These experiences sound like synesthesia, in case anyone's unfamiliar with the concept and wants further reading.

The "forensic astronomer" is a dead link, here's the last version of it on archive.org.

Oops, I actually wasn't aware of that.

Small terminology gripe on the fifth paragraph - "men's rights activist" is, as far as I know, that group's nomenclature of choice, while very few feminists would self-identify as "radical". Comes off as slightly non-neutral.

I don't think these statements are entirely vacuous. Even when their content is little more than a tautology, their actual meaning is something else entirely, at least in politics; they represent that the speaker is aware of the jargon, willing to use it, essentially moderate/"pragmatic" and prone to maintaining the status quo.