It's always demeaning. Calling a full-grown man of any race "boy" is belittling them. Yes, there's a special racist association, but it's been used as much on white men. The female equivalent might be "little girl."
"What do you think you're doing, little girl?"
It might have the same effect as simply "girl" if said the right way, but "girl" has been more normalized and sexualized, so it's a little different.
Anyway, the terms are belittling, and therefore demeaning, regardless of race. The point of using them is to position yourself over that person, as a parent over a child; it's shorthand for saying they are beneath you.
I think most non-Southerners' exposure to it is in media, where it's almost always racist in context. There's a surprising amount of subtly in Southern social interactions that I think it's missing from most of the US. Sure, Midwesterners are known for raising passive-aggressiveness to an art form, but you recognize it no matter where you're from.
The subtly in social interactions in the South are truly exceptional, hard to get a handle on, and unmatched anywhere else in the US - IMHO. Southerners have as many ways of being condescending as Eskimos have words for snow.
Is that phrase still acceptable, or is the Eskimo/snow comment now not PC? Is it still OK to use the term "Eskimo?" If the Eskimo thing is offensive, I sincerely apologize. An alternative would be "as North-westerners have words for rain," but I don't know if that's as widely understood an idiom.
They need a "follow accounts" button here. Like if a reporter used
Thank you!
And: dude! I have totally thought the same thing! It's so weird that Mastodon has follow-accounts, but no communities; Lemmy has join-communities but no follow-accounts; and they're both ActivityPub. You'd think that would be a no-brainer feature, right?
Yeah, it'd have to be a Lemmy design change, and then all of the many clients would have to implement it... momentum is a powerful force in the software world, and difficult and dangerous to overcome. Look at the fiasco of Python 3; that was a cock-up of epic proportions. Lemmy's got enough users and clients now that changes have to be made extremely carefully.
It does get stuck in there. Just don't make the mistake of going out in public until it fades lol.
I had an NPC during a table top rpg session that was my excuse to do my foghorn leghorn voice. Spent all afternoon doing that voice, and couldn't stop when I made a beverage and snack run.
I already have a southern accent (technically a mountain accent, but that's quibbling), so hamming it up can get absurd lol