Fuck that! I didn’t own a TV for most of my life, and now that I own one, I hardly ever watch it. And I do think that most of what is broacasted is crap. I don’t like coke and pepsi. I drink very few alcohol. I find team sports utterly boring and can’t understand why people cheer for teams (I would if they cheered for the local amateur team, but they cheer for a random bunch of people without any connection with themselves and who will change team next year). I probably could list a number of other things.
I’m not pretending I don’t like TV, sports, alcohol and coke. I don’t like them, period. Even if 99.999% of the population love them, I still don’t. And I don’t understand why people like those things so much. I’m not sure why some are assuming that just because a majority like alcohol/sports/coke, everybody else should understand the appeal, and that we’re just pretending if we state we don’t. We don’t understand the appeal in the same way you don’t understand the appeal of most things you happen to dislike, find boring or foul tasting.
If I understood the appeal, I would presumably be watching sports on TV while drinking beer, while in fact I hardly can think of a worst way to spend an afternoon. I’d probably prefer to spend it working, and I don’t like my job. Make that “certainly” in fact. At least, I’m not bored to death and unpleasantly drunk at my workplace. And I don’t understand why people find such an “activity” even remotely fun. I know they like being half drunk watching perfect strangers run after a ball on a TV screen. I don’t understand why, and there’s no reason why I automatically should understand just because there are plenty of them. It’s totally irrelevant.
And if anything, people who don’t enjoy popular stuff are more often the target of scorn than the contrary. Maybe not much here, but generally speaking they’re assumed to be pretending and posing. They can’t possibly really enjoy a black and white movie more than the last iteration of Star Wars, nor an elaborate dish more than a hamburger. So, they must be arrogant poseurs. Saying “Hey, black and white movies lovers, I don’t understand the appeal, could you explain?” would generally be a significant improvement over what is usually posted (again, not on this board). But shame on us if we dare asking the same about something popular.
It’s just the other side of the same coin. If you state you like something not very popular you’re liar and a poseur because how could someone really like something that me and all my friends don’t care for? If you dislike something popular, you’re a liar and a poseur because how could someone not secretely love something that me and all my friends like?
Fuck that! I didn’t own a TV for most of my life, and now that I own one, I hardly ever watch it. And I do think that most of what is broacasted is crap. I don’t like coke and pepsi. I drink very few alcohol. I find team sports utterly boring and can’t understand why people cheer for teams (I would if they cheered for the local amateur team, but they cheer for a random bunch of people without any connection with themselves and who will change team next year). I probably could list a number of other things.
I’m not pretending I don’t like TV, sports, alcohol and coke. I don’t like them, period. Even if 99.999% of the population love them, I still don’t. And I don’t understand why people like those things so much. I’m not sure why some are assuming that just because a majority like alcohol/sports/coke, everybody else should understand the appeal, and that we’re just pretending if we state we don’t. We don’t understand the appeal in the same way you don’t understand the appeal of most things you happen to dislike, find boring or foul tasting.
If I understood the appeal, I would presumably be watching sports on TV while drinking beer, while in fact I hardly can think of a worst way to spend an afternoon. I’d probably prefer to spend it working, and I don’t like my job. Make that “certainly” in fact. At least, I’m not bored to death and unpleasantly drunk at my workplace. And I don’t understand why people find such an “activity” even remotely fun. I know they like being half drunk watching perfect strangers running after a ball on a TV screen. I don’t understand why, and there’s no reason why I automatically should understand just because there are plenty of them. It’s totally irrelevant.
And if anything, people who don’t enjoy popular stuff are more often the target of scorn than the contrary. Maybe not much here, but generally speaking they’re assumed to be pretending and posing. They can’t possibly really enjoy a black and white movie more than the last iteration of Star Wars, nor an elaborate dish more than a hamburger. So, they must be arrogant poseurs. Saying “Hey, black and white movies lovers, I don’t understand the appeal, could you explain?” would generally be a significant improvement over what is usually posted (again, not on this board). But shame on us if we dare asking the same about something popular.
It’s just the other side of the same coin. If you state you like something not very popular you’re liar and a poseur because how could someone really like something that me and all my friends don’t care for? If you dislike something popular, you’re a liar and a poseur because how could someone not secretely love something that me and all my friends like?
Its just a lack of self awareness. Some people smoke cigarettes. I don’t. However, I know there are reasons other people want to smoke. There are things appealing about the act, otherwise people wouldn’t do it. Just because I don’t like/want to doesn’t mean there’s no point. FTR, I have tried cigarettes a few times; wasn’t wonderful, wasn’t horrible.
But there are people on the board that have never gotten drunk themselves, who don’t get the appeal. Now, if someone was really susceptible to alcohol, did regretful things under the influence or simply got violently ill, then I could understand if they had a hard time seeing the appeal. But for someone who has never experienced it going, “Whats the point?” as though since they’ve never done it there’s no point in it existing.
This lack of self awareness is more evident in some subjects than others. This thread I had started ended up getting 654 replies, primarily because many Dopers had a hard time understanding that men and women deal with different dangers, and being thought of as ‘creepy’ is less of a problem than being thought of as ‘vulnerable’. It was repeated over and over again. I wish I could claim to be the first one on the SDMB to bring up that topic, but I wasn’t- in fact that thread was in the wake of many others that involved similar subjects.
Thank you and sorry. I do want to point out that in my original post, I was not replying to or referring to **monstro **in a specific way, the 'you" was generic.
I’m curious how you feel about this thread:
Is that OP eye-roll inducing?
Do you doubt the OP’s sincerity?
Do you not understand why the OP would be curious?
Was the discussion not at least a tiny bit interesting?
Do you think the OP shouldn’t have created the thread?
I’m really trying to understand what you are complaining about. It sounds like you think only questions about mundane things you don’t understand are worth asking, and that it’s impossible for a person to be curious about other mundane “easily understood” things. And that if someone truly doesn’t understand something that’s obvious, they should be ashamed of themselves and keep it a secret so that they don’t look “spergy”.
But there would be few conversations around here if everyone was constantly worried about looking like a dork. That’s what makes the SDMB an enjoyable place. It’s one of the few places on the web where we can talk about non-important things without judgement. And I know that I personally I have learned a lot from reading about other people’s unconventional preferences or non-preferences. Sometimes being able to help someone else understand something that’s “easy” helps me to see how hard it actually is.