What's The Most Pretentious Thing You Used To Do?

[edwardcoast]

@Ukulele_Ike

I used to walk around with a mouth full of wasps.

LOL!!!

[Abner_Ravenwood]

@WOOKINPANUB

When I hear the word duster I think of a flowery housecoat such as Gladys Kravitz might wear and I must ask you if you work it with fuzzy slippers and curlers in your hair (yes, I know what kind of duster you’re actually referring to).

When I hear the word duster I think of this and this.

[Scumpup]

@Slithy_Tove

The whole duster thing amused me (a fashion trend that the Columbine shooters ruined, in a very unamusing way). Supposedly what Australian cowboys wore, or badass bounty hunters, etc.

“Duster” was a polite substitute for “shitter,” since they were black versions of the stable coats issued to US cavalrymen. The James Gang wore them to the Northfield robbery posing as cattle buyers. They’re not for riding but for walking around livestock, who will lift a tail and piss and shit all over you, or whip you with a poopy tail.

Mine actually looked like the stable frock in your picture, only longer and with a leather collar. It was even a yellowish color.

[fachverwirrt]

I cross my 7s and Zs, because my handwriting is terrible and I figure people (including me) can use all the help they can get.

But in general, I’m not pretentious at all. I really am that deep.

[edwardcoast]

@stillownedbysetters

I’m having a good giggle remembering my early pretentions (and enjoying everyone else’s, too).

The summer after I graduated high school, I spent the summer laying on the beach schlogging through Mein Kampf in German, absolutely positive that someone brilliant and worth knowing would spy it and be instantly drawn to me.

I wandered through art galleries, loudly proclaiming nonsense about works of art, thinking it made me appear intelligent (“It’s typical of the rigid dogma of slavish imitation.”)

I wore a beret.

I drank lapsang souchong tea, even though I didn’t particularly like it.

I called people anagars.

I ordered obscure beers in college bars, simply because I knew they didn’t have them. I would then turn my nose up in disgust, mumble something about heathens and ask for “water, just water”.

Gawd, I must have been an annoying little s**t.

Anagars? Please educate us.

[WOOKINPANUB]

@edwardcoast

Anagars? Please educate us.

She fat fingered “onagers” and basically it’s a fancy way of calling people an ass. And the more I think about it, the more I like it

[Penfeather]

@Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil

OK let’s see. I was a huge fan of The Cure so I was no stranger to ridiculously big hair, black clothes only, black nail polish, lipstick and a general I’m-oh-so-miserable-sigh look. But that’s not really prententious, just silly.

The hair just reminded me: at the height of grunge, when everyone else was trying grow their hair to look like the bassplayer in Soundgarden, I went through a phase of cropping mine extremely short, like skinhead short. Which was fine in itself, except that I’d tell anyone who’d listen that it was a “sublimated form of self-mutilation”.

[OneCentStamp]

@Shodan

I don’t have any pretentious habits, and I never did.

Regards,
Shodan

oops

This is my favorite post all week.

[OneCentStamp]

Hmm…

Used to do

• High school/college: carry a guitar case everywhere it was possible to do so, even if I wasn’t on my way to or from practice, so that everybody knew I was a guitar player. In hindsight, this was approximately as subtle and as mature as a 7-year old boy who has karate class at 9:00AM, then begs his mom to let him wear his uniform for the rest of the day.
• Adulthood: if I was reading a cool book, make sure to carry it around and read it conspicuously in public. (Nabokov got pulled out on the train; Grisham stayed on the nightstand at home.) Considering that I had to add Dr. Seuss to my Goodreads list just to push Dean Koontz (or was it Patricia Cornwell?) out of my top 5 most read authors, this behavior made me not only Douche Baggins, but a poser of the first order as well. This really only ended with the purchase of my first Kindle five years ago.

Still do

• I’m still pretty flowery in speech, and I use occasional British idioms or constructions, even though I’ve never been to GB. (No fake accent; I do have some modicum of self respect.) The physician from Idiocracy would almost certainly diagnose me with “You talk like a fag, and your shit’s all retarded.”

[Spice_Weasel]

@Moriarty

For a time, during the pretentious graduate school years, I wore obnoxious t-shirts to portray my disdain for “the establishment”. After Bush won re-election in '04, I paraded around my classes with a shirt that said “Stupidity causes cancer.” Another favorite said “Freedom is a myth.” I also used to play angry rock in my car (like Rage Against the Machine or System of a Down) really, really loud, with the windows down, just daring somebody to notice.

I’d have noticed. When I was 17 I worked with this guy who wrote ‘‘FREE TIBET’’ in soap on his car’s rear windshield. He felt ways about stuff. So dreamy.

@JKellyMap

I did wear a Radiolab t-shirt into a coffee bar recently where I knew there would be interesting people half my age hanging out. Is it “pretentious” when you’re just trying to use a marker to help others identify a genuine mutual enthusiasm? Maybe it depends on what you’re hoping that mutual recognition will lead to. A brief, knowing look, giving you a moment of self-satisfaction? Sounds pretentious, but what’s wrong with wanting to make a few brief human connections with strangers?

I ask myself this a lot. I think of ‘‘pretentious’’ as something you do to impress others. I have always been quite sincere in my interests, and if I was open about them, it was usually in an attempt to meet others and have interesting conversations. Are there some things that are inherently pretentious, regardless of intent?

