@Vermillion-Rx

There are two types of propaganda fiction.

One type is propaganda because it's intended to be, it has a message, and the story is just there to make you swallow it (Animal Farm, Atlas Shrugged, The Great Gatsby, 1984, Battleship Potemkin).

But there's a second type, and that is unintentional propaganda... in other words, that which advocates the author's worldview, not on purpose, but simply because it is written from that worldview.

The second type is EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF FICTION that isn't the first type.

My point is this. Stop having hope for Hollywood. Stop watching.

Even if they stopped deliberately trying to convince you that a man in a dress is a woman, they still wouldn't be writing anything you want to see, because their the world view of effete champagne-socialist theatre nerds has diverged enough from yours that there simply isn't any story they can write that will speak to your values.

Less TV, more novels.

@Vermillion-Rx

I'm on the autism spectrum so when I see a guy moving his mouth the whole 2-3 songs they are together and a girl is laughing and smiling the whole time in return I feel like I'm insufficient or missing something.

As someone who struggled as an aspie young man, something I'd like to recommend here is to read up on rules of eye contact. This is an area where if you're off, it will affect a lot of downstream aspects of every social interaction. Accordingly, a tune up of this area can catalyze improvements in performance and outcomes across many elements of each interaction.

Just as staring at a stranger is considered hostile or confrontational, staring too long at your object of affection gets interpreted as needy/creepy. There's a whole fine art to how to best catch, hold, then release the other party's gaze.

There exist individual and cultural differences in these rules, and they are also dynamically changed according to your changing relationship with the other party.

Cultivating a proper poker face is key as well. I used to be far too obviously reactive which tends to attract manipulators while putting off average folks.

@Vermillion-Rx

"Transwomen are women" is not so much a lie as a declaration of fealty.

It's obvious that if it were true, people wouldn't need to say it, but they don't say it because they believe it OR because they don't believe it and are trying to convince themselves. The truth-value of the statement is utterly beside the point.

The point is to declare allegiance to a particular socio-political group. It's a club slogan, like putting a bumper sticker on your car that says "Not as lean, not as mean, but still a Marine".

It's a ritual utterance with symbolic significance that has nothing to do with the literal meaning of the words.

Consider, as an example, the statements "All lives matter", and "Black lives matter". Interpreted literally, these are not in contradiction. In fact, it is impossible for the second to be false if the first is true.

However, they are seen as opposite sides of an argument, because they are symbols of referents that have nothing to do with the meaning of the words.

@MentORPHEUS

Yeah, it's a useful concept. Because once you digest it, you start to be able to see them all around.

Here's some common semantic stop signs that crop up in everyday speech.

"Conspiracy theory". Anything with is label is dismissed as the product of paranoid delusion without examining the merits of the evidence. But conspiracies are an actual thing that can sometimes happen, and when identifying one, you first have to come up with a theory that there is one, so you can collect evidence for and against.

"Generalization". Every fucking statement using language is a generalization. "Cats have four legs" is a generalization. "The sky is blue" is a generalization. It is literally quite impossible to make any non-normative statement without generalizing. But this term is selectively used in the attempt to stop others from thinking about certain generalities (and not others).

"*-ism". Labeling a set of ideas is not the same as refuting them.

"Far-right" & "far-left". This is labeling again. Just because something is outside the Overton window doesn't mean it's wrong. We are not the one special culture in all of history to magically be correct about every single thing.

"Inappropriate". This word is almost always used when someone wishes to condemn a behaviour without explaining exactly what is wrong with it. See also "problematic", "toxic", "unprofessional", etc. Individual acts can certainly be any of these things... but these words are often used when someone cannot, or does not want to, articulate the reason why.

"Safety". Often used by people who wish to restrict certain types of speech or behaviour without ever explaining what is "unsafe" about them.

"Racist". Also, "homophobic", "abilist", "anti-semitic", "misogynist", "transphobic", "heteronormative", "microaggression", etc.