People literally change their names because they feel like it, so I'm sure people do care outside the Internet, specially in circumstances of abuse.

Yeah... it can be interpreted that way. But even as a feminist myself, it is a dumb performative sort of protest. Paternal surnames are the least important fixtures of our patriarchal society, and, unless it was created wholecloth, there are no surnames that aren't patriarchal historically, as the meme points out.

It’s one of those posts that IS funny, but makes OP’s viewpoint ambiguous. And if this was reddit, incels would come out of the woodwork to support the meme.

I think the point of the joke might be more that an attempt to start a matrilineal naming scheme is foiled somewhat from the fact that the maiden name of the mother is derived from her father, i.e. you can't escape that the last names all come from patrilineal sources for generations.

Love the little respectful preamble you put there, can we make that internet discussion standard plz.?

in my friend group we have a guy we describe as "default {name}", in order to differentiate him from the other {name}s in the group. He's a cisgender heterosexual white christian male (a rarity among us). Mostly it's a joke, because we all agree that being mildly offensive is kinda funny, but it's also a commentary on society at large. If you're online talking to people you know nothing about, it's a safe assumption (christian less and less as the years go by though).

It is absolutely ok to not be "default settings". You're not doing anything wrong by not confirming to that standard. I didn't decide what default is, I learned it by observing society.

We should use uuids

Reminder that surnames didn't exist before the middle ages, you just had a singular name that people shouted to get your attention. Since you lived in a community of several dozen people, you didn't need to do much to differentiate yourself from the other "John" in your town because everyone knows each other. You lived and died just as "John" and would be remembered by your kids for a generation if you were lucky. There was no need to keep track of genealogy, you were a pair of hands and legs, you were supposed to get out there and plow that field and that's all your baron or lord cared about.

But somewhere after the black plague ravaged Europe and we lost a sizeable chunk of the human population, suddenly workers became in high-demand. Industrialist lords and landowners suddenly didn't have people smithing their horse shoes or making their bread, so they had to go poach people from far away towns and suddenly workers had power and options. As a way to get noticed for your family's tradeskill, you would have been wise to advertise this to wealthy employers, the best way was to attach your trade to your name. You were now John Baker to differentiate yourself from John the Drunkard if anyone came looking to hire someone who could cook bread.

So surnames are advertising. It's all it's ever been. There's nothing ancient and special about your name, it was just how your ancestors tried to make a buck.

Because their entire poltical and world view is based on identity politics. They cannot simply say "that joke sucked" and move on, they have to make it into yet another virtue signalling exercise and lecture everyone else because that is the behaviour they associate with being a "good person".

Probably anyone who ever gotten any pressure about handling last-names after marriage might care. It's definitely something that some people care about, and some people cop flack for their decision.

The joke is just a joke, but the problem is that this joke punches down. That's generally poor form.