Something I've never quite understood is humanity's deep seated need to hate. I hate math, or I hate country music. I hate Oprah, or I hate when it rains. I don't pretend to love everything, but I find it so much easier to go through life just indifferent to certain things. Actively hating something requires a concerted effort, and isn't passive like just not caring. There's that saying that it requires 43 muscles to frown and 17 to smile (while there may in fact only be 36 facial muscles total), but regardless, it takes zero to just not care one way or the other. I love seeing people get worked up in a frenzy over something, especially when that something is completely frivolous.
The other version of this hate, of course, comes in a more distinct flavor... the "us vs them" or "this vs that" variety. I hate the Ps3, Xbox360 fuggin roolz, or better yet: who cares which one you like, at least it's not a Wii. It's been coming up a lot on my blog here in the form of "WoW is fucking lame" or "Darkfall sucks" or whatever. The thing I think people aren't realizing, though, is that I never really said Darkfall sucked, I just wasn't creaming my jeans over it, and that was apparently the wrong response. It's not good enough for me to just say 'I like chocolate ice cream' on my blog. I apparently am supposed to be saying "I like chocolate, and anyone that likes vanilla is a fucking carebear sissy. When you spill chocolate ice cream on your fucking shirt, it STAINS. You fucking losers with your 'white' ice cream make me want to fucking puke. Grow a pair of fucking balls and eat some REAL ICE CREAM (kthxbai)".
The Wii version would go something like "I like Rocky Road. Not everyone can handle those fucking almonds, or whatever the fuck those nuts are in there with the marshmallows. I dunno what the fuck it is, but that shit has texture, man! It's fucking extreme! I don't give a shit if you eat Choco-Whammy Fudgealot or Buttertoffee Surprise, but for fuck's sake, don't come home with a gallon of boring old vanilla. God! Everyone eats that shit, it sold like 11 million tubs last month. How fucking dull can you be? This is Sparta ICE CREAM, live on the edge or GTFO, yo".
The best part is, people are serious. If you're not with them, you're against them, and all we're doing is eating an ice cream cone.
As a specific example, the 'Console War' is ridiculous.
Look:
... yeah. Video game systems are like Pokemans, and I got em all. That kinda throws the whole 'us vs them' thing out the window. OH BUT IXO, AREN'T YOU THE LUCKY ONE. YOU JUST BUY EVERY FUCKING THING THAT COMES OUT, AND I DON'T HAVE THAT OPTION.
Um. So your point is that you hate something not because it sucks, or because you're angry, but because you can't afford to own it? How silly is that? That's called sour grapes, and you're just pissed because your mom won't buy it for you. That doesn't mean it's bad.
Another reason given is because Vanilla Ice Cream somehow ruins the ice cream market, and ruins the chances of Yummy Scrummy Plummy from getting a foot in the door, because how can YSP compete with 11 million fucking zombies just content to eat vanilla? It certainly has nothing to do with the fact that YSP ice cream is sitting on the shelf half melted in a dirty shoe. When I'm in the ice cream section of the supermarket, and I see a fresh gallon of vanilla, or a dirty gym sneaker dripping something vaguely purple, I'm probably going to take the vanilla. Hell, maybe I'll even give YSP a try, just because I love all kinds of different ice creams, and it's not every day you see a moist Chuck Taylor in the freezer section, but I'm not going to force myself to eat it if it's gross.
And then, lo and behold, I get yelled at for having the audacity to buy a size 10 of YSP. God forbid I might not have liked it, and relate that story to the people who might read my own personal blog that I write here myself for me on my computer. Even further, by buying that shoe, I'm apparently ruining the company's chances to compete in the market. If everyone buys a shoe tomorrow, it will destroy their company when you all get athelete's foot in your gums or whatever. It's not the company's fault you got fever blisters on your lips the size of a lemon, it's YOUR fault for being curious enough to try it. Way to go. YSP is ruined now, thanks to you buying a shoe of it at the liquor store's dairy section.
Seriously.
At the end of the day, though, I'm not going to write up some thing about how much I hate YSP, or the people who eat it. I just don't care, really. In all the things I write, I think that tends to be a recurring theme. Reagrdless of what you may have thought I said, if you read it again you'll see I didn't hate Warhammer oops "Melonberry McNutNut", I just didn't really like the taste, and I wasn't going to eat it. Hell, I even tried it again later and changed my mind (read the last paragraph). In the end though, I decided I just didn't really like Melonberries, and stopped buying it each time I went to the store. That's a HUGE difference between "faggots who eat Melonberry McNutNut live in there basements with they're grandmas and I bet your gonna get a burmhingham housecall for desert tonite from grammy lololol". The same goes for Yummy Scrummy Plummy.
