The LOSER-thread! Join in if you are one, aren't, AND if you hate the word!

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am fascinated by the psychological power of the term “loser” in the USA. IMHO, the only word more powerful was the word “heretic” at the height of the days of the Spanish Inquisition.

All to avoid being labeled a loser, people will do stuff they dislike, avoid fun stuff, buy unneccesary stuff, say stuff, mix with people they would not have chosen themselves, say things they do not really mean.

Advertising company’s will use the universal fear of loserdom to sell almost anything, just as they use sex.

Yet (or because of that) all but the most confident people (you know who you are, and congrats to you!) will fear, in the deepest personal corners of their mind, that they are losers. They just haven’t been found out, yet.

A recent thread on “SDMB-couples” saw a typical loser hijack. Giggle Gaggle called the typical Doper a loser. Many people jumped in. Some to vehemently claim they were winners, and had the stats to prove it, too! :dubious: Some, like dantheman admitted goodnaturedly (and pretty cool, IMHO) to their so-called loser-status, thereby calling the concept into question. The mods came in to say loser is a taboo word, not to be used outside the pit.

SO:
Have you ever felt forced to do/say/avoid something for fear of being a loser if you didn’t? How do you feel about it, looking back?

Why does the loser concept strike such an exposed nerve in many people?

Has the concept replaced the old concept of sin? If so, shouldn’t religious people should feel less vulnerable to being called a loser then non-religious people?

Does the pressure for being called a loser differ from pressure not to be “chicken” “dull” or any such terms?

What is your reaction to people using the word loser in earnest? As in: “He’s such a loser” said of somebody you like and feel akin to?

Any suggestions to rob the word of its evil power?

Other angles regarding this modern taboo?

2

I think the term stinks.

It’s just a catch-all insult that people throw around so they can feel a little more smug about their own flawed lives.

The reason it is so powerful is because it is so vague. Loser at what? Let’s say you’re in a top job, but single - does that make you a successful careerist or a failed husband/wife? Was Paul Gauguin a failed banker or a successful artist/bohemian?

It’s not defined, and everyone has lost or failed at something at some point in their life, so they subconsciously associate it with their personal Achilles Heel.
The best way to combat it is to question the concept and force the person using it to define it and explain how, precisely, they are attributing it.

I’d suggest that the concept is perhaps more powerful in the US than the UK (though I may be out of touch) - culturally the US seems to emphasise not only winning but being seen to be a winner, whereas here there’s a niche for graceful losers.

3

I was baffled by this title–because I read it as “and if you hate the world”.

I thought that it didn’t matter if you were a loser or not, but you had to ‘hate the world’ to post!

LOL

4

Soy un perdedor.

5

I’ve never felt like a loser, and if someone thinks I am, then that’s their problem, not mine.

I guess the only opinions that matter to me are those of my friends and family. Who, undoubtedly, are losers in someone’s eyes, somewhere.

Eh, life’s too short to worry about how (most) other people perceive you.

6

We celebrate losers here in Australia. We make them our bloody icons.

It’s the winners who come in for the hardest time.

:smiley:

7

I don’t think it’s such a big mystery. In most cases, “loser” connotes somebody with an unrewarding / unsatisfying / unimpressive social and sex life. In certain contexts, it might connote the same careerwise, and less often, academically, but these two connotations are losing favor.

Basically, a loser is someone who has failed at pursuing the American dream and actualizing his / her full potential for cultivating the best life for himself that he possibly can. As such, there are degrees of being a loser, and one usually only identifies extreme losers, or large groups of losers in some specific sense.

The parallels to the religious term “heretic” are apt, because for the “loser” term to have the potency that it does, human culture has had to shift its focus from faith, obedience and worship to indviduality, choice and self-actualization. A heretic was someone who did not have or practice the former set of virtues. A loser is someone who (presumably) does not have or practice the latter set of virtues.

8

Isn’t a loser someone who fails to"win" according to external criteria?

There are two things here, maybe:

  1. Internal judgement

If you are following your own path and happy with it, no matter what you are doing, you won’t feel yourself to be a loser. The feeling of loserhood only appears if you are judging yourself according to others’ standards, and coming up short.

  1. External judgement

OTOH, no matter what you are doing, if it doesn’t match someone else’s standards, that person may judge you to be a loser. Whether that judgement has any effect on you is dependent on the judger’s power.

9

There is a prevailing attitude in the US right now, exemplified by the Bush administration, that in order for there to be a winner there must also be a loser. Like life is some sort of zero-sum game in which every success you have must come at the expense of another, and that every failure you experience in some way enrichens someone else. Basically if I win you lose.

