What are things that everyone else gets upset about, but don’t care that much about?
For me, probably food. I had the fortune or misfortune of growing up with a terrible cook and a father who loved bland food. My mother got her philosophy about food from her mother, who just didn’t care. My aunt said she was 17 when she first discovered that food could be delicious. She had a rare chance to eat at a friend’s home and that mother was really good.
A fairly typical meal for us would be instant mash potatoes, canned corn and imitation cheese. Although I’ve eaten a lot of good meals in my life, I can eat pretty much anything. Sure, I would prefer eating good food, but I’m not going to go hungry just because the food doesn’t have any taste.
Another is music. We grew up in a ultra conservative, super religious household with really bizarre rules. Any kind of music was frowned on, and rock music was of the devil.
I like music, I like going to concerts, but I just don’t make efforts to proactively develop interests. Too much baggage, I guess.
I’m sure that I would be better off as a person developing better taste in food and music, but there are so many other things which I’ve got to work on first.
Anything at all to do with typefaces, fonts, and that sort of thing.
It’s mentioned a couple of times in the other thread. People talk about supposedly “ugly” fonts, or “bad kerning,” or whatever else. Me, I wonder when the hell we were all supposed to learn what kerning is, and why we should care. I’ve looked at examples of “well-kerned” and “poorly-kerned” text, and just can’t make myself prefer one over the other.
Sound quality. I know I’m supposed to hate crappy little earphones, or listening to music through my laptop’s built-in speakers, or putting 30 year old cassette tapes into an ancient boombox, but I can’t really tell the difference. The same things goes for the various video quality types now available at the movie theater.
Beer. Just give me whatever mass produced domestic you have in the fridge.
Frames per Second in video games. There’s a minimum threshold where I’ll notice it’s very slow but I can’t tell the difference between 30-40fps and 60-70fps. I’ve looked at comparative .gifs and videos and other things designed to illustrate how obvious it is and if I concentrate I can say “Ok, that cloud of dust looks a little smoother” but I don’t play games by concentrating on the dust clouds.
It’s really weird the OP mentioned food because it’s the first thing I thought of.
Don’t get me wrong, I really care about food but I suppose I’m not so picky, I’ll eat damn near anything.
I follow some food websites and I’m always stumped by people who love food but won’t eat at McD’s or Subway. I LIKE fast food, hell I like ALL food. I understand a Big Mac isn’t fine dining, but that don’t mean it’s not a tasty SOB.
The way other people dress or wear their hair. I find this a very boring topic of conversation. Even when someone who is older than 20 is trying to be provocative on purpose, I find them more to be pitied than censured.
Lots of people on my mommy groups would never even conceive of feeding their babies generic formula. As long as it isn’t full of Chinese melamine, why on earth not? It’s the same stuff!
Of course a lot of them also import fancy schmancy formula from Europe. Must be nice to have so much money! Seriously, I really wanted to breastfeed. Formula was a definite second best for me. But once I made that decision I sure as shit wasn’t paying for Similac!
(I retain my moral superiority by cloth diapering and, now that we’re starting solids, making my own baby food. I totally fed him some salty-ass tomato soup from my own plate at a restaurant, though, and worried about it not one bit.)
Light. Some people love to bitch about the lighting everywhere, and are constantly fidgeting with their dimmer switches at home. Fuck dimmer switches. Lights should have only 2 settings: on and off.
Pizza toppings. It all tastes the same to me, and the half-hour debate about which three toppings we should order on the pizza makes me want to murder everybody.
Typing in capital letters. Yes, it’s difficult to read. No, I don’t think anyone is ‘shouting’ at me when they do it. Caps on, caps off, it’s all the same to me.
Cars. I’ll drive anything. Bad brakes, bald tires? I’ll adapt. Ripped up seat? Don’t care, if the car is cool. Stick, auto, 3 on the tree, I’ll drive em all.
Unless they catch fire on a regular basis, I’ll drive that Sumbitch!
Me too. It used to upset my husband no end that I would choose to listen to a staticky radio station playing a good song over a station that was playing a worse song, but clear as a bell.
Wine. There are one or two varieties I don’t like. Past that, it’s all fine by me and I secretly think people who obsess over the differences are pulling my leg (or each others’). That said, I know the real reason I’m not discriminating about such things is I have no sense of smell.
And that reminds me: Smells! I can’t detect them, but it sure seems like people talk about them a lot. I guess burned popcorn is the worst thing in the world.
I think most people who obsess over this are design majors or nitpickers by nature, but REALLY poor kerning can cause issues with legibility.
For myself, tea is one. I like tea and can appreciate the fancy loose-leaf stuff, but just a bag of cheap black tea in some boiling water is also fine for me. My favorite / go-to is Constant Comment, which I assume puts me on par with a coffee drinker who buys Folgers.
Alcohol. I normally only pay $15 or less for a handle of liquor and the quality is fine. I drink pbr beer and think Arbor mist and Boones farm wine taste better than the more expensive stuff.
Also maybe music. I know some people who act like you are supposed to hate certain musicians (Creed, nickelback, beiber, avril lavigne, etc) but I don’t care. I don’t dislike a band unless I have a reason.
There seems to be a controversy surrounding toilet seats being left up and toilet paper hanging the “wrong way”. Maybe bathrooms make people irrational. Seriously, I really, honestly, truly don’t care.
Home décor. I don’t have a “decorated” home, nor do I want one. I like that my walls are a nice comfortable bland off-white. The stuff on my walls means something to me; it’s not there simply to look nice. My furniture matches because I bought it at the same time, but it’s old, not at all trendy. I don’t care. It’s still good.
I don’t understand why people choose to spend lots of money changing their décor every year or two just because. Of course, I don’t condemn them. I just don’t see the point.