Weirdos in the depression
blog.plover.com
blog.plover.com
I purposely have a big ole homeless looking beard specifically to keep people at arms length.
Ironically one time in a single weekend it backfired twice...on a Friday while doing planks/pushups on a yoga mat in a park I was attacked by someone yelling “get out of my country” because they thought I was a Muslim praying to Mecca. Then the very next day I went to fresh market and ordered bacon and baby back ribs from the butcher and was confronted in the store by a man who followed me into the parking lot to attack me for being a bad Jew and ordering bacon and ribs on the sabbath.
I’m neither Muslim nor Jewish, and even after learning this neither of my attackers were apologetic.
From not being allowed inside a club for wearing a turban to being hugged by someone for being allah’s son.
Man, did being a Sikh teach me something about negative assumptions based on appearance.
I remind myself that it is nothing but a survival instinct and even I was doing this in one way or another.
10 years ago, my neighbors were Sikh (I moved since then). They had all sorts of stories about how 9/11 got them confused with Muslims.
They were pretty big extroverts, and threw a lot of parties, and came to virtually every neighborhood party. But I can't help but think that they felt the need to socialize, to make sure their neighbors knew who they were.
Those parties are how I learned what a Sikh was. Before that, I did think they were Muslim. So it worked. But yeah, it probably sucks that they had to work extra hard to make sure people understood who they were.
Its like, I'm going over to my Muslim neighbor to see their birthday party. Later on... well... actually they were Sikh and I was ignorant and didn't know the difference until I asked them.
Fortunately, my neighbors must have been very familiar with the confusion, because they handled the discussion "what is a Sikh" pretty well.
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During 9/11 itself, I was in Catholic school. The teachers made it very clear that we needed to learn more about other religions at the time. So we visited local Churches, Synagogues and Mosques as part of various field trips. So I was familiar with Muslims, Jews, Protestants.
But we never visited a Sikh temple. I simply didn't know that religion even existed until I met my neighbors a few years later.
These days I look like a hippie, sporting a full corona beard, coloured or happy message t-shirts, stretchy jeans and sandals. And it’s a whole different story, people offer me no leeway. Ironically my career and I guess wealth/status has progressed exactly opposite to my looks. So people should really stop judging anyone at face value.
A friend of mine is considered white in the country he was born in (Guyana) and black in the country he's in now (Canada), and despite being always extremely well groomed and styled, he still ends up being very very clearly followed by security whenever he goes shopping. In comparison I've been to those places while looking more than scruffy, not showered, etc.. and have received nods and smiles from the security in every one of those places. Sometimes it's even happening simultaneously: if we enter separately only one of us gets followed. And this is downtown Toronto, one of the supposedly most diverse cities on Earth.
People just don’t automatically attribute me with financial power anymore. On the flip-side, anything “being a dad” related is much better now that people assume I work less.
A friend of mine is an engineering consultant (software) and looks shabby. He met me for lunch one day after seeing a client and I said "you went to see them like that?" He said it's part of the uniform. It sends a message about being good enough not to worry about superficial impressions. I'm sure in some cases that's true.
That got really hammered home when I showed up to a job interview in a button-down shirt and slacks and I was _far_ more dressed-up than the CEO. Getting bounced for not being a "culture fit" cleared up any lingering ambiguity.
I was pleasantly surprised when I completed my talk and the guy who heckled me (I never even saw him) came up to me and apologized. Then again this was in Toronto so maybe the old stereotype about apologetic Canadians is more true than not!
The "shabby nerd" stereotype is a very real thing and it goes both ways.
I always reply with "every day is a job interview, baby" and do cheesy finger guns. That shuts them up.
Adhering to aesthetic cues signals conforming with society at large. If you are not in, you are clearly a threat. For example, if you dont follow simpler things, what bona fides can you provide that you will respect fundamental aspects of the society you are part of?
First impressions are a self-preservation mechanism.
Its not illogical. That being said this presents very interesting diamond-in-the-rough opportunities to visionaries
But some of it was just a bit too much of a stretch to just be confidence. I'm /generally/ a pretty confident person, and comfortable with people, and the difference in how many people suddenly can vs. can't find the time of day for you is pretty dramatic.
And, of course, some of it was just not subtle at all. I'd been told pretty frankly I was too fat to be a doctor. Because, you know, clearly my personal struggles with my weight have a direct correlation to my ability to diagnose your ailment. (Okay, I'm still salty about that one.)
I was, however, probably the scraggliest customer in the showroom when I bought it.
Because I found this interesting I created an arbitrary taxonomy and then talked to people I knew who fell into different branches and tried to understand if they were actively or passively participating in that branch of 'dressers.' Not surprising to my older self, a large number of people conformed to the taxonomic dress code due to external factors rather than internal ones. I suspect the adage 'you can't read/judge a book by its cover' is an expression that suggests a lot of other people found the same things my young self did.
As a result I try very hard to not "see" (and by that I mean color my perception) of someone by what they are wearing or how they present themselves. But I also recognize how difficult that is.
