The most amazing thing about this story is that he stayed true to himself. He continued to do his thing, went to the park, did some typin'. I think that is pretty awesome! Why do I think that? Because fuck everybody else. Hater's gunna hate.
I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything
121–130 of 400 posts
Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything
#122I, myself, would have started, and stopped, with the last sentence: I prefer to let these little cesspools of cyberspace fester and then stagnate, forgotten as they should be, secure in the knowledge that I am doing something that matters to me. As reddit is nothing other than a festering cesspool of cyberspace.
There are good corners of reddit
Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reddit is visited by tens of millions of people of virtually every demographic. Corralling them as "internet nerds" seems a bit like you're trying for some bullying yourself. In any case, talk about much ado about absolutely nothing. A bunch of people said silly things, largely under the assumption that it was no consequence (that no one was hurt, etc): In many ways the comments on there are performance art. It is th…
Reddit is visited by tens of millions of people of virtually every demographic. Corralling them as "internet nerds" seems a bit like you're trying for some bullying yourself. The post to which you're replying didn't even mention Reddit. Reddit is by no means the only place where a nerdy demographic (and I'll define 'nerdy demographic' as 18-25 that skew towards STEM education and exhibit above-average internet usage)…
> The post to which you're replying didn't even mention Reddit.
Didn't this all kick off with a mean-spirited reaction to a photo on Reddit? The ancestor post hardly needs to mention Reddit explicitly...
Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
On top of it, geek culture is a hipster culture. Oh you listen to obscure geeky bands and wear comic/anime t-shirts all the time? You purposely disengage from mainstream society? You're overly critical of the status quo and only socialize with people exactly like you? Gee, that sounds like the guy you're criticizing.
I can't help but feel that a large portion of the current "geek culture" is a collection of appropriations from a different group, selected for "authenticity", similar to criticisms of the wider hipster culture. I wore thick-rim glasses because 1. I didn't/couldn't care about fashion 2. my parents didn't have the money for nicer frames and 3. I actually could not see without glasses. So yeah, when I see thick rim gla…
I grew up wearing "dorky" glasses, switched to vertically narrower frames, and now wear a pair of Warby Parker retro-ish glasses (http://bit.ly/1btLNTC for reference). So as someone who's been on both sides, I find your response pretty interesting.
I can understand your annoyance and you're certainly entitled to it. I suppose the first thing I did when I read your post is ask myself "Well, why do I wear these glasses?" The simple answer is that my girlfriend thought I should get new glasses, so we picked out a bunch from Warby Parker to try on and she liked these the best. But even though she picked them out, I was complicit in the choice; if she had picked out some sort of bizarrely-shaped polka-dotted frame, I'm pretty sure I would've vetoed that. So there was some part of me that said "hey, I kinda like how I look in these."
Now, does this mean I'm appropriating a look that was formerly a magnet for bullies? Maybe. But the key thing to remember when considering the relationship between ridicule and compliments is that both are equally arbitrary. There was no reason for people to mock you or me for our choice of glasses back then, just like there's no intrinsic reason that these same glasses should appear attractive 10 years later. That's just how fashion/culture works.
I think if someone personally harassed someone else for wearing "dorky" glasses, and then later decided to wear that same style of glasses to appear fashionable while continuing to deride people that don't share their taste in clothing, then yeah, that would seem pretty hypocritical.
Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything
#125Hipster-hate strikes me as just another thinly veiled form of bullying, and it's interesting to see how readily internet nerds - the people who are disproportionately to have been bullied in the past - engage in it. Look! He's different! Let's make assumptions about his motivations and get him! It's also interesting to see how many times Reddit (and other communities) fly into a rage-fest because of lack of context,…
I find it interesting how the word "hipster" has morphed in usage over the last five-or-so years. Originally, as far as I could tell, it had a specific meaning: "someone who prefers unknown bands just for their being unknown, and dislikes well-known bands just for their being well-known." This, obviously, is a person to not hold in high regard--their mannerism, after all, is entirely defined by contempt for the majority of humanity. ("As soon as everyone likes it, I hate it.")
Then an image and a lifestyle got attached to it--some mix of the effete New Yorker, the post-punk Seattlite, and the "urban woodsman" Portlander. And now it just refers to those things, and no longer really carries the requirement that the person so-labelled define themselves via contrarianism and contempt.
But language influences thought, people still remember the old meaning, and "slur it forward": seeing people who are hipsters-as-in-culture and assuming they're worthy of the same contempt given to hipsters-as-in-contemptuous-assholes.
Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything
#126By the time I reached the middle of the post, i had totally forgot how i got here. How i got to this page, this awesome piece of article. I totally forgot this was on the top of HN. Now that's the power of your storytelling. i just loved it. it felt like i was sitting beside you and you were telling me your story. Awesome storytelling abilities. Thumbs Up !
Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything
#127what Linda replied I'm stunned that a mom can get paid $5082 in 1 month on the internet. go to website http://goo.gl/HRSfiS
Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything
#128Hipster-hate strikes me as just another thinly veiled form of bullying, and it's interesting to see how readily internet nerds - the people who are disproportionately to have been bullied in the past - engage in it. Look! He's different! Let's make assumptions about his motivations and get him! It's also interesting to see how many times Reddit (and other communities) fly into a rage-fest because of lack of context,…
I find it interesting how the word "hipster" has morphed in usage over the last five-or-so years. Originally, as far as I could tell, it had a specific meaning: "someone who prefers unknown bands just for their being unknown, and dislikes well-known bands just for their being well-known." This, obviously, is a person to not hold in high regard--their mannerism, after all, is entirely defined by contempt for the major…
Hipster goes back way further; hippie actually derives from it and not vice versa.
And it isn't a term that just completely died out in the 50s and was reborn in the aughts (e.g. in Seinfeld, Kramer gets called a "Hipster Doofus").
Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything
#129Related to his original idea: I think it's simply fantastic. Not only does it help avoid writers block (You constantly have a stream of stories to create), but it's forced practice. Nobody says Mozart's first few works were brilliant. It wasn't until he practiced for years that he became a virtuoso. An approach like this, while easy to view from the lens of simply making people happy, is an investment in one's creati…
"Nobody says Mozart's first few works were brilliant. It wasn't until he practiced for years that he became a virtuoso." Are you trying to be ironic? Mozart's first work was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andante_in_C_for_Keyboard_%28Mo... , written when he was 5 years old. Mozart's the canonical example of somebody who didn't have to practice for years. Obviously he did spend thousands of hours practising as he grew u…
"Mozart's the canonical example of somebody who didn't have to practice for years."
I'm assuming the parent was referring to information presented in the book Outliers, which provides a counter-argument to this
Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything
#130NEWSFLASH: If you're doing something specifically to get attention, it's possible the attention you get might not be to your liking. (Though I agree people should be more open to people doing fun performance-ish stuff like this, it does not mean a performer is entitled to receive only positive reactions.)
Context is so important. I remember seeing this on reddit and thinking that surely it must be staged satire, poking fun at the types (pun intended) of people one sees around Chelsea. Without the context of it being a piece of (really rather compelling) performance art, the photo looks like a person who is trying very hard to be noticed.
I guess the issue for me is that there is a cachet in our society for successful artists- That's why so many people want to try art, because art is "cool".
But the reason art is cool is PRECISELY BECAUSE artists have to take risks and stick their necks out and have to be able to take the heat if their art gets a bad reception.
It seems to me OP wanted the cachet of doing art, but doesn't want to accept the risk that is an integral part of being an artist.