Taken in that context calling someone else a “loser” is more about calling yourself a “winner” than anything else. The next time you hear someone call another person a loser, take a good close look at the person doing the name calling. You’ll likely find an insecure, status obsessed individual who’s so afriad of having his/her own shortcomings discovered (thus being outted as a loser) that he/she has to run around declaring other people losers in order to be a winner.

Additionally it seems to me that the definition of what the American Dream is has undergone some fundamental change (for the worse, IMNSHO) in the past 50 years or so. It used to be that the American Dream was about living in a place where you were free to pursue your happiness in whatever way you chose without fear of opression or persecution. The modern version seems to be more about meeting a narrowly defined set of status, career, family and financial markers by a certian age, to aviod being declared a loser, than it is about seeking happiness.

There’s actually a great TV commerical playing right now that illsutrates this exact point. It starts off with a pretty generic looking, middle aged white guy, talking about his house, his new SUV, his country club membership ect… all the while with this cheesey grin plastered on his face, like a stereotypical circa 1950’s dad, at the end of the commerical he asks “How is it that can afford all of this great stuff? I’m in debt up to my eyeballs. I can barely pay my finance chargers. I need help” The ad is for a debt management service, but it really makes my point well. This guy is a “winner” according to the modern American Dream, he has the right car, the right family, the right house in the right neighborhood etc… but he can’t really afford any of it. He’s nearly bankrupted himself to avoid looking like a loser.

Mainstream American culture no longer recognizes that it’s possible for people to be a winner simply by playing with their own set of rules. You must play by the rules that I (and everyone else who knows anything) play by in order to win. Merely playing a different game automatically makes you some sort of weird loser. I used to hold people who think that way in contempt and look down on them for their misguided views, nowadays I mostly feel sorry for them. It must really be hellish to be that insecure.

Anyway I don’t much care what anyone thinks of me. People can think of me as a loser all day long if it helps them sleep at night. I’m doing just fine with the rules I’m playing by and am happy with my life, so what do I care what a bunch of status obsessed losers think about me… :slight_smile:

10

Yeah I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me.

11

I’m a driver I’m a winner things are gonna change I can feel it…

12

Yeah, I used to be highly offended by the term when I went through a period in which certain people repeatedly dubbed me so (supposedly in a friendly manner, but really…it got to me). Since then, though, I’ve become more secure in myself, and now who’s laughing? (Answer: me [at least on the inside])

Anyway, I try to remain sensitive to the term so that I don’t offend anyone. And when in doubt, just remember the famous line by Beck, alluded to above by Mr. B, “I’m a loser baby…so why don’t you kill me?”

13

No.

**Why does the loser concept strike such an exposed nerve in many people? **

A) Americans accutely commit the fundamental attribution error. They fail to understand that forces outside the person have great influence on what a person does and where a person ends up.

B) Every child is told that she can grow up to be President, nobody ever tells the child that it is okay to be a garbage man, too.

C) Some people are just touchy.

Has the concept replaced the old concept of sin? If so, shouldn’t religious people should feel less vulnerable to being called a loser then non-religious people?

To the extent that Americans think that a person in the gutter is there because of her own failings, yes it is a sin. But it doesn’t replace the concept of sin, it is merely a secular sin in the same sense that smoking pot is bad because it “lowers productivity”. Americans can’t understand that GDP as a proxy for national success is only a crude proxy, so anything that represents producing less material wealth is bad and un-American.

**Does the pressure for being called a loser differ from pressure not to be “chicken” “dull” or any such terms? **

Yes. Being “chicken” is mere cowardice as opposed to intelligent refusal to engage in violence (for example). But being a loser can be a badge of honor if one takes loser status as a conscious choice.

**What is your reaction to people using the word loser in earnest? As in: “He’s such a loser” said of somebody you like and feel akin to? **

Only a loser would use loser in earnest.

**Any suggestions to rob the word of its evil power? **

In the time of chimpanzees, I was a monkey.
Butane in my veins so I’m out to cut the junkey,
With the plastic eyeballs, the spray paint the vegetables…

Just say, “Soy un perdedor.”

**Other angles regarding this modern taboo? **

Calling it a taboo is giving it way too much credit, loser.

14

Thanks for your responses, everyone!

mrsface: Good point. The term loser is so vague, that it finds its victim’s Personal Achillesheel TM. Probably, one of the reasons the word hurts so much, is because it feels like the namecaller has found out about that Personal Achillesheel.