Baby steps are better than no steps, but still, it does leave a sour taste.
She said she didn't trust him and he's an Arab. He took the mic from her and said no mam, he's a good man. He didn't even address the Arab comment because he had already addressed it previously.
I see nothing negative either intentional or unintentional about his responses.
We have enough bad in this world. We need to give credit where credit is due and not invent thinks.
Look, I know McCain is nothing like the Republicans that routinely use racial dogwhistling as a campaign strategy. But in this instance, he's still employing the right wing version of political correctness that's necessary to employ when talking to supporters that swallow Fox News/Rush Limbaugh views. He can say to his audience that Obama isn't an Arab. He just can't say that even if he were an Arab, it shouldn't be a problem in the United States of America.
Allow me to post a link where Republican former Sec of State Colin Powell comments on the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYELqbZAQ4M
Astute observation. I mean we all react differently to a cat versus a snake, based on prior experiences or social conditioning. The average person out there with average intelligence ( nothing to be proud of) can evaluate only in black and white and not in shades of grey. Let's cut some slack (but not too much) for these mentally challenged people.
I've been called a "dumbass liberal", "commie", "socialist" and other names at work because the majority of the employees are die-hard Trump fans and/or religious fundamentalists and I made the mistake of expressing compassion for the immigrants in cages when it was big in the news. I've found that explaining my point of view, that as one who follows the teachings of Christ (I'm not overly religious but it's a discipline of love towards all other people and I'm down with that, plus it keeps my religious family happy), I can't in good conscience find pleasure in the suffering of others, seemed to make some of them stop and think about their own prejudices and biases.
I doubt I've actually won anyone over (I tend to just keep my mouth shut about current events these days), but I've definitely seen an improvement in how I'm treated since then. Hopefully expressing positive feelings instead of reacting to negativity with more negativity will continue to improve my relationships with coworkers.
Now, I’ve met and talked with plenty of folk who confuse their identity with their political party. Definitely happens on both sides - as I saw growing up in Oklahoma, and now see in the Bay Area.
The point is, people feel (not wrongfully) uncomfortable when their identity is “threatened” by people who represent themselves with a brand of politics that is oppositional to the one that markets to them.
Now I’ve found that when you share your beliefs, and they aren’t founded on identity politics, then it can ease up the feelings of threat and opposition you’re sure to face.
Alternatively, don’t talk about politics - the simpler method. Having always been a bit of a political outsider, I learned early on that proselytizing others is both counterproductive and alienating.
What do you mean by "confuse"? What if their political party/orientation is an important part of their identity?
There should be things you disagree with your party about.
Parties aren't the only way to contribute to 'execution', of course, but they're one of the most obvious.
Do you have specific examples?
Tell people you’re unaffiliated and they’ll often see you as an antagonist to their pet causes. Don’t tell people anything, and they usually won’t put up a guard.
That's just... assuming you more-or-less support the planks/stances/actions of party you've just told them you consider yourself affiliated with. Where's the identity part come in?
For example, maybe I really like my party's stance on abortion and energy policy; I'm indifferent to their stances on farm subsidies, gun control, and immigration; and I feel their stances on trans rights and corruption could be improved a fair bit.
That would mean, when I meet someone from a different party, we could actually agree on a great many issues.
Funny story about that banquet though. A guy at my table paid a few hundred dollars in a silent auction thinking that he was bidding on a gun. He was actually bidding on a lottery ticket for a gun. His wife was unhappy with his mistake. He did win a duck call alongside the lottery ticket IIRC. This was in NW Arkansas and was a part of a crawfish boil. Definitely not the Bay Area.
An auction for a lottery ticket to win a gun. Are you sure there wasn't a raffle involved somewhere? :^)
IMO, your outlook is exactly what we need more of in the world.
In a related vein to you I don't get any satisfaction out of hating others. Especially knowing how easy it is for the human psyche to latch onto those behaviors (othering, outgroup, tribalism, etc.)
I think some of it is down to how as a species we are tribal by nature, and we have to work hard to get past that and start seeing one another as companions by default, rather than adversaries. There's a time and place for healthy competition and sportsmanship, but issues like politics, religion, and race should not be competitive at all (edit to say I get that politics is a competition/popularity contest, rather I mean that one should be able to support an ideal or a specific candidate without being seen as "the enemy").
How do you think this would have gone if you hadn't claimed a religious exception? So rather if you simply said that you couldn't find pleasure in the suffering of others, but with no references to Christ?
I get what you mean though, and I wonder too if it would have made any difference good or bad. I think with some folks, maybe it would.
There were a few where, the first time I walked in (moments after calling to say I'd arrived), the staff greeted me in a friendly "hello brother" sort of way, once in exactly those words. I didn't see any point in arguing, but when prayer time rolled around and I said I'd keep working, the shock was delicious. All good-natured, just unexpected all around.
I had to ditch the beard recently to get a good seal with a respirator, but it'll be back someday.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if we all greeted each other like this regardless of color, creed, nation, etc? I think I’ll just start doing this - “hello brother!” “Hello sister”
People will find any excuse to be cunts to each other and feel entitled to do so.
