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Joined 25 days ago
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Cake day: August 25th, 2025

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  • As others already wrote, the original meaning has been specific to awareness of racial discrimination, later broadened to general discrimination topics.

    But that is just the US, and e.g. in Germany these roots (and also the connection to wake/asleep) are mostly missing.

    So it is just a normal imported word, with no clear antonym existing.

    Also because of this only recent import of the term, it is less connected to its original meaning, but often only associated with a well-intended, but superficial kind of activism.
    E.g. it is heavily associated with a generally not very popular over-gendering going on in official and news texts, which leads to a broken kind of the German language. (German is heavily gendered, but a word’s gender often has nothing to do with the sexual gender).

    So the term had a somewhat negative connotation to begin with, even in more progressive circles.
    Doesn’t hinder the far right from doing anti-woke campaigns nonetheless, wokism is just such a nice (but actually in the broader population none-existent) opponent. And they use the term “Anti-Woke”, because it just makes sense for an imported word.


  • They are not that common here in Germany in general, but my city has in the past years put up a dozen or so, mainly in public parks.
    They are maintained by our municipal utility service and are basically always in perfect condition.
    At least during summer. Being outdoor installations they are shut down (actually completely removed) during the winter months.

    Other than that I only had one in elementary school 30 years ago, which also worked and a lot of actual natural springs with drinking outlets that are often maintained by rural communities.

    Our city also has one of those natural water drinking fountains, but as it is the (still maintained and monitored) remains of a thermal baths project from a hundred years ago, it is not so suitable for actually quenching your thirst. Full of crazy salts and minerals with a faintly sulfuric aroma on top - but supposed to be healthy :-)

    So, in general: no complaints where I live.