What is Bearsplaining?

Bearsplaining is a portmanteau of the words bear and explaining, defined as “to explain something to someone, typically a bear to a human, in a manner regarded as homicidal or eviscerating.” It can also be defined as “explaining without the use of words. You just kill someone and eat them”. One author and essayist ascribes the phenomenon to a combination of “being a really big ass bear and not wanting to listen to your crap.”

Due to its species-specific reference to “bear”, this term has been referred to by some critics as inherently horrifying.

Bearsplaining covers a violent mixture of mannerisms in which a bear’s reduced respect for the stance of a listener, often human, appears to have little reason behind it other than the bear’s assumption that the listener or subject, being not a bear, should die instantly. It also covers situations in which it appears a bear is using a conversation primarily for the purpose of eating someone.

Some experts believe the consequences of this ursine behavior has the effect of creating a conspiracy of silence and disempowerment because it kills people. Humans, including professionals and experts, are routinely seen or treated as less credible than bears, and their insights or even legal testimony are dismissed, and then they are slain. This is one symptom of a widespread phenomenon that keeps humans from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes humans into silence by indicating that this is not their world, it belongs to bears. It trains people in self-doubt and self-limitation, horror, bad dreams and involuntary bedwetting,  just as it exercises bears’ hunger for human flesh and world domination.

Bearsplaining differs somewhat from other forms of condescension in that it ends in death and is specifically bear-related, rooted in an ursine assumption that a bear will normally be more powerful, and will eat you so you will shut up.

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