Sometimes it feels like nobody is following the cardinal rule: be excellent to each other.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperforate_anus
Notably; this kind of pedantry is problematic, nobody thinks of gender when genitalia is used as an insult. Obviously insults are designed to offend; but adding additional meaning and then attacking the faux meaning is not meaningful.
This sort of behaviour fuels anti-liberal rhetoric; as it does nothing to prevent actual sexism it’s just people attacking a straw man at the expense of well meaning people who used some word of the month which has been deemed “troublesome”.
If I had led with “dick” as the insult I’m fairly certain it wouldn’t have been called out in such a way.
False arguments serve only to “beat” other people so you may feel superior for a moment, but they push others to conservatism for being attacked for innocuous commentary.
This is a problem because the conservatives are very effectively using the snobbery of some on the “left” to win people over and putting back liberal causes by decades in some cases. Leading to things like Trump - and the senate being stacked with republicans.
Let’s go after actual issues.
In my experience, most people are not like that. There are, of course, self-righteous jerks everywhere, but in every society I find them to be a small minority.
> I think it must be a lot easier to be a weird misfit now than it was in 1935.
This is probably true in a general sense but people still suck as much in 2020 as they did in 1935, which is evidenced by current events and this very comment thread. The big difference being that there's so many more people today than there were then. Maybe that indicates that we've made some progress but I'm less hopeful.
Are you serious? I don't understand how people can think this way. If I and other foreign coworkers were alright, why are others bad? Where are they?
Terrible media and politicians with their own agendas pushing trash down people's eyes and ears, and they turn on some other group, it's fking sad.
I feel this is common in the west, because people externalize internal conflicts, and they have to project their "righteousness" and "judgement" to justify their existence, as there is nothing left in ourselves besides atoms.
In Oakland or San Francisco you wouldn't get a passing glance. Even if you upped your tattoo game.
When I was at school and my peers made fun of me for my even slightly esoteric interests I felt alone. I didn't know anyone else who liked the same things that I did; or at least not to the same, occasionally obsessive, degree. It was hard.
Now that the internet exists and is popular: I can find my people. There's probably a forum or subreddit for pretty much any niche I could care to infatuate myself with, and there's creators on YouTube making fantastically long and detailed videos on the minutiae of every subject under the sun.
I don't feel alone any more :)
I grew up having the Internet since I was around 8-9. (I was born in 1990) I was able to find communities online for things I was interested in. But it didn’t make me any less “weird” in person. While it’s nice to find people online, it’s really not enough. Especially as a kid since you can’t really interact with everyone since many times they’re much older than you.
If you’re still going to school and get bullied for being weird, have no friends because weird, and so forth... then the Internet is nice but it’s not really a replacement for real life acceptance. Most kids need friends and acceptance in real life. You can’t get by on the Internet alone.
Weirdness depends on context.
I've seen people advocating for banning "hate speech", but I think that's a slippery slope (who defines hate speech? would anything broadly defined as anti-feminist be banned?). Such laws are bound to be abused to silence people some groups politically disagree with. Personally, I think it's better that hateful ideologies are somewhere on the clearnet where we can see them, and sometimes talk some sense into them, rather than hidden in the dark web. Some of these people will grow out of it and come around.
1. Urbanization. Small towns are suffocating. In cities, people are much less in each other's business. Urbanization has been on an upward march since the country's founding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_Sta...),_OWID.svg
2. Education. The more people know, the more than can accept. Education has been steadily on the rise for decades: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93442.pdf
3. Travel. The more you've seen that other places are different, the easier it is to accept difference at home. As recently as 1989, 3% of Americans had passports. Now it's 42%. https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/01/11/the-sh...
4. The decline of patriarchy. For most of American history, women were pretty close to property of men. The main acceptable role was wife, with things like schoolteacher possibly being ok. Even in the 1970s, less than 10% of medicine and law degrees went to women. Only this century did it reach parity: https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/more-women...
5. The decline of racism. America's still hella racist, of course. But talk to racial minorities about exactly where they'd be ok setting the dial on the time machine.
6. The decline in policing of sex and gender. This is very recent, and still ongoing. People are getting to be who they are in ways that were pretty much universally condemned even a few decades ago.
7. The Internet. There are at least three big effects here. One is that people now have as much culture as they care to absorb. Global news? Indie films? Personal essays? We're awash in it. Another is the lack of gatekeepers. On Twitter, I am hearing voices that I didn't even know existed 25 years ago. And third, as others said, it is letting weirdos find their people.
If somebody gives me a time machine, I'm only setting that dial forward.
* Today you can be smart and popular. There will always be smart kids that get picked on, but there used to be pure, outright hostility toward the smart kids as recently as thirty years ago. This is especially true for women. My grandmother never told us she was valedictorian until we found her diploma cleaning out her house, women just couldn't talk about their intelligence. Even when I went to high school I remember a girl who would lie about her test scores (she would say she did worse than she did so she could fit in with the other girls).
