Tots are trying to elect a MAGA candidate right now. Age is not the problem - the well of information has been poisoned.

[–] Cocopanda@futurology.today 17 points 2 days ago

My parents are full blown terrorists. But their so fat they can't actually do anything about their beliefs. I've warned them that if a Civil War starts. They will be the first to die because medications wont be available to keep them alive and I won't care when it happens. They voted for this and support this trash.

[–] mogranja@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago

True. I also wanted a senior mode on Apple family groups.

[–] reluctant_squidd@lemmy.ca 14 points 2 days ago (6 children)

It’s the right idea, but too narrow of a demographic. It’s not the old people that seem to be the problem. At least not only them. It’s the uneducated or intellect impaired that should be reined in. The ones that are just smart enough to use Facebook, but would struggle to understand the concept of the Dunning–Kruger effect

The amount of younger people that are sucked in hook, line, sinker, rod, boat, trailer and truck is staggering.

It’s like they decided that reality didn’t work for them, so let’s just ignore it in favour of “insert discriminatory slogan or catchphrase here”.

It’s bonkers.

[–] Doctor_Satan@lemm.ee 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The amount of younger people that are sucked in hook, line, sinker, rod, boat, trailer and truck is staggering.

That demographic is a whole other problem that requires a whole other solution. Conservatives have spent a decade building the online right-wing pipeline with podcast bro's and streamers aiming their content at young teenage boys. Now all those kids are of voting age, and a big chunk of them have spent half their lives being raised on manosphere bullshit that taught them that they are owed the world on a silver platter.

I will hand it to conservatives; they are frighteningly good at organizing and staying on message in ways that the Left can only dream of. If we could get half as organized as them, they'd never win another election.

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[–] TheColonel@reddthat.com 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I can’t speak for everyone but I raised my mom right and kept her away from that trash.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I recently thanked my dad for not going all crazy. He fixes up old cars and takes pictures of birds.

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[–] Pulptastic@midwest.social 12 points 2 days ago

That’s a feature, not a bug. They show that stuff intentionally.

[–] WereCat@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

My parents are already fully indoctrinated. I don't think there's a way back

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