Jesus you know what's bothering me?
i mean
jesus, you know what's bothering me?
i think i just made it worse.
to clarify i'm not actually talking to jesus, although if he's out there he'll be more than welcome to listen in.
lost in translation - the digital age edition, that's something i will also be addressing a little
ok back to what's pissing me off at this moment
There are people out there on their email/facebook/etc. statuses saying stuff like:
"ice cream :)"
"watching a movie :)"
those make me sufficiently annoyed.
the :) is added not because out of habit, but rather to make it SEEM like it's out of habit
those people who put that are aware that they are sounding ditzy and pretentious by documenting their friggen boring, menial, daily activities so they try to mellow it out with a smiley face.
the smiley face implies several things, the most prominent of which are:
1. they have are having a blast all day everyday
2. their life is awesome 24/7
3. they are nice, cute, and bubbly people - WHEN I KNOW THEY ARE NOT
godamn...i mean i know these people. i KNOW these people.
now of course i don't know know them like i know their deep dark secrets
but let's clarify again - i know enough - to KNOW.
but the stuff that makes me absolutely, positively, annoyed is stuff like this:
"chem :)"
before i go on a rant i need to give a little background story.
In the place where i live, it is not only good to be a nerd, but GREAT. i mean jocks (if there are truly any) have to compete with nerds. Of course it's not always black and white and the old archaic and typical high school hierarchy which has been ingrained by mainly midwestern high schools and 80s teen movies sometime seep in anyway. Nevertheless, it's basically a very academically competitive bubble of a place - which is mostly a good thing. One word to sum it up: asians. nuff said.
anyway so there it is.
so studying is good.
chem or "chemistry" is good.
:) "good"
now you've got that entire history of the place all jammed pack in to a word an emoticon.
it's a lot to take in.
and i friggen hate it.
Still not following? No problem, I was gonna continue anyway.
I'm not against studying or academics. It's a good thing. We're helping build the future of America and all that stuff...
but some people take it too much to heart and they like to show it off
they like to make out that they are smarter and ultimately better than you
the reason i hate "chem :)" is basically the same reason why i hate "ice cream :)"
because of these things that it implies:
1. they can do it all: study their ass of till the morning and show up to school with a smile on their face
2. (continuation of 1) their life is awesome because they are just natural jugglers
3. they love chemistry and is having a blast (or watever academic subject)
4. they are good at chemistry (you can't like something you're not good at)
5. they are diligent and model students
6. they are bound to good colleges
7. they are gonna be successful engineers and watever phony shit that they actually hate
8. they are participating in national science fairs in New York
But wait! there's more:
9. you don't like chemistry (even if you do - you'll feel suddenly defensive or aggressive)
10. you suck at chemistry and hate its guts(again, even if you don't)
11. you aren't diligent, you're a procrastinator (that's uncalled for because everyone procrastinates)
12. you aren't bound to good colleges
13. you aren't gonna be a successful engineer and wat not
14. you are not fattening up your resume with science fairs
oh yea:
15. your life is not awesome
16. and you can't handle it all
ok i'm biased and all but there is some truth in this
people, especially at this age perceive others through two mediums: real life interactions and the digital interface.
Most of the time you see them at school, and it's usually at lunch when everyone is just chillin'
that's 25% i'd say of your perception of others
the other 75% is when you go home and open gmail and facebook and people has already updated their stats.
and in this 75%, you get shit like "chem :)" or "physics :)" all the damn time
i know the logic and instead of devoting a paragraph into explaining this, i'll just give you a before and after thing:
"chem" vs. "chem :)"
see my point now?
the latter makes it seem like the person is actually and i mean ACTUALLY enjoying it
when you just HEARD the person complain about it during lunch that very day with plenty of inappropriate vocabulary.
*sigh
everything on the internet is....so masked
and i understand why people do that
i mean i don't wanna hear your deep dark secrets unless i'm close to you or you are in desperate need of help or i'm getting paid to do it.
on the other hand, it opposite gets a little overboard sometimes
everything sounds so happy - and that's not natural
anyway
here's my rant
hope you are...amused, to say the least.
I like your point about the internet being masked, its so true lol. I read in an article somewhere that FB apparently depresses 1 in 3 people (or something like that) because they always see people with more friends and more of a social life than them, and it's always the happy stuff that gets put on there. (E.g. if a couple's child is crying, no one's ever going to post a pic or anything about that, but of course all the happy stuff will be up, if you get what I mean, and well yeah this depresses people because everyone else's life seems so idealized)
ReplyDeleteBut:
"you can't like something you're not good at" Yes you can :O Anyhow talent by itself doesn't go very far, and anyone being "good" at anything entirely comes out of perseverence, it just takes longer for some people than others.
Also: I see how u used the word "phony" lol
Personally, I'm not quite sure how to define the word "phony" because it's a generalized and oversimplified term. Unless you mean insecurity. I'm sure the ":)"'s were there as a means to brag, or simply to get attention I guess, which is just human nature (or else humans won't be social beings. The essence for friendship is basically mutual attention lol aka "love." XD)
(there were quite a number of other generalizations, as you prob know already, but okay I'll stop typing now lol)