* Today you can be openly gay. You will take shit for it, but at least you are out. People used to give you shit for it and you had to keep yourself in the closet or else. Situation is still shitty, but improved from a low bar.
* Weirdness can be cool now. Showing an interest in anything other than the mainstream interests used to result in terrible teasing.
It just so happens that right now what's cool is a charicature of actual weird people in the past. See girls claiming to be 'quirky' or 10 years ago 'random'. Also see people being self proclaimed 'nerds' because they like to read a lot.
It's basically there as an illusion of depth and mystery.
Actual weird people like that dude who makes low production quality lightsaber fight videos in his garden (can't remember his name) are still considered weird. Though I think the word they use these days is 'cringe'. Alternatively what people will do is put these super weird people on a pedestal in conversation while not actually respecting them or wanting to be directly associated with them.
I'm not saying we've made no progress but it's a lot less than it appears on the surface.
His online handle is Airsoftfatty, and his story is actually kinda tragic. iDubbz visited him and made a "documentary" of sorts about him, it's a fascinating watch [1].
[1] Full Force: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfwPL-bd_mk
As long as you are surely not mistaken for a real weirdo or a poor person, you can play around with the superficialities.
Weirdness almost by definition can't be cool. Or at least not actual weirdness. In the 50's a leather jacket and a motorbike made you 'weird' to the old folks, but incredibly cool to teenagers. Same goes nowadays, only the details differ.
If you consider an obsession with anime kind of cool then you probably don't consider it weird, at least not in the sense the concept is presented in the original article.
Of course, me and my girlfriend are still well enough in touch with those things (also thanks to social media) that we can annoy our son by flossing and dabbing, :p.
Also, being a literal nazi.
Now of course there is spectrum, and I agree with the GP that a big part of this moment is “being yourself” so eccentricity and uniqueness _are_ factors that can make somebody “cool”, but with that the bar for truly being “weird” has also shifted.
To be clear, I’m not value-judging anything here. Back in high school I definitely rode the line between “cool” and “weird” myself! Was called “weird” to my face semi-often. Looking back I can see that I was fortunate to be a weird kid that was both athletic and rather good looking, so I was still allowed to hang out with the “cool” kids and date “popular” girls.
* the dictionary defines neither in the terms we are using here
Weirdness isn't like this. What was once weird now isn't, though we can't be sure it will stay that way. Conversely, what was once normal is now weird, though this might change too. This process will continue.
GP is saying that if something is widely accepted then it can't really be described as weird in the present moment. This fits the examples given in the thread, of how it _used to be_ weird to have certain characteristics, and now it isn't.
This might mean that we haven't actually become more tolerant of weirdness per se, we've just changed the definition of what counts as weird, and are just as judgemental towards 2020-era weirdness as the previous generations were toward 1990-weirdness or 1960-weirdness.
Being completely tolerant to weirdness would mean, to my mind, to essentially not think in terms of weird/mainstream/cool anymore.
"Actual weirdness" being refined to mean the set the author chose, instead of an independent rule. Circular reasoning, designed to compel the (weak) conclusion you'd been arguing toward.
You mention that you can be openly gay today, but this is not true; SOME areas MAY be safe, but in others you may get sucker punched or worse.
Black parents have to tell their kids to change how they speak in order to fit in, to have a better chance at getting a job.
And kids will still get bullied for being outliers, it's just that what you get bullied for and how that expresses itself has changed; "nerdy" subjects like gaming have become more accepted, so the outliers now are those that don't like Fortnite. And the bullying is moving to the internet.
To be an executive in corporate America, you need to learn corporate speak and use it, for example. No one running a Fortune 500 company speaks like they are from the Ozarks.
Society needs some conformity to function, there will never be a utopia where this doesn't happen.
30 years ago, I was in middle school. Never saw this. I was very smart and certainly never received any hostility because of it. I never saw any of my fellow "smart kids" receive any either. I know it's only anecdotal but the quote doesn't even have anecdotal support. It's just a baseless claim.
>Showing an interest in anything other than the mainstream interests used to result in terrible teasing.
As a Gen-Xer, I disagree.
(yes I know my comment is a massive generalization)
Moving "who is weird" around doesn't do anything. If you keep me locked up in your basement and torture me and, by some luck, I overpower you and in turn lock you up and torture you, there isn't really any less locking-up-and-torturing, it's just that somebody else is receiving it.
Well, being gay is legally much more accepted now. Does that count as progress? Or does it not count, because most people don't consider being gay "weird" anymore, as it's become more acceptable?
That's what I'm saying: whether you still call being gay "weird" and we've become more accepting, or it's just more accepted because it's no longer considered weird, that's still the same progress.
At the margins (the actual margins, not the "I'm marginalized mimimi") of society where the weird people are. And I don't think those margins are getting smaller, or the people inhabiting them are treated better. It's just different people that are the outsiders now, and being gay doesn't necessarily put you there (depends on your location, though).