Thinking back to the Console Warz again for a second, there's enough room in my freezer and money in my wallet to buy YSP, vanilla, and still have room left over for frozen pizzas and ... what... churros...? What do people even put in their freezers these days? I have like rice as far as the eye can see. Why would you limit yourself to one flavor? Even if it's really good, don't you want to mix it up from time to time? If you don't like chocolate, no one is going to force you to eat it (and I won't force myself), but it doesn't mean you have to HATE it.
Just be indifferent.
Let those who are into that kind of thing enjoy it, and just go on enjoying whatever flavor you like. We can both be right, and nobody needs to be wrong. See how nice that works out?
It's not rocket surgery.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Hate's a Pretty Big Word
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17 comments:
This post fucking sucks. That post before it owns and anyone who likes this post is a cock guzzling fuck face.
rocket surgury is dum. I hate rockets and surgureys are for weiners.
I'm still baffled as to how you can relate some things on such humorous levels. Your mind works on wavelengths normal people can't comprehend.
The problem with "Not caring" is people become emotionally attached to damn near everything nowadays, due to modern teachings. Boys aren't allowed to fight, crying is socially acceptable, no one hits their kids, and "emotional" is a fashion statement, as well as an attitude.
I guess it's hard to be indifferent when you look like this.
hate is an interesting word :) it seems like its one of those words that can mean a lot of degrees of feeling.
to take your food analogy for instance and make it my own. I can say that I hate caviar. hate it with passion. I will not eat it unless my very survival depended on it and even after I do, I might end up in a corner somewhere quietly puking because I cannot stand the taste of it.
on the other hand - my spouse enjoys it very much. so once in a while, when the mood strikes him - caviar shows up in our fridge. I don't care if he eats it -if he enjoys it, I'm happy for that. when I see caviar sold in the stores - I could care less, let them sell it to those that enjoy it, just don't make me eat it and don't try to convince me that its good. you might like it, but I've tried it on several occasions and my taste buds didn't like it any better then the first time around.
its the same way for me when it comes to pvp. The major reason I play WoW over other MMO's is that I have plenty to do without having to engage in pvp once.
maybe the real problem with hate and some people is that they try to transfer their hate to you and god forbid you don't agree, then they hate you by association.
I don't think there's anything wrong with actively disliking something, even hating something, as long as you understand that its your personal feelings we're talking about, and just because you're feeling something doesn't mean that everyone around you should feel the same. Or maybe I'm using a different definition of "hate" then you do?
It's about identity. People get the idea that they are a PS3 person and someone else is a Wii person, and dammit, different people are a threat. They want to do different things. This might have made sense back in the day when different people were a threat, a competitor for limited resources, and if you could split up the world into Us and Them, being with Us meant more food or whatever. Now though, there are plenty of systems and games to go around so it's pretty dumb to fight over them.
Or maybe it starts with a basic debate about which console is better. It's a valid argument, like any other product comparison. The problem ends up being that better doesn't fit well because they have different games and a technically inferior system may have better games. Or an inferior system has more games that you enjoy, so then you think it's better. Before long a debate turns into an argument, and then a flame war, just because no one said "Hold on... I think we started with an incorrect assumption. One might not actually be better than the other." Or even if one is better, better tends to be personal, so like before, a system with inferior specs might have more games that you enjoy, and for you, it is better.
Me? I stick with my PC and if handed a controller I just laugh at the poor dexterity of my thumbs.
I agree completely that people get too worked up about the stupidest little things. Hating things really isn't worth the effort.
Also, I thought it sort of ironic that the label that he branded you with had the word tourist in it, and he used the analogy of the American going to France and ordering french fries.
As someone who has been an ex-pat on several occasions, and as someone who tries out MMOs with no real intention of becoming invested in them, I find this funny. I don't fill up with rage every time I read a blog post about someone traveling to China.
This article confused me, too many metaphors that get increasingly confusing.
To put my own twist on it, I had pretty much the same attitude back in my day, but it was the classic amiga vs PC argument.
