having friends who don't know anything about anything and are into really lame shit c/d

hanging out with friends the last couple of days and noticing: one reading tuesdays with morrie, wearing a dave matthews shirt, another listening to war child cd constantly and giving me a blank look when i for some reason mentioned hunter s thompson. and there's been lots of other things and i wonder if it goes deeper than any particular clue, and whether such (to me) massive blind spots and seemingly passively-determined tastes are indicative of a profound incuriousness, and more importantly, to what extent does that matter, will it start to matter more over time, etc. really it only manifests itself when some kind of topical thing comes up, when they usually offer the most boring kind of received wisdom, if anything.

i know i sound like an asshole and i guess this thread could be trouble on a few fronts: the type of things i notice they are clueless about are by necessity things i'm interested in, so it's not really a fair representation of them maybe. and i probably sound like i think im really tuned in, when really i just spend a lot of time on the internet (but also reading and listening and digging deeper into things that seem like they might be interesting bc it's an interesting world i think). and i can't help comparing them to ilx but is that level of engagement too much to ask? am i really that far off to think books like tuesdays with morrie or whatever are usually read by someone who decides to read a book, but has no interests to pursue so just grabs something to fill a gap.

i know this is some tired strawmanning but ftr im less interested in bad taste, which i can even respect and which is subjective regardless, than a lack of curiousity about the world. not knowing hunter thompson struck me not because im a huge stan or anything but because i dont really understand how a 26 year old dude who is my friend could never have heard of him. and then, if you haven't even heard about, say, him, how much of what i say to you drops into some contextless void and why are we even talking about things.

it just seems like in an age where everything is available, to play such a tiny role in what you end up spending your leisure time on is...odd, and lazy, and maybe important enough to consider.

so, similar stories? does it matter?

http://progressiveboink.com/archive/peanuts-by-charles-bukowski

friends happen in a very curious manner, and not always because of the same exact interests. sometimes, you keep the friends you do for other reasons: love, comfort, familiarity, a sense of family. being curious about the world is wonderful, but not every friendship is going to be an amalgam of shared passions and insights. i try to be grateful for what i do share with my friends, at the same time that i understand their limitations, and my need for different people in life.

wait until you have kids. They haven't heard of anything!

This is one of the major reasons I can't make many friends. Too many people - who aren't unintelligent - just seem to not really know much and its due to a lack of curiosity or interest in the world around them. I mean, I'll bring up shit I learned in fucking junior high about world history or science and they'll be like "how did you get so smart?" I just want to stand up and yell at them:

"BECAUSE I WAS A LONELY AND SOCIALLY AWKWARD TEENAGER WHO ACTUALLY PAID ATTENTION IN CLASS - IN AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL NO LESS WHERE THE CURRICULUM IS FUCKING ONE-THIRD THE COMPLEXITY OF ANY OTHER WESTERN INDUSTRIAL NATION! HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET SO STUPID?!?!?"

But I don't. I just sit there and go "oh I don't know. I guess I just read a lot." I don't really mind, but apparently other people don't want to hang out with some "super genius" like myself who make them feel stupid because I can make an off the cuff joke about the 3/5ths compromise and they don't know what that is.

xpost
get new kids!

Can't you just enjoy 0.6 of the conversation?

everyone has different talents, and intelligences. i try to remember that.

i don't know who hunter thompson is, even though i've heard the name. but i'm a kickass judge of character and i can write a decent melody if i want to.

Oh yeah, that is totes key. OTOH that doesn't mean I want to bro down with all of them.

xp

I have felt that way about my friends sometimes, too, Rent. I think it's a matter of intelligence. Some people just do not have a curious outlook on life and don't take an interest in learning things about the world and they come off as boring to those of us who do. It's not that they don't know about certain things, it's that they don't feel any drive TO know.

even "smart" people have gaps in knowledge about subjects they supposedly "should" know about.

it's not a good excuse to condescend to other people imo.

body odor is a good excuse though

sometimes, you keep the friends you do for other reasons

this is basically it. the friends i'm talking about are great for going out and getting drunk and into trouble, and they are genuinely good people who i know would have my back in a second and who i would probably turn to first if i had to. and then i've also had the experience of having friends whose interests are so in concert that you run out of stuff to talk about for the opposite reason.

but it can be annoying because you do have to try not to come across as a dick when eg a buddy tells you to check out the celestine prophecy replete with fake backstory. which actually happened recently and is not isolated in its innanity.

i just wonder whether, without alcohol or some common diversion, we would actually have much to say to each other, and whether that matters. i wonder i wonder.

xpost. i really try not to condescend. i know this thread seems to suggests otherwise. xxp lol tru

I remember being ruined in a 10th grade car because I didn't know who Don Henley was.

yea, but common diversions are what friends do. and friends drink together. that doesn't mean your connections aren't valid.

This is one of the major reasons I can't make many friends. Too many people - who aren't unintelligent - just seem to not really know much and its due to a lack of curiosity or interest in the world around them.

http://blogs.skokielibrary.info/studio/files/2009/03/animalcollective.jpg

surmounter is otm, but i think rent is onto something about lack of curiosity / questions about the world / self-questioning / really wondering about things and looking at them in new lights. i don't think it's a question of intelligence that differentiates people who tend to be like that and people who don't, it's more about character, and if anything, although i prefer to talk to / interact with people who are open to new experience and more importantly really think about it and interrogate it, sometimes a person who doesn't do that as much is better at other equally important things and they know it and don't feel the need to change. i feel like i need that satisfaction and stasis in some people to balance the searching but unsatisfied qualities in others and myself.

i've been thinking about this because i met this guy at a bar last weekend, ended up talking with him at ihop afterwards. nice, decent person, but he was sort of hot topic-y in how he viewed himself vs. "normal" gay culture. i'd rather be friends with a self-confident queen than with someone who halfway justifies being "underground" without really thinking about it.

my best friend is totally different than that -- straight, kind of a yuppie, or maybe a "YIPSTER," I don't know -- who got a jazz composition degree (LOL) and has been working the same serving job / looking like the same late 90s Gap model for years. even though he tends toward certain mainstream-ish tastes, he does it out of instinct, and the rest of his life he ends up scrutinizing and questioning in an engaged way. i love talking to this guy because i get hit with a lot of insights, some bordering on larry-david-trivial, some with real depth, and even though he doesn't share some of my taste and sometimes comes across as a little closed or prudish or snobbish, he's really smart and engaged, and i appreciate him more for that.

Why are *you* into the stuff you're into? If it's just for the pleasure of a funny story or a popular tune, maybe your friends get the same things out of the lame stuff they like? Mainstream stuff has a lot of merits anyway, it's generally more professional and reliable, and the ability to share it with a wider society is pretty cool.

With cool and obscure stuff though, a lot of the appeal is knowing things other people don't. It's kind of fun to at least think condescending, if not to actually be condescending - you're right that that's an easy way to sound like an asshole. But there are certain things that cool stuff can't give you, and by definition a large-scale communal experience is one of these. It's having your cake and eating it to want other people to independently get into the same nooks you've painstakingly hollowed out for yourself.

Plus, once you discovered e.g. a place like ILX where it's pretty hard to outcool your peers, that pressure's kind of off and you can just enjoy stuff for the sake of it. Having said that, I can get a similