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I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

theawl.com

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Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#341
post #199
post #42

I'm not claiming to have much fashion sense, but how is wearing giant plastic glasses "sincerity"? Is it about self-expression? What sentiment do huge glasses express? The reaction, then, had nothing to do with hipsters... they hated me because I looked like I was nakedly desperate for attention, and had gone about that attention-grabbing by glomming on to marginalized trends. I thought that was the whole reason peop…

I’m confused. Do you seriously have a problem with the kind of glasses someone wears? I think you should re-evaluate how you view other people and stop being so judgemental.

No, but I never thought of them as being "sincere" like the author claims.

Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#343
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you get here, you'll find the young'uns unbearable to be around too. Just seems to happen...

I'm sure that'll happen, as I have no reason to believe I'm better than anyone else. I hope I'll have the self-awareness not to judge them for judging people, though, or at least to do it in a more measured fashion.

Indeed, and I'm not judging the young folk either, with their energy and their zeal and their misguided good intentions. Life will beat it out of them sooner or later, best let them get on with it. They'll join us old cycnics soon enough...

Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is going to sound inflammatory but I basically consider anyone younger than around 25 to be functionally insane . They're in a period in their life where they seriously believe that they cannot spend the rest of their lives with someone who doesn't have the same taste in music as they do. You're busy cultivating a sense of identity, I get it. But more often than not you grow up and find yourself in love with som…

Ageism is dumb, and I rally against it now as an adult as much as I did when I was 15. > "but I seriously haven't really heard someone over the age of 30 or so make snarky remarks about how so-and-so is such a hipster douchebag" Maybe that's because you surround yourself with people who have similar outlooks? That doesn't mean that all people over 30 are above high school bullshit. And it certainly doesn't mean that…

TIL Piaget was ageist.

Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sadly, instead of wondering why someone of a different perspective could think that of him..." So it's his fault that people were nasty and hated on him? Way to go - blaming the victim much?

I literally wanted to end my comment by talking about "haters" and the people who talk about "haters" in a very nasty way, but since the guy I was criticizing didn't refer to "haters," I felt that was unfair and putting words in his mouth. To not rant: the fact that someone criticizes you is not a sign of a quality that they hold of being a criticizer , When people criticize you, they are criticizing you , and if you…

Very often people have their perceptions distorted by their emotions. When someone calls someone a "hater" they are saying that the "hater" is a person who lets their perceptions get distorted by hate, or some other source of negativity that is being channeled into hatefulness.

Usually that accusation is justified. Even if the complaint itself is reasonable, in most cases, the act of complaining is not. For example, if you see someone who is overweight, the sentence "you are fat" is arguably objectively correct. However, the act of saying that sentence out loud reveals something about the speaker. The weight level of a stranger is not their business. They do not convey any new information. It seems likely that the motivation for making such a statement is some desire to hurt the stranger. Desiring to hurt strangers is a bad thing, and is pretty much the definition of "hater". A "hater" is someone who lets their own personal emotional problems colour their perspective of the world, generally seeing other people in a negative light, and generally thinking it is okay to hurt strangers for no reason. The world is chock full of people like that and if you can't see that, it's probably because your perspective is similarly skewed.

To clear up a few things, context is important. It shouldn't be socially acceptable to publicly throw vitriol at strangers who are deemed attention seekers. (If you don't like attention seekers, don't give them attention. Nothing more is reasonable.) On the other hand, someone singing badly outside your apartment clearly directly affects you. People who campaign against fox hunting are personally invested in the issue. Whether or not it's reasonable for them to get upset about it is a matter of opinion - and is closely related to whether or not their views are deemed reasonable. The anti-fox hunting movement is generally seen as legitimate, even by people who disagree with them. However, not everything that people campaign on is regarded as reasonable, take the Westboro Baptist Church for example.

Being turned into a hipster meme is pretty harsh, whatever you say. Even the hardiest of Internet tough guys break down under torrents of social media abuse. There are countless examples of Reddit mob justice singling people out and breaking them down. It's obviously a deeply unpleasant experience, and unless you've been through it, I don't think you're in a position to make light of it.

