so this is just a really quick rant to help me articulate my thoughts and get these emotions out of my system.
Im sick of all this negativity on the net. and I know, I dont have to click on these stupid links on my facebook news feed, to 9gag, or read all these stupid comments on youtube videos. but i do. and they frustrate me. and make me angry. and ive tried to deal with them, but i realize i deal with things best by writing so thats what Im gonna do write now.
So very quickly, Im gonna run through all the "memes" or types of hatred that gets to me.
1. "When I was a kid.. EVERYTHING was better"
Back then music used to be awesome. Today music sucks. Back in the day vampires used to be awesome. Today they are all wimpy and sentimental. The world sucks now! All of you are losers! Only I am enlightened on the higher objective truth of good music/food/beauty/taste in general.
This false nostalgia pisses me off for so many reasons. Firstly, it usually involves pitching the most famous/celebrated notion of the genre from the past with a commonly contentious/hated symbol of the genre from the present. Whether it is comparing The Beatles with the Jonas Brothers, Marilyn Monroe with Lady Gaga, the Lost Boys with Twilight. Its just an incredibly arbitrary selection of representatives from the "past" and "present". These are all incredibly biased comparisons. The Beatles, Nirvana, Guns n Roses cant ever represent any generation of musicians or taste in music. Neither does Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, whatever modern day icon you choose to hate on, capture our era today. And the truth is, it really does come down to personal opinion what you like and what you don't. There was rock music in the past, there is rock music today. There were boy bands singing love ballads in the 80s, just like there were boy bands in the 90s, 00s and will probably be in the future. I'm not one to judge anyone's taste in music. But these comparisons, which dont reflect reality, and are truly just hating on tastes, and generalize entire generations.. there are dumb. As dumb as cries of "I dont want to live in this world anymore". The world may not be a perfect place today. But it wasnt perfect either when you were growing up. Nor the time before that. Be it economics, politics, music, food, movies.. Its just how the world works.
2. "True Fans..." "True this.." "Just because you do ____ doesnt mean you are ___"
Youre not a real photographer just because you own a Nikon camera. Youre not a real poet just because you write verses on your blog. True fans listened to Foster the People before "Pumped up Kicks". True fans of Neil Gaiman have read the entire Sandman series. I generally like to consider myself as part of this class, and out of some dire need for exclusivity, or simply my own insecurity, I find the need to draw barriers between "us" and "them".
I get that alot of this pretentious overbearing desire for differentiation between "them" and "us" stems from the frustration people have with the overuse of certain hyperbolic words like "awesome" "brilliant" "genius". I realise there might be a difference in degree between top photographers who are hired by National Geographic, and teens who take pictures with their iPhones and make them look better with photoshop or whatever. But just because you might not be as good as someone else, or as devoted to a particular thing, or you found out about it later doesnt mean youre NOT what you say you are. If you say youre a poet, I believe you. If you say youre a huge queen fan, but only know one song, I might doubt you, but I wont get on your back about it. Basically, you have the right to call yourself what you want and to define who you are. I dont hold the keys to the greater truth about exactly what criteria one must be to "love coffee", and whether or not you meet this criteria. And chances are, anyone on the internet who does judge you, doesnt either.
3. "Nice try Asian"/"Nice try Beiber fan"
Everytime someone tries to point out how a joke isnt funny, they get accused of being closet supporters of the butt of the joke. Which is simply an assumption. An unbased assumption. And I hate assumptions. and stereotypes. and judgements. basically.
4. "Level: Asian" "Ginger jokes" "Americans wont get this joke"
Basically any kinda racial stereotype. racial stereotypes are racist. whether or not they put someone in a good light or not. "white guys can't rap", or "he's the only white guy who can rap" are both examples of racist stereotypes (and yes, I define all racial stereotypes as racist). this is much worse on youtube where people go all out accusing people for things done by others from their country, religion, whatever. Ergh! and worse than that are claims that "half of a certain group of people believe..." thats stupid! you dont know what ANYONE in the world believes or thinks. much less "half of a class of people". My rant against stereotypes can go on and on, and I do believe I will one day write a book on the topic called "Rishik's Racist Rant". but thats all I'll say for now.
5. "Thanks captain obvious"
Just purely a pet peeve. I hate in real life when people say "duh" or "obviously" or give extremely mean-spirited sarcastic responses to well meaning questions, in an attempt to show off how obvious an answer was, stupid a question might have been, witty they think they are. The reason why I hate this, goes back to my hate for assumptions. To infer an 'obvious conclusion' or 'answer' you usually make assumptions. guesses. but you dont KNOW certainly exactly what happened. You might have a good guess based on probability, but unless you KNOW, you DONT KNOW. so dont act like you do. this is different from "obvious math answers" like 2+2=4. because here the answer is deducted, not inducted based on assumptions. and even here, I would hate for the word "duh" or "obvious" to be paraded. because there is still a need for some people to do calculations. Argh!
okay, this rant went on much longer than I intended.
shall stop now, since I dont want to contribute to the negativity on the net I was talking about.
But basically to summarize:
dont judge people. dont make assumptions. dont stereotype. it demeans other people.
and i like other people.
thats all.
