Do I have too deep knowledge in #gay culture, or is this joke also understandable by lots of others?
... I'm also absolutely fine with people only getting it because I wrote what I wrote, and looking it up. Subtle jokes that need a second thought are sooo much more wholesome (to me, at least)
@rhonda HOW DID I NOT SEE THAT?
@rhonda pretty sure that's surface-level knowledge
@rhonda then again, maybe that "experts overestimating what people outside their field know" xkcd comic applies to me rn
@rhonda My exposure to gay culture is quite surface level, and mostly comes from following queer people on fedi. I understand the joke (and it's a good one, too), so I don't think it requires any deep level of knowledge.
@rhonda I guess, with some fantasy, it should be understandable by most people. (Tbh, I only actually found out by someone doing comics about that topic)
@rhonda Sure πŸ€ŽπŸ§‘πŸ’›πŸ€πŸ–€

@rhonda Pretty sure shows like Last Week Tonight have done β€˜bear’ jokes and would do this one, so I'd expect it to be understandable to the majority of people … at least in this sort of audience ;) (I.e. maybe not including ultra conservatives, but largely mainstream.)

Actually, I can pretty much only hear the above text in John Oliver's voice now. But maybe that's because he speaks in Rotis Serif?

@rhonda I wouldn't describe myself as deep in gay culture, but... I don't know what 'Women are taking all the bears' means.
@noam There is this discussion going on, whether women would prefer to be alone with a bear in the woods than with a man. And most women prefer the bear, with relatable and valid reasoning.
@rhonda Thank you! I'm not good at following trending discussions. 🀣
@rhonda I get it, I love it, and I've already seen similar memes πŸ˜„
@rhonda meh, this is pretty common knowledge by now I think
@rhonda I think I get it. They can keep their human bears. We’ll take the bear bears πŸ˜…
@rhonda I have the smattering of knowledge of gay culture that comes from hanging around people who (I believe) have a deep knowledge of it (but not in a context where that's a daily topic) and that's enough to understand the joke :)
@rhonda I'll admit this is where my brain went when the women prefer bears meme started.
@rhonda I get it (but I also have a lot of friends and family in the gay community). Bears are pretty great πŸ˜‰
@rhonda I almost did a spit take when I read that!
@rhonda Gay men don't want to be with hetero men either? Hetero men can be pretty dangerous to gay blokes?
@rhonda As a large, rather furry, man with gay friends and acquaintances, I am quite familiar with the concept.

@rhonda When I saw my first bear post it took me a moment to understand that we're talking about actual wild animals πŸ€·β€β™€οΈ

(I live in Berlin tho so not sure how that helps your question xD)

@rhonda @Wraithe I just spent way longer giggling about that than was probably necessary. I do have many years of hagdom under my belt though, so I don't think I fit the "lots of others" category that well either...
@rhonda At one point, I really thought it was about straight men vs gay men. And I was like, "Yeah, that makes sense."
@rhonda
I misread it as "lots of otters"
I'm too pan for my own good
@rhonda I think that I might get it (I’m thinking of the guy that somewhat alarmed Prince Edward while he was knocking on doors looking for Giselle), but now I’m wondering which kind of bears that women are less worried about.
@rhonda I'm an old lady. I haven't had a sex life to speak of since the Obama administration. Yet still when this thought experiment started circulating, it took a good few sitcom comic beats before I realised "Oh! A _literal_ bear!"
@rhonda
I don't think that's just gay culture. At least I didn't learn it there.
@rhonda This cis hettie gets the reference, but I do have gay friends and are therefore somewhat familiar with the lingo.