Lastly, I just want to say I find it hard to understand why you don't have any concept or understanding of what bullying is. The most likely explanation is that you are prone to negativity and you're being self indulgent about it. So, given your commitment to absorbing other people's perspectives, why don't you take on board mine? I think you're probably an overly negative person. If you see the majority of people around you negatively, then you have unrealistic standards (by definition). Unrealistic standards will make you unhappy, because you will be perpetually disappointed and full of complaints. It's better to care less about the faults of others and enjoy their good points. In fact, if you want to live a happy life, then you need to have tougher standards on yourself than you do on others. That might sound counter intuitive, but it's pretty obvious that most people live pretty unhappy lives. If you want to live a happy life then you need to do better than them - and you can't get upset at their failings, because that'll make you unhappy.

Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author summarizes the rage quite well: "The reaction, then, had nothing to do with hipsters. It was a hatred of people that need to stand out for standing-out's sake. That realization was at once positive and negative—people didn't hate me because I was a hipster, they hated me because I looked like I was nakedly desperate for attention, and had gone about that attention-grabbing by glomming on to marginalized trends…

I think is is a really interesting point, and it's something I spend quite a bit of time thinking about. Why is some attention-seeking behavior generally seen as acceptable, even positive, while other attention-seeking behavior is seen as pathetic or rage-inducing? Based on my own anecdotal experience, I think part of the anger comes from a sense of discomfort at the dissonance between how one thinks the attention-se…

That's very strange to me - I don't understand why a stranger thinking they are funny or cool would be upsetting. People have different tastes, why does it bother you?

Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#347
post #319
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there are some clothing choices that could be sincere, what I meant is that I don't understand what those clothes sincerely are . I thought skinny jeans were a recurring fad, and the big glasses were fashionable or meant to get attention or something. For your other questions, I think someone who spent 2 grand on a suit just to be showy is pretentious. If they did it because they really like expensive clothes,…

I don't understand your definitions of sincerity, pretentious or vain. I attempted to, by asking you a sequence of questions. They only confuse me further. My only intuition is that you think _vain_, _sincere_ or _pretentious_ are absolute. I think they are relative. E.g. you spending time not working in a cotton field 20 hours of a day to feed your family might be seen as the vain games of the rich by a farmer in th…

It's pretty fuzzy, which is why I was surprised when the author claimed that it was about radical sincerity.

Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#349
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because I got treated like dog shit by the exact same class of person who now dresses in a parody of my life What suggests to you that these are the same people? Like, if I wore lensless glasses for kicks, would that put me into the "high school bully" class? You're doing what TFA complains about: making assumptions about people & speaking ill of them because of how they dress. Why make assumptions? Why get mad bec…

Because it's not arbitrary. I didn't get punched in the guts when I was a kid because I was wearing tight pants driving a pennyfarthing. I was punched in the guts because I was a "nerd" which meant "not cool." So when someone copies the cartoon version of me to be "cool" I'm entitled to be annoyed. I was who I was, I wasn't trying to fit an "image." Unlike hipsters, which are a real thing, I didn't get the privilege…

I don't know, like the article says, it's easy to confuse deep sincerity for irony. Some of hipster/geek chic is about beauty shining through unflattering clothes and awkwardness. Some of it is genuine appreciation for unusual things. Both part of a movement towards being more accepting of differences.

Re: I Am An Object Of Internet Ridicule, Ask Me Anything

#350
post #223

Hipster-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,…

Hipsterism itself is thinly-veiled bullying - it's essentially "I'm cool and you're not". It's like before Apple became really popular, some users exhibited a 'smug field', where they considered themselves better people for using this elite product, being part of those 'in the know', and were just better than you. I have an aunt who was like that, who would mock me for not using Apple... yet she couldn't articulate w…

"Putting on airs" is not bullying. Being smug is not bullying. Your Aunt mocking you could be a form of bullying, however, I strongly doubt that your Aunt is representative of the hipster movement.
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