So I’m continuing on with my musings about family dysfunction, how difficult it is to be so different, and how I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut. And, yes, I’m going to tie them together somehow (or not). I’m not too fussed either way. In the last post, I talked about family dysfunction mostly. I will touch more on that, but I want to start by musing about masking. I didn’t even realize to what extent I did it until I talked about it with A. It’s such a part of me by now, it takes conscious effort to take it off.
I am on my guard almost any time I interact with someone, online or in the real world. I am constantly monitoring the temperature around me to know if what I am saynig in acceptable or not. In the Discord I’m in, there’s an in-group and an out-group. Or rather, there are a few (cishet white) guys who are pretty dominant and others fall in line behind them. It’s not deliberate and they don’t mean to be, but god grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man.
Not that they are mediocre, but they are cishet white dudes who have no problem just stating their opinions like they’re facts. It’s really irritating when it comes to pop culture because I don’t feel that there’s room for disagreement. For example. Sekiro. Many people consider it the best From game ever. People will blather about how once it clicks, it’s like a dance/rhythm game and soooooo easy. They don’t want to hear anything about it not being true for everyone. Or that for some of us, it never clicked. I had a hard time finishing it once–a really fucking hard time. When I tried to go back to it after my medical crisis, I could not beat Owl (Father) who was my nemesis, and who I needed to beat again, unfortunately, for the plat. I say unfortunately because I did him on my first playthrough, thinking I would not play again and wanting to do all the bosses on this path. The only reason I would go back is to do the plat, and that would mean doing him again.
No. Not going to do it. Also, cannot do Isshin again. Oh, and you have to do all the bosses (the ones you get a trophy for) on one save, so I would have to do Owl (Father) on NG?. And then do the Shura (bad) ending on NG++? Nope. I wasn’t going to do it, anyway, and now, I can’t do it.
That’s a word that Americans don’t like: can’t. We have been told since we were kids that we can do anything! We can be anything! It’s horseshit. Everyone has limitations, and that’s not even remotely controversial. Or it shouldn’t be.
I mentioned Sekiro because certain people like to state with great conviction that it’s the best From game ever! Either that or Bloodborne! I demur when I feel up to it, but I know it’s futile. I know that no one will listen to me (except for the one or two others who agree with me), but I stubbornly continue to do it.
I also don’t like that there’s a groupthink going on that can get uncomfortable at times. I mean, I know that’s what happens in any group, but it’s one reason I don’t do groups in general. I get irritated with groups sooner or later, so this is just par the course fo me. In this case, it shows up in weird ways. In one case, it was the group coming together against one commenter (who doesn’t comment any longer). He was a very trying person in general, yes, but I was uncomfortable with how the producers (the tier I’m in) would go into the producer room (because this person was on a lower tier and could not access it) and complain about him.
One time, they were upset because he shit on a Star Wars thing they all liked. They sneered at him for being a contrarian (but not to his face), and I was not happy about it. Why? Because people are allowed to not like something popular.
Side note: Captain Awkward coined the term, “Don’t yuck someone else’s yum.” It means to let people like what they like and not give them shit for it. I agree with that, but also, I hate that it’s now grown to mean you can never say anything negative about, well, anything. Even in her original example (people talking about how much they love a movie, you should not talk about why you don’t like it) was problematic to me. She was talking about it in terms of someone asking her how to stop being mean (not how I remembered at all), and I did not agree with some of it right away.
Her point was that if you’re casually talking to someone and they mentioned that they loved something, you should not jump on it right away. Which I get if you’re trying to make connections, but at the same time, as someone who is very much a smoother-over (me) and someone with all the outlier tastes, it’s pretty isolating never to be able to offer my true opinion off the rip. In addition, I don’t think you have to be mean when you mention that you don’t like something. Also, I don’t think it’s doing any favors to pretend to be interested in something you hate.
Again, I’m coming at it from the viewpoint of the person who likes all the niche stuff. And it’s wearying not to have reciprocal interest. I think that’s my biggest issue with what Captain Awkward wrote. To be fair, she wrote it specifically to someonoe who wanted to be not so mean to people, so it makes sense in that capacity.
But, as I sraid, it’s now being stretched to mean not ever saying anything negative about anything someone likes. Which is horseshit because people sure as hell don’t mind saying negative things about what I like. Idon’t care because I don’t base my identity on any of that (except maybe Taiji/Bagua, and negativity about that doesn’t bother me because people don’t know anything about either, really), but I do get irritated by the hypocrisy.