nods Lady, of Gaga.

Fun fact: in the rest of the world it’s just called “licorice”. No black. That red stuff isn’t licorice at all.

Fun fact: Lady Gaga chose that name because of that song.

Wow, haven’t seen a roflcopter in a long time.

It’s one word, all lower case, four words, all upper case.

That’s just Australian for ketchup: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dead horse

We’re way ahead of you mate, all tobacco advertising was banned in Australia 30 years ago. Plain packaging is just the latest in a long line of moves designed to de-normalise smoking, and the tobacco companies have fought against it every step of the way.

I literally just googled “cigarette plain packaging effectiveness” and there’s tons of articles analysing it and they all conclude that it has made a difference 🤷🏼‍♂️

It’s more subtle than that. Obviously no one who already smokes is going to say “Oh, the packet isn’t as pretty as it used to be, guess I’ll quit smoking now.”

It’s about the big, long-term picture. Companies spend money on branding and advertising because it works. You create the perception that your product is for a certain type of person, which makes them more inclined to buy it. By making cigarettes boring, you make them less appealing, and on average less people will smoke.

The proof is in the pudding. Social attitudes to smoking in Australia have totally flipped within a generation or two. It used to be something that everyone did. It’s now mostly seen as a gross habit.

Great comment. We have the same thing here in Australia with tobacco laws. The most recent change was to ban almost all branding on cigarette packaging. They’re not allowed to use fonts, slogans, logos, or colours, just the brand name in plain text on a standard brown-green box.

The logic being that branding makes a product more attractive to a consumer. Make it duller and less people will buy it.

Tobacco companies fought it tooth and nail. Kept arguing it wouldn’t stop people from smoking. Well then why are you lobbying so hard against it? Obviously the only reason they will ever fight anything is because they think it will hurt their revenue. So whatever they oppose, I support.

What you said is often true but not always. Some communities prefer person-first language, some prefer identity first language.

For example, generally speaking, “autistic people” is preferred over “people with autism”. The reasoning being “this is just part of who I am, it’s not an affliction that I have.”

I’m not autistic but I have lots of friends who are, and they all prefer to say “I’m autistic” rather than “I have autism”.

Like you said, it’s best to ask, or just copy the language that the person uses for themself.

Bahaha fair call mate! The other artist who came to mind was Bryan Adams, who it turns out is Canadian so clearly I’m completely full of shit.

Logic and reason aside… Idk it just feels like American fluff to me. To be clear, I don’t mean to hate on American culture with that statement. Every culture has its own vapid, meaningless fluff. God knows Australian culture does!

Regardless of who sang it or wrote it, something about faith of the heart just feels really, really American to me. Obviously Trek has always been an American show, but it has always seemed to make an effort to be more universal than that. I still remember hearing faith of the heart for the first time and it just felt… foreign. Unrelatable.

And personally I just hate power ballads so that’s my own bias haha. My whole argument is vibes and opinions really, I make zero claim to being correct or even internally consistent on this.

Yeah as an Aussie, faith of the heart comes across as some cringe American power ballad bullshit.

It’s such an insane genre shift from Trek of that era as well. Like how do you have 3 of the most incredible, majestic, orchestral themes from TNG, DS9, and VOY, and decide that what Trek really needs is a Rod Stewart song? It’s bizarre.

PC load letter?

So I am confusion https://youtube.com/shorts/U7X7cEh5au8?si=hSmKh4IpfDwQqLkE

The writers did Keiko dirty IMO. She made a lot of sacrifices and had a lot of legitimate grievances, but they just made her seem like an annoying, nagging wife.

I think it fits as a character flaw tbh. Worf has always struggled with his heritage, his parentage, his identity. He had great adoptive human parents, but always wrestled with how to be a good Klingon, and what that even means. It’s unsurprising that he isn’t sure how to raise a Klingon boy, when he has so many unanswered questions about his own upbringing.