I agree strongly with the first part but def missed the memo on the second. I was able to Google 'Jesse Singal', but who's Link? Why were they banned?

This is why I'd say the dislike of small talk is rarely an objection to, or a misreading of, scripts. It's from regularly seeing such scripts deployed perfunctorily.

Small talk is about form; genuine care is about intent. But folks can't mindread intent.

For example, out of the mouths of babes:

I've had to do this a lot for an undiagnosed friend who's often written off as a 'concern troll'. He comes to me with very earnest questions and it breaks my heart watching him try to understand others, when others won't give him that same grace.

IOW, we live in a society. But we don't live in a society that treats all of us equally. Especially not in the ways that most matter.

I took a train ride from NY to FL last weekend, and the farther south we got, the more small talk became less about rapport and more about risk management.

What that question highlights is how small talk is 1) functionally an act of compliance to someone else's stage, and 2) cishet white men are the most fraught to navigate when you're not them.

The good ones expect you to guess their good intentions; bad ones exploit civility to center their comfort.

Same.

There's also just so many: Reboot, Denver the Last Dinosaur, Hammerman, Woody Woodpecker, King Arthur and the Knights of Justice, Double Dragon, The Mask, Beast Wars, the whole Disney Afternoon block, etc.

I just wanted to highlight my fav least mentioned.

Absolutely, but small talk isn’t the only option, and bypassing it doesn't mean oversharing is the only alternative.

My concern here is: what kind of community gets birthed from a small talk framework? To me, it feels too much like the places that gave us "Minnesota nice."

Ngl, that last bit totally gave me Tobias vibes.

*high 5s* I only knew one person who ever saw it and it was my BFF. I love those characters so much. And the educational shorts at the end of each ep were like nothing else at the time.

I got blocked on the hellsite once by a Steve Rogers fanfic writer who lives in Brooklyn, cause I tagged Hank Green when citing him to her in a quote about microplastics.

She went ad hominem on me, said I was simping for his attn, then said I was swatting her cause he has a big following.

Bonkers.

But is "a serious 'but how are you doing?" still small talk anymore? That's usually an invite to segue to a deeper talk.

I wrote a song about this once.

2/2 For the longest time, when I witnessed small talk, I felt like the kid in this meme:

Oh man, I feel folks need to define what 'small talk' even means cause I consider myself a hater of 'small talk', but your examples aren't things I'd consider 'small talk'.

To me, 'small talk' is what shuts down rapport rather than building it.