All the people with good social skills, who went to the Epstein island? Totally fine, no consequences.
Revealed preference is a mother.
What this shows us is not that being weird gets you fired, but that being outwardly "normal" and "nice" saves you from being fired when you go to private rape islands. Try fixing that one.
It was way too little too late but Joi Ito, Peter Cohen and Seth Lloyd got punished. The MIT Media Lab's reputation was tarnished forever from this. Saying RMS was the only one is disingenuous.
What a vile way to describe the rape of children.
"We're not any nicer to weirdos. How do I know? Well, because the subset of people we're still not nice to, we're not nice to!"
Bare minimum, there's always going to be some demographic ostracized by society, even if that demographic is only, like, murderous cannibals.
Only looking at whichever demographics are currently treated poorly to evaluate how society treats the people who it treats poorly means you've fixed the "niceness to weirdos" quotient in place by definition.
If you're going to argue a change, I think that you need to show that either (1) the total number of people considered "weirdos" has changed, or (2) weirdos are no longer treated as poorly. I find (2) very implausible (and notice that in the linked article, the people in question are responding to very mild forms of social disapproval), and I don't think that (1) really holds up, but I'm willing to hear an argument.
As far as 1) the example of Doc's two weird bits seem pretty benign. This is the argument that would well it seems pretty benign to us but perhaps there are things that are weird to us but that back then would have seemed benign.
As a general thing anything I can think of that would be considered weird enough nowadays to get you kicked out of a Diner would have been considered weird enough decades back to get you kicked out, if not the police called on you.
If your theory is that there were things considered benign in the past that would get you thrown out of a Diner today you should show what those are, the nearest I can think of is having the trophy head of an African Elephant with you, but I bet you wouldn't get thrown out of almost anywhere for that unless it was just too big to have in the place. Maybe try Bengal Tiger, wouldn't be bad.
Dressed up as a member of the KKK would hopefully get you kicked out of a lot of places today, but I'm not sure if it wouldn't have got you kicked out in 1935. At any rate I'm not sure if it would have been considered benign actually, despite membership's popularity during that time.
Using the same reasoning, one could say, "treatment of X group of weirdos hasn't gotten any better because society treats weirdos better; it's just that X has become somewhat more socially acceptable". For example, you could apply this reasoning to, say, furries. Probably more accepted now than 20 or 30 years ago, but still considered weird.
If that's the model, then it's impossible for society to become more accepting of weirdos in general, because each time they become more accepting of some particular group, you just attribute the change to "social acceptability" of that group, rather than niceness to weirdos more generally. With the end game being, "sure, everyone is nice to everyone now, but it's not because we became nicer to weirdos, but because now everything is socially acceptable and nothing is considered weird."
It's a useless way of measuring things because it makes progress literally impossible by definition.
The long form of this I've heard goes through about three extensive accomplishments or deeds, as:
"You see the roofs on all those houses? I thatched every one of them. But do they call me Johnny the Thatcher? No."
And on for brick-layer, et c.
Then ends on:
"But you fuck one sheep..."
Anyway, there are even cultures (now extinct I think) that eat their own dead as a form of mourning. Ritualistic cannibalism is a whole thing that is not criminal and it’s been found on every continent where humans naturally live. Many societies don’t even have states to define or enforce crimes.
So yea, I think most cannibals were probably not criminals.
> Weirdos are people who aren't doing anything wrong
That's the thing, though: what is "wrong" is very different society to society. Sometimes it includes decisions that don't directly hurt anyone, but can hurt them indirectly (e.g. choosing not to be vaccinated).
It's better than it was, but I wouldn't go so far as to say "no problem".
Anecdata: I haven't had any real issues. I have had some worries about undue benefits, and some people become more "careful" once they find out. It really isn't an issue where I live, from my experience.
And that is emphatically not true for straight people: they are accepted everywhere. If you have to be careful about where you go and who you interact with because of your sexuality, then -- even if you take those restrictions on your life for granted by now -- it's still a demonstration of the continued power of homophobia.
I get what you're saying, but I think that attitudes to homophobia are sort of where attitudes to race were in the 90s. People are tempted to mark eliminating homophobia as 'done'. But if you look beyond more privileged folks, there's actually still a ton of homophobia out there, with real consequences. For example, it's been estimated that around 40% of NYC's homeless population is LGBT.
Whoops, fixed :P - Thank you!
> And that is emphatically not true for straight people
That is a good point. I haven't thought of it as homophobia, but perhaps it is.
I definitely recognize that I've been fortunate. Young, in a progressive area, with a good job. Hard to beat.
> 40% of NYC's homeless population is LGBT
I wasn't aware of that, and that is awful.
Source
40% is at the upper end of the estimates, and any specific figure should obviously be taken with a pinch of salt, given the difficulties inherent in obtaining precise data of this nature. However, there is little doubt that LGBT people are substantially overrepresented in homeless populations. This is the case in many cities and countries, not just NYC.
Weird to think about what is considered 'weird' now, actually.