Mr B, j.s.africanus: I Googled “soy un perdedor” (Spanish for “I am a loser”). It’s the song by Luis Michel and Beck (full lyrics here), right?

Coldfire: concise and cool as always. Still, to many people (imho) the whole concept is worrying, even when they know they shouldn’t. Your answer just makes them jealous :wink:

Kambuckta and mrsface: good point, again. The USA has no way, no good “cultural archetype” for gracefully “losing”. Nothin but winners (OR extreme losers) in the media. Not even the ones who “came in second” get media attention.

Giggelgagle: in the first paragraph I see circular reasoning. After all, who decides if one’s life is unrewarding or unimpressive? But I wonder I you have a point that the term loser is, these days, more directed at “shortcomings” in social/sexual areas then in career, financial or academical area’s’. If that is true, what does that say about American culture?

Sunspace (I looove the sig, btw!) Good point as well. Do people feel like a loser by their own standards or by others standards? And how does one know if one has internalized the real cultural standard, or a self-made unrealistic version of them? Does the environment really demand as much from us as we think it does?

**TFC ** Interesting. The downside of the loserconcept is obvious: many people feeling shame about a perceived inadequacy. But, such a negative concept would not still be in existence if it did not serve some purpose. One of those purposes could be, as you say, to let one feel a “winner” by calling somebody else a loser.
Would there also be a purpose for society to keep this concept alive? I’ve read conspiracy-theories that the concept of sin in the Middle Ages served the purpose of keeping everybody feeling guilty, therefore submissive.
I agree with you that the zero-sumgame theory is a major thinking error. An error very often made.

15

Maastricht, it’s a Beck song, yes. Please listen to it, if you haven’t already.

Oh, and don’t bother with Giggle. With his departure we’re snif losers, yes, but somehow we’ll get through this.

16

*Originally posted by *The Funky SpaceCowboy

Amen, brother!

*Originally posted by *js_africanus

I meant that IMO, there are some similarities between feeling either sinful of a loser, internally.
We seem to be more inclined to think ourself losers then to appoint others as such. Most people do not regard others as losers unless it is obvious one is a gutterdwelling wino. But, many people seem to be inclined to point out sinners, though. “Definition of a sinner: a person who has more sex then you”.
*Originally posted by *js_africanus

Ouch! :wink:

17

js_africanus Fundamental attribution error hits the nail on the head. This link explains the concept.

18

Also notice how in the common speech, the word has gone from being descriptive of the loser, a person who has lost, to being descriptive of A Loser, a person with an essential character defect that causes him to lose.

19

Have you ever felt forced to do/say/avoid something for fear of being a loser if you didn’t? How do you feel about it, looking back? Not anything “big”. Even in HS I was pretty much “me” regardless of whether it was "cool’ or not. I may have “toned it down” or refrained from saying something to in order to be polite or depending upon the situation (such as not yelling/being boisterous in a public place), but no, not really.

**Why does the loser concept strike such an exposed nerve in many people? **
IMHO? Because it evokes a normal human response of fear of being rejected.

B) Every child is told that she can grow up to be President, nobody ever tells the child that it is okay to be a garbage man, too.**
This used to not be so true as it is today in this "instant gratification/“Friends” glamorous lifestyle with no visible means of support society. (sigh:)) Back in “the day” people were proud to do a job well, regardless of what type of job it was.

Has the concept replaced the old concept of sin? If so, shouldn’t religious people should feel less vulnerable to being called a loser then non-religious people?
Not imho, it’s more a question of “popularity” or definition of success.

**Does the pressure for being called a loser differ from pressure not to be “chicken” “dull” or any such terms? **
Yes, I think that people believe that they and others have more “control” over whether they are dull or chicken etc, than they do over whether they are losers.

**What is your reaction to people using the word loser in earnest? As in: “He’s such a loser” said of somebody you like and feel akin to? **
Amusement. To me the word means nothing really, (though I have occasionally seen it applied to someone who truly deserved it), after all defining “success” is akin to nailing jello to a tree. It will mean different things to different people. imho, the only true “losers” are those that do do evil and harm to others and themselves (thievery, violent crimes etc). Not those that simply don’t “fit the mold” of what is currently being defined as success.

**Any suggestions to rob the word of its evil power? **
I think as people grow up and mature, it just naturally loses any “evil power” it may have, at one time, had.

**Other angles regarding this modern taboo? **
Not sure what you mean by taboo, do you mean “slang” or saying?