Radiolab is fuckin’ awesome, by the way. I also recommend The Nerdist.

@WordMan

At a parent-teacher conference last night, my son’s English teacher was pointing out that while commenting on Camus’s The Stranger, he referenced Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground. When the other kids didn’t know of it, a couple of them giggled and he got frustrated and thought he was being made fun of.

Oh. He was definitely being made fun of.

Not that I have room to talk, I’ve read both books. My prentious thing is that in college I became obsessed with Nietzsche and existentialist literature. It was a 100% sincere love but at one point I even took German so I could read Nietzsche’s original words. (Never actually learned German well enough to read Nietzsche.) I still find the relationship between Nietzsche’s personal life and his philosophy utterly fascinating.

When I was 14ish, I read Catcher in the Rye and it blew my little mind. In my English class one of the first things I submitted was an essay called ‘‘Holden Caulfield Changed My Life.’’ It is the most pretentioius thing I have ever read. (I still love that book.)

Guess I haven’t changed much. I can see how others would mistake my sincere passion for pretension.

[minor7flat5]

The leather jacket thing got me thinking…

For decades I wore only Swiss diver’s watches, rated to go … very deep. And I may have occasionally actually have immersed them in the swimming pool.
Now those watches are sitting in a pretentious watch winder as I wear my Apple Watch every day (my gadget geek side dominated).

On the “still do it” front, one of the nice things about being a musician when you are older is that you probably have a good job and don’t have to use cheap instruments. So, I play a Gibson L-4 jazz box, one of the nicer jazz guitars one can buy off the rack. The thing is, I suck at jazz, so if I were to ever go somewhere with it, people would think “oooooh…what a cool guitar…can’t wait to hear this cat play” followed by “what a poseur!”

I have intentionally taken crappy guitars to places in order to avoid this scene.

[Hello_Again]

@Jophiel

Back in high school/college, I trained myself to cross my 7’s and Z’s as “European”. Eventually I got a job where I was writing numbers constantly and couldn’t be bothered to do so any longer. I never needed to do it to prevent confusion, I only did it because I thought it was special and unique.

Full disclosure: I still make closed-top 4’s.

I cross z to this day, because my Z and 2 look really similar. But I confess: in high school I decided to start dropping the f below the line, to be cool or something.

[JKellyMap]

@OneCentStamp

This is my favorite post all week.

Agreed (referring to Shodan’s).

And, SpiceWeasel, thanks for the Nerdist heads-up. Check out Futility Closet – a bit mom-and-pop, but it’s pretty cool.

[Enola_Straight]

@jabiru

I used to smoke Black Sobranie cigarettes. If I was still a smoker, I think I’d enjoy doing so to this day.

@kopek

Under “used to” I would say smoking straights with a cigarette holder and using the word “albeit” often in casual conversation (long before The Master made it popular to do so). One I’m still guilty of is using mostly fountain pens; packing one around with me most of the time rather than the usual disposable pen.

[BigBlue]

Think back to when you were freshmen … I myself was so obnoxious the seniors beat me up once a week.

[JKellyMap]

@BigBlue

Think back to when you were freshmen … I myself was so obnoxious the seniors beat me up once a week.

Luxury!

Are Monty Python references pretentious? If so, we might need to change the name of this place to the Pretentious Message Board …

[WordMan]

@minor7flat5

On the “still do it” front, one of the nice things about being a musician when you are older is that you probably have a good job and don’t have to use cheap instruments. So, I play a Gibson L-4 jazz box, one of the nicer jazz guitars one can buy off the rack. The thing is, I suck at jazz, so if I were to ever go somewhere with it, people would think “oooooh…what a cool guitar…can’t wait to hear this cat play” followed by “what a poseur!”

I have intentionally taken crappy guitars to places in order to avoid this scene.

Oh, dude, my guitars are so far above me, it’s not even funny. With your username, I assumed you were a jazz cat (it’s the same username as pro player Eric Skye on the Acoustic Guitar Forum who plays Miles Davis on flattop acoustic - so amazing.)

I used to have a '54 Gibson L-7c - the acoustic version of your guitar, basically. Such an amazing jazz guitar…that I had no business owning. It was the equivalent of being a car fan, having no special driving training, needing a commuter, and buying a Ferrari. I was so desparately hoping I could pull it off, like, I dunno, wearing leather pants or something ;). But, once again, I am not part of the small percentage of folks who can groove a great archtop. A man’s got to know his limitations.

[edwardcoast]

@digs

But everyone assumes I’m a pilot when I wear my bomber jacket, right?

I mean, I’m just wearing it to my teaching job, but I’m sure everyone figures that right after classes I’m making a daring midnight bomber run to take out an ISIL stronghold in Syria, right?

Oh, yeah, for sure. When I see someone wearing aviator glasses, I just assume they are going to be yelling into a microphone “Chopper 1, chopper 1 returning to base” within minutes after leaving the building.

[JustinC]

@fachverwirrt

I cross my 7s and Zs, because my handwriting is terrible and I figure people (including me) can use all the help they can get.

But in general, I’m not pretentious at all. I really am that deep.

I cross my 7s for the same reason, but figured it isn’t worth it with Zs as if someone can’t read a word with a bad Z then I have more to worry about. I use Britishisms and Americanisms and don’t see either being pretentious as they’re in my mother tongue.

[Enola_Straight]

Has no-one mentioned wearing a monocle?