For instance, more people have distanced from me after I politely tell them that "I don't do drugs" than any other thing I can think of. I honesty don't get it, but yeah, the standards by which people are judged have varied greatly with time.
Do you get the "Have you ever tried {insert recreational drug here}?? You're missing out, etc."
Yeah I get that a lot.
I get what you're saying and, incidentally, you made a pretty good point,
"People distance from you because they don't want to be judged as weird themselves ..."
Isn't this, more or less, always the case?
The way I see it is some sort of 'tribal' instinct, us vs. them, kind of thing. The norms that define inclusion/exclusion from the group could change everyday.
I find it frustrating and honestly quite sad how many people cannot get past this issue, and how many good relationships and opportunities never take off because of this barrier.
I am thinking that education has a lot of potential. We could experiment with and introduce some form of early psychology of self discovery to children in schools, something basic to help them learn to reflect. That would guide more people towards self fulfillment and a lot of these problems would simply disappear.
Things about me that are considered weird get buried on platforms like this. I've had many accounts here banned for it. I don't use foul language or attack people directly. It's just considered weird so it gets banned. I don't think it's easier to be weird. If anything it's much easier to have your life ruined by being considered weird. Take Richard Stallman, for example.
Acceptance of perceived weirdness at the intersection of the custody of minors seems like something which should move on a generational timescale
For better or for worse I'd say these have always qualified as 'weird'. Homeschooling is probably less weird now that it would have been when I was a kid. Selling things out of the back of the truck and/or (men) not working a full time job falls pretty short of society's expectations of adult behavior.
The Ryan's World toy review kid has earned $120M playing with toys by age 9, this is like the golden era of full-time job avoidance
In the case of Ryan's World, he appears to have benefited from a mother willing to quit her job to be his producer very early in his channel's history, and also able to competently perform that job, well before it was clear it'd make serious money. So even for a 9-year-old there's the luck/connections thing playing a huge role in this being a viable possibility, let alone any kind of likely-to-succeed play.
I've always been told the difference between eccentric and crazy is income level.
“I’ve read quite a lot about China. You born in China?”
“No. Born here.”
Samuel was silent for quite a long time while the buggy lurched down the wheel track toward the dusty valley. ““Lee,” he said at last, “I mean no disrespect, but I’ve never been able to figure why you people still talk pidgin when an illiterate baboon from the black bogs of Ireland, with a head full of Gaelic and a tongue like a potato, learns to talk a poor grade of English in ten years.”
Lee grinned. “Me talkee Chinese talk,” he said.
“Well, I guess you have your reasons. And it’s not my affair. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t believe it, Lee.”
Lee looked at him and the brown eyes under their rounded upper lids seemed to open and deepen until they weren’t foreign any more, but man’s eyes, warm with understanding. Lee chuckled.
“It’s more than a convenience,” he said. “It’s even more than self-protection. Mostly we have to use it to be understood at all.”
Samuel showed no sign of having observed any change. “I can understand the first two,” he said thoughtfully, “but the third escapes me.”
Lee said, “I know it’s hard to believe, but it has happened so often to me and to my friends that we take if for granted. If I should go up to a lady or a gentleman, for instance, and speak as I am doing now, I wouldn’t be understood.”
“Why not?”
“Pidgin they expect, and pidgin they’ll listen to. But English from me they don’t listen to, and so they don’t understand it.” “Can that be possible? How do I understand you?”
“That’s why I’m talking to you. You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect.”
- East of Eden, John Steinbeck
He was also a successful marijuana dealer to the Jazz community. He married a black woman, moved to Harlem, and called himself a "voluntary Negro." When he was arrested at the Worlds Fair (60 marijuana cigarettes with intent to distribute) he convinced the cops he was black and thus was housed with black prisoners.
He was good friends with Louis Armstrong and has such a cult status among Jazz fans that there's a NYC Jazz Club named in his honor.
As Dylan wrote "To live outside the law, you must be honest." Especially so when conformity was life-threatening.
Being able to understand and accept yourself are some of the most important developments both me and my girlfriend have gone through in the past ten or so years.
To this day when I tell people I went to UT Austin their first response is usually "Longhorns are doing great this year aren't they?"
"I have no idea" I respond. "But they have very good EE and CS departments."
When somebody tries to talk sports to me, I feign stupidity but in a silly way. For example if somebody tries to talk Football (American) I say "Oh, that's that thing where sweaty guys chase each other around and people talk about it, right?" and they laugh, realize I have zero interest, and we move on to a more relevant subject. It's all in how you go about it.
Sports fan: "Did you see the blank game?" Me: No but isn't what's his name doing well?
99% of the time people will fill in whoever the star player is and talk about how good they are doing or say no they were doing well but they haven't been recent.
I didn't care much about sports when I moved to Chicago, which cares a lot about sports, but now I have some knowledge about all the teams and friendships with a lot of sports fans I wouldn't otherwise know well. Go Bulls.
Some people are full of shit, but hide it until they are more successful, which often correlates with age, and then stop to care and show the world their real face.
