Put an initial somewhere in your name. Preferrably, make your name something like first initial-middle name-last name. Always emphasize the initial.
Or, like the guy mentioned by Tom Lehrer, put a number in your name - somethething like spelling “Henry” as “Hen3Ry” if I recall correctly.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Spritle *
**OK. Help me narrow some things down. Here’s the pretentious checklist:
Cigarettes
Red Panthers
Smoking method:
Like a doobie?
Yes, but pointing in so you have to turn it around to smoke it. Think Verbal Kint in The Ususal Suspects. Very chic. When not smoking, hold it like it’s sticking out of your breastbone, like a German officer in a bad war movie.
Music:
All music and music scenes are equally pretentious, be it Inuit throat singing or The Hives. Pick 'em, there is no wrong answer here, or you could go for bonus points and be the one person on Earth who when asked: “Do you like music?” says “Nope, I never heard any I liked.”
Tea?
Lapsang Souchon?
Wine?
Amarone? Australian Shiraz?
Clothing:
Anything Ermenegildo Zegna (not Zegna Sport!)
with Converse Chuck Taylor knockoffs.
Transportation:
Vespa!
You need to be more like TVGoHome’s Nathan Barley:
Excellent!
I could almost taste the sneer!
Excellent!
I could almost taste the sneer!
I don’t think pretentiousness is about judging people based on the things they purchase or consume. To do so would be pretty pretentious.
I realize my gushing enthusiasm is just so gauche, but…this is the best thread ever.
Spritle, don’t forget to speak in italics at all times. It’s just so so.
Oh, and auntie em’s “Ohh licky licky” is making me laugh out loud right this very moment.
Actually, I don’t have cable and never have had ca…
Ohhhhh! I get it!
This is getting easier.
Skooplah skooplah rah!
S. Pritle Comthistle-Comthistle
Oh,
Pets:
Mutt?
Purebred cat/dog?
Exotic animal (emu?)
Keeping an animal in captivity is cruel and reflects on the selfishness/domination issues of the “owner”?
Names for pet: (assuming I can have one)
Rex?
Phydeaux?
Louis IVX?
Sir Wolmac Prescott Comthistle-Comthistle?
Place your children on waiting lists for prep school - IMMEDIATELY. I see your new one is nearly two months old now - just how long were you planning on waiting, m’dear?
While you’re at it - enroll them in at least twenty kinds of lessons - piano, tai chi, karate, cooking, gardening, gymnastics, home depot do-it-yourself clinics, eighteen languages, rock climbing, belly dancing, glass blowing, and mandolin are the bare minimums.
Hire someone to shuttle them to all their lessons so you have more time to sniff at people and tell them they just don’t understand how hard it is to raise overachievers.
Acquire six or seven identical dogs no larger than a breadbox. Give them all french names. Hypenated french names are better.
I can’t believe nobody mentioned wearing dark sunglasses as often as possible. Then, don’t look at people when you talk to them, just keep looking in the direction you’re walking, since you only talk to people at the same time you’re doing something useful. As far as what to talk about, state every opinion as fact, use jargon and abbreviations, and make what appear to be allusions (although they don’t have to actually allude to anything.)
Characters in movies do this a lot. Drives me crazy.
Never appreciate or criticise something for what it is, only for what it means, even if you’re spouting total arse dribble.
“‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’ is a searing indictment of post-modern retro kitsch and a celebration of the global village culture. Pass me an olive, Crispin.”
Become familiar with…
The writings of Michel Foucault
The films of Ingmar Bergman
The paintings of Piet Mondrian
The poetry of Arthur Rimbaud
The fiction of James Joyce
The music of Ravi Shankar
And talk about nothing but at every social gathering you attend.
Also, this might help.
Jizz on toast! I must be more pretentious that I had hitherto realised.
Smoking method -
You mean you aren’t going to get one of those cool stem thingies? I know if I smoked, I’d have one of those with my lighter and cigarettes all the time.
You might run across other people who like jazz. Don’t panic - just pretend to like a jazz style that is more avant-garde than whatever they bring up. Ornette Coleman will trump most of 'em.
If they actually like avant-garde jazz, you might have to start making up names.
Here’s a tip I read in a National Lampoon article for impressing literary snobs: Pick some fairly well-respected author and cultivate a seething hatred of him. You have just taken a shortcut to being more hip than anyone who likes or appreciates that author. Try to avoid justifying your disdain. You might get into a battle of jargon and critic-babble.
National Lampoon actually recommended going ballistic - throwing your martini glass to the ground and shouting epithets - but I don’t think that fits with the world-weary jaded thing we seem to be developing here. Maybe you could just appear too disgusted to debate the issue. (As if you could ever explain anything to someone who thinks that so-and-so deserves to be called an author. :rolleyes: )
Come to think of it, that might work for things besides literature. You could have a painter you hate, an architect, a composer, etc.
I think you are going to have to decide what type of pretension you plan to focus on. If you tried all of these suggestions you would just cancel out and look wierd. You could go for the euro-artsy-bored-with-the-bourgeois attitude, or the liberal-academic-condesendendingly-patient, or even the blue-blood-judgemental-exasperated-“that should be good enough for you” attitude.
“I am the very model of a trendy faux bisexual
I dress in black to show that I’m a turgid intellectual…”
Learn that entire song and then you’ll be wonderfully post-modern.
-K.R. Anderson Numberletter
I’ve got some Rimbaud and some cloves, but I think my Buffy the Vampire Slayer action figure and stuffed musical Bevo cancel them out.
Well, yeah, but if dipping huge red mass transport vehicles in boiling water seems a tad over the top, rooibos tea will do nicely, too. 