In the early 90s the amiga was at its strongest, it was really popular for games, had a proper multitasking OS that beat the pants off of windows 3.1 (its one big weakness was that it had no protected memory, so a crash meant a total restart of the machine). It was also cheaper as you could save on an expensive monitor by just using your tv.
Then commadore fucked up and stopped developing new machines. It coasted along for a while but most people moved on. As a kid with one though it wasnt really the option to drop the £1000 on a new pc. So I kept with my amiga and read the magazines, determined that the PC was an overpriced piece of crap.
Then my parents got a PC with windows 95 and I was eventually drawn to it by quake etc.
I guess the other kids of my generation were arguing about megadrive or snes, or more than likely they didnt have either cos £70 a cartidge was a bit much for a kids toy in my neck of the woods (so amigas were popular with the old copied disks). So I guess they argued about which ninja turtle was the best.
Gotta say though, I was glad I had my amiga, as there were hardly any new games for when I had mine, I learned a bit programming and how to use paint packages and 3d rendering programs. The computer magazines for it were fucking fantastic, they had decent free software on the cover disks and gave in-depth explanations about how the machine worked.
I have an Atari 2600 Iso. Bring it.
Shit baby, my atari died long ago. I ripped the black covering off the joystick, and used to actually GNAW on the tip of the controller in between play sessions. It was like a friggin teething ring for me.
I'm 33 now (old like dirt?), I dunno how old I was when I played that thing. i *do* specifically remember getting Pac Man for it and a garfield stuffed toy, though, on my 7th birthday. NOBODY showed up for my birthday party. Fuck em, I just played Pac Man.
I think it is just human nature. When something strikes a cord in us and we do not understand it, it really triggers that us vs them instinct. It can be mob mentality or what not and completely irrational but it is just human nature and biology at work to come to odds when there is a difference of opinion.
Hell, despite "civilization" we still have wars because of differences of opinions, just that it is on a much grander scale. So I don't find it too surprising that hate is something people can very easily feel over a relatively minor thing.
To err, to love and to hate, are all what it means to be human.
Everybody still not entirely sure; Read "Lord of the Flies".
Its an excellent book as an example of what we would do if isolated with no rules, no adults..
Put two humans in a cage and you'll make tigers look civil- but the problem is- for every arsehole theres a priests working in a soup kitchen 24/7 for those who need it.
Which one makes the news?
The arsehole.
we never really hear of the good humanity can do when its not busy fighting over resources not even there.
Not caring used to be my problem. My favorite phrase was "Don't care". I wouldn't even say I don't care, just don't care.
What flavor of ice cream would Anarchy Online be?
Awesome point. I dont see the reason to shit all over everyone else because they like something else.
I guess internet is still living its first generation. Maturity does not necessarily come with age but, for one thing you get softer and more tolerant and indifferent as the years go by. Many people who write online are internet era kids yet. They were born on the years that internet was still ARPA or whatever. Now they make the majority of the internet population and they are free to write anything, without thinking about the consequences. You can just spew the shit out without anyone actually. I usually ignore anything that does not have correct spelling and grammer except where its on purpose (kkthxbai). That alone shows the maturity and intelligence of the person behind the keyboard. Then I can consider the content. Anyone reading this can easily assume that I'm mature and not retarded and then evaluate the content. So back to my point its easy to hate people online as there is no consquence. They ban you from one website? Just get a new nickname. If you start that kind of hate in real life you get to deal with consequences.
As I'm writing at work and in between couple of free minutes, this kind of things happen. Full sentence is
You can just spew the shit out without anyone actually knowing who you are.
Humans are pretty much hardwired to be tribal. We instinctually look for ingroups and outgroups. The challenge is selecting them appropriately.
For someone, the ingroup might be hardcore MMO players, while the outgroup might be casual MMO players. Or the ingroup might be other ps3 owners and the outgroup xbox owners.
Those people are stupid. They are selecting inappropriate ingroups and outgroups. They are looking for identity somewhere they shouldn't.
That's why their arguments look so transparent and silly. Because they aren't based on being logical, they are based on supporting some conclusion reached through non-logical means.
Aristotle quote I saw on Sirlin's blog today: "Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power, that is not easy."
Also, Tragedy, really? The problem with society today is that we don't beat our children enough?
Post is too wordy, I got your point a couple paragraphs in. :)
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