I also think we might have different ideas of what "not giving a fuck" means. To me it's about being true and at ease with myself, even when I'm uncool or weird. It certainly doesn't mean being an asshole, rude etc.
I think the weirdos today look a little different than the classic stereotype. Being a geek/nerd actually became cool. In the 90's, it really was only the weirdos who were into programming and computers. Coming out of the closet used to be very risky. Not just socially, but you opened yourself up to real physical danger. It took a lot of guts to be honest with yourself and openly be who you were. Now, being gay is fashionable.
Look that the things that aren't considered cool to do/say/think today and you'll find the weirdos. I think they make our world richer.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-where-...
Calling being Gay fashionable is certainly a mindset that could only be developed in the last 5~ years in the USA or a very select few other countries.
- Catch 22
... A minute passed. "Why?" [Yossarian] found himself forced to ask finally.
Orr tittered triumphantly. "Because they're better than horse chestnuts... When I couldn't get crab apples," Orr continued, "I used horse chestnuts. Horse chestnuts are about the same size as crab apples and actually have a better shape, although the shape doesn't matter a bit."
"Why did you walk around with crab apples in your cheeks?" Yossarian asked again. "That's what I asked."
"Because they've got a better shape than horse chestnuts," Orr answered. "I just told you that."
"Why," swore Yossarian at him approvingly, "you evil-eyed, mechanically aptituded, disaffiliated son of a bitch, did you walk around with anything in your cheeks?"
"I didn't," Orr said, "walk around with anything in my cheeks. I walked around with crab applies in my cheeks. When I couldn't get crab apples I walked around with horse chestnuts. In my cheeks.
At enormous costs, gay people and others have widened certain channels a little, but the mindset of conformity still drives us -- so thoroughly that it was even hard to think of examples, a second ago. We are socialized in childhood, and later from our teenage peers, not to step outside the norms for our communities.
We fear to be different, and we fear the different, and it isn't even clear why. Why should I care if someone else is walking around naked? Why should I care if my coworker has tattoos? Or a thousand other things.
You're not white, where are you from? Michigan? But where are you really from?
You've lost weight, how did you do it? Eat less? No, you must have found some magical shortcut, you just don't want to reveal your secret.
It's much easier to have odd interests nowadays and wierd hobbies because you can counter it by dressing well, good personal grooming and being in shape.
People are very accomodating of peculiar people nowadays as long as your are aesthetically pleasing to look at.
I don't know if that's forward progress or it's just shifted sideways.
Jane doesn't have children, and people are always asking her why she doesn't have children. Jane learned a long time ago that it makes people angry and suspicious if she tells the truth, which is that she doesn't have children because she doesn't want children. So she's in the habit of explaining that she can't have children as a result of a medically necessary hysterectomy. Then people are okay with it and even sympathetic. (There was no hysterectomy.)
Some things don't change all that much.
Hah! My dad does the same thing with his mustache.
People keep bothering him about his unusually large mustache, so he always tells people it is to cover a cleft lip.
People are surprisingly more susceptible and accepting of any request if you add a “because X” where the reason can be almost entirely arbitrary.
Examples included “can I cut in line, because I’m parked in a tow-away zone”, which resulted in something like 70% compliance vs 10-20% if the person didn’t proffer the added “because”
Was also examples of ridiculous ones like “can I use the photocopier before you (to a person copying 2 pages), because I have to make 200 copies of this (significantly bigger paper)” Surprisingly this also got a higher rate of compliance even though the request did not make any sense per-se.
TL;DR: Providing an explanation for any questionable request “closes” the narrative in a sense. The person now feels there is a justification for whatever made the situation weird to begin with, and therefore the situation no longer requires them to come up with justifications on their own.
(Brains/minds being lazy and whatnot)
Rick: Y'see, Morty? It's just like I always said: there's an upside to being a drunk. It means people leave you alone, and they won't bother you with their stupid opinions on whatever it is you're doing that they know nothing about.
Morty: Uh, gee, Rick, I don't think that justifies annihilating universe G-435 on a bender...
Rick: Shut up Morty. That was a calculated risk. Pburpeople who don't take risks are like Galvani's frog legs: twitching, but not really alive.
Everything is easier for people now than it was in 1935.
I used to be a weirdo, now I'm more of an intellectual traveller. Definitely from somewhere, just not here.
Would Cannery Row be a good choice for somebody who wants to give Steinbeck another try?
The current acceptability is a factor in determining how many Weirdo Points you accumulate for your various abnormalities.
Today, no matter your weirdness, it's likely been productized and advertised to the masses in some way.
Yeah, I had that same whim one time back about twenty five years ago... Let's just say that the idea of a beer milkshake is much better than the reality.
Probably, seeing as they're both literary classics. (I've read both.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_lie
I've told my share of personal noble lies because many people can't let go of irrational causes behind my actions. In order for them to easily accept my eccentricities, I have to provide a rationale, even though I'm well aware that many of the thing that I do are not motivated by reason but instead my unconscious.
