Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: FOMO

FOMO and pop culture

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Most of the time, I don’t care about being in on the hot thing of the moment. I’m fairly impervious to being manipulated by commercials and the like. Marketing doesn’t work on me–mostly. I have my weak points. One is the Xbox One controller. I love it to an unhealthy degree. I hate the PS4 DualShock, which means I use my PS4 as little as possible. Which is sad because the RKG lads do all their playthroughs on the PlayStation. I really wish they would play on the PC, but I get it. I actually don’t, but I know many people prefer consoles for whatever reasons.

Anyway, Ian has an Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 and brought it with him the last time he visited me. I held it and it felt so good in my hands. I loved ii. I was mentioning in the RKG Discord (because the boys are playing Elden Ring on the PS5) that I loved my Xbox One controller and someone mentioned the  Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 being the best controller he’s ever use.d. That pushed me over the edge, and I went to check the price of the controller on Amazon. And then on Xbox itself. On the latter page, it was forty bucks off. I mentioned it to Ian, and he asked if that was the Core (the pared down version). I said, no. That one was on sale for…seven dollars less. So it was $132.99 for the Core and $139.99 for the full-fledged one. I mean. If I’m going to spend that much money on a controller, I’m not going to balk at seven bucks. Plus, there is no black one in the Core category.

Long story long: I bought one. It should be here by Thursday (it’s Tuesday as I’m writing this).

Next up is Diablo IV by Blizzard. Derbler III was one of the first hardcore games I’ve ever played, and I played the shit out of it. Demon Hunter was my fave and Wizard was a close second. The former is not in Diablo IV, and the latter is the Sorcerer in this game (maybe they are actually different classes?). It’s coming out, and people are inhaling it. There are some criticisms, but it’s getting rave reviews for the most part. 89% positive on OpenCritic with 97% recommended. That’s really high! Now, I have issues with Blizzard as a company. I’ll be honest. It’s the biggest reason I have not bought the game yet. And, yes, I know there is something wrong with practically every company in the business, but that’s not a reason to not take a stand. You could say that about everything in the world. Enviorment is fucked. Why bother trying to go greener? Sexism in the States is entrenched. Why bother trying to fight it?


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Envying carefully-cultivated FOMO

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*BONUS POST*

I am so done with floors.
Shadow putting himself in a timeout.

I am experiencing FOMO right now, and I know it’s 100% on me. I’m not even talking about FOMO as in seeing how great everyone’s lives are on Facebook and wishing mine were the same. On that topic, however, I’ve been thinking how easy it is to cultivate a FOMO kind of life online. If I wanted to, I could do it in this manner. Post pictures of my trip to Malta last year. Post pics to Binghamton from a few weeks ago. Talk about how I’m going to Philly in a few months to visit my other BFF. Talk about learning sword in taiji and knowing it to the point where I’m impatient with swordplay I see in popular culture. Talk about my friends and how fortunate I am to have them. Post pictures of my cat, Shadow, especially the one I posted here in which he put himself in a timeout. I will note that he opened the drawer himself and then hopped in it. I rarely take pics of him these days, but that one was so adorable, I had to snap it. Wouldn’t you be filled with jealousy if you saw this cute face peering out at you from a drawer as you were sitting on the toilet?

I would also mention how I was eating ice cream for lunch (dairy-free, gluten-free) just because. Haagen Daz Chocolate Salted Fudge Truffle Non-Dairy, to be precise. Want to know something funny? I think the store brand dairy-free ice cream at Target is better than any of the branded ones I’ve tried. I don’t go to Target that often, however, so Haagen Dazs is good in a pinch. I can eat the same thing every day if I want (and often do), though I’m not sure others would envy that. I don’t have to ask anyone for permission to do anything, and I just bought a video game yesterday without having to negotiate it. Granted, it was a ten dollar video game (on sale), but still. All decisions are made by me and me alone. I work from home and have a flexible schedule, and all the work I do can be done anywhere as long as I have a computer and a Dvorak keyboard. I can go to bed whenever I want and get up whenever I want*, and in general, am free from normal society constraints.

The biggest way I could make people jealous is by flaunting my child-free state. I have posted many times that I am positively gleeful to be child-free. I like children in theory, and I like them in small doses, but I do not like children more than, say, two hours at a time. By children, I mean kids under six. Six to ten, maybe four hours. Ten to eighteen, a day. I’d up that incrementally until the ‘kid’ turns thirty upon which they become full adults. Is that ageist? Yes. I’ve felt that way since I was a kid, however. I’ve always liked older people, and I have a hard time relating to anyone under thirty. But. I could post pictures of me doing adult things whenever I want–and by adult, I mean going to see a movie I want to see that doesn’t have Legos in it–having a drink at three in the afternoon if I drank, etc. I know that the purpose of an online presence is make other people jealous, but I don’t see the point. And, yes, I know that’s not the actual point for many people, but for some, it absolutely is.

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I have nothing to fear except FOMO

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I’ve been struggling with FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) lately, and it’s making me uncomfortable. Amazing things have happened to friends of mine, and I’m ecstatic for them because they have worked hard and earned the amazing things. That’s not the part making me uncomfortable, obviously, but it’s the following mental thoughts that I’m loath to admit.

Let me backtrack just a little bit. I’ve been feeling stuck for–well, my whole life, but especially the last year. I’m painfully aware of how quickly time is slipping away from me, and the years are piling up at an alarming rate. I don’t give a shit about my age as a number, but the fact that I went from thirty-seven to forty-seven in seemingly a blink of the eye. I’ve been having a hard time accepting that I’m now an Old and have become even more invisible* in general society. I see people in their early thirties that I find attractive, and it’s sobering to realize they probably view me as a mom-type. There is a group I belong to on Facebook in which I feel like the Solicitous Aunt (or as the RKG boys call it, Agony Aunt) of the group. I’m sure I’m old enough to be many of their mothers, and it holds me back from fully participating. Not just because I’m an Old (and a woman to boot), but because I simply cannot relate to much of what they ‘re talking about.

Side note: I’m not a video game enthusiast as much as I’m a Dark Souls enthusiast. In addition, I don’t like playing on a console, and most of the people in the aforementioned group are dedicated console players. I hate hand-helds for many reasons, and I really can’t see any reason not to game on a PC if you can afford it. I know a PC is more expensive than a console (though it doesn’t have to be exceedingly so), but games are much cheaper because there are ever-sales on Steam, whereas games on the consoles rarely go on sale. When they do, they even more rarely go more than 50% off. On Steam, you can get games for a buck on the regular. Granted, not Triple A games, but it makes it easy in theory to dabble in games that are interesting, but I don’t want to spend a ton on.

Spoiler: I don’t want to spend more than fifteen dollars on any game because I’m cheap. There are a few exceptions, such as I will buy any FromSoft game at any price at this point. Well, within reason. I would love to play Deracine, but I’m not buying the PS VR to play it. Not only would it be the only game I would play on the PS VR, I get violently nauseous with VR. It’s a shame, though, because the game looks lovely, and I would play the hell out of it if it were a non-VR game.

Back to FOMO.

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