There's more minor reason that I tell personal noble lies, which is that if someone asks me why I do X thing, and I actually tell them the truth, said truth is usually ridiculously simple, in which case they think that I'm blowing them off. In these cases, it's better for interpersonal relations for me to have either a canned story , or make something up on the fly, that's more interesting than the real one.
The first example that comes to mind is my father, whom is a great man in my eyes but, if we haven't talked in a while, he will ask me "What do you eat these days?" Depending on whether I'm trying to lose weight, I may have literally no rhyme or reason behind my eating habits. Often times, I couldn't tell you what it is that I tend to eat or have eaten. If I told my father "I don't know. I eat lots of things and don't think about it much.", I can tell that he interprets that as me trying to end the discussion. In that case, I don't necessarily make up a total lie, but I will try and remember the things I ate in the last few days and then speak like those are the things that I eat all the time, and I might even say something like "I eat the steak and eggs a lot because I'm trying to build some muscle."
Another example has to do with my mode of dress. Anyone who knows me knows that I wear the exact same outfit 7 days a week, 365 days a year. I wear a black t-shirt that's well fitting, jeans, and dress shoes. This is a bit of a strange outfit to some, and the dress shoes are funny to most people. The real reason that I dress this way is that I don't want to waste time and brain power deciding what to wear and in what combination; I don't care what I look like so long as what I look like is acceptable and fits my self image. This is not a satisfactory answer to most people, in my experience, and I suspect it's because they simply don't relate. The average person doesn't see the value in removing unnecessary choice from their daily routine, and their choice to wear a particular garment may indeed be necessary to them. So what I tell them is that I like to wear black because it doesn't stain, and I wear the dress shoes because they happen to be very water resistant when I step through puddles.
In Columbia, SC in the 1990's, all of us misfits hung out with each other. We had wildly diverse world views. We even had heated arguments with each other at times. However, we were all vaguely united in our being non-mainstream. If there were cliques, they could have their own gatherings without any outsiders, but we also shared lots of spaces. The only people ever ostracized were the Nazi Punks.
However, the World Music folks, eastern religion/woo enthusiasts, Old Timey music people, Rude Boys/Rude Girls, metalheads, punks (of several varieties), alternative music crowd, Harley motorbike enthusiasts, some of the Baptist street preachers/missionaries, neo-hippies, actual hippies, etc...we all hung out at the same cafes and music venues.
In the 21st century Bay Area, I find a lot more cliquishness of a particular aggressive, conformist kind. There can be this kind of quizzing/seeking for what you "really think," which might well be followed by judgments based on shallow outward signifiers and even outright verbal aggression. In years past, I never experienced something like that, outside of certain of the most intolerant religious/homophobic/ethnic zealots, usually sparked off by my appearance and/or ethnicity.
Subdivisions
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
Subdivisions
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast outAnother trend that's really stood out – not just at my school, but according to other educators I've talked to across the US – is much less bullying, and much more acceptance of kids who are different (especially those with disabilities). I'm lead to believe that the sort of kid who would previously have been a bully is now the type to really stick up for someone who is differently abled. Of course, having a "weird" preference of some kind – like a partner of another race or a long beard – is a different thing, but still, my impression is that most schools at least in the US are far more tolerant of differentness now than even 20-30 years ago.
When I was in school, I was the fat kid. Of course, this lead to a lot of bullying towards me. Nowadays, I see lots of kids whom are much fatter than I was, but there are enough of them at this point where it's probably just normal to be overweight or obese, which would make me suspect that they are bullied less than I was. If my past child self went to school today, maybe he wouldn't even be considered fat.
The irony in that is that children shouldn't be getting fat in the first place, so this isn't necessarily a good sign.
Or who enjoys bullying a different outgroup now. That does raise questions about the nature of bullying. Do bullies see themselves as heroic protectors of the norm, whether that norm is white people in the 1890s or trans Eskimos in the 2020s? How do bullies experience their own bullying of others? Do they feel righteous?
There has to be a literature about this.
You could argue that it's not that we're nicer to "weirdos", but rather we've expanded the bounds of what's considered non-weird behavior, but at that point you've basically just used circular reasoning: "Niceness to weirdos is constant because I define weirdness such that niceness to weirdos is constant."
You can order whatever food and food combinations you want, just make the order and wait for it to arrive. The driver won't judge you; he cares little and has probably seen weirder orders.
It is also easier than ever to find people with similar interests and 'weirdness' as you: there's a zillion small (or not so small) communities that find each other on the internet. Furries, lgbtq+, or magic card collectors. There is still some judgment and negative social repercussions of course, but magnitudes smaller than what it used to be a hundred years ago.
I think it just depends. Some things are more accepted, others less.
It might be pretty career-limiting if one admitted that the reason one never works Sunday mornings is because one is at church.
Also who works on Sunday morning?
>One reason I moved into a big city is to be able to do grocery shopping on a Sunday morning.
Nearly every grocery store in every small town in the country is open on Sunday morning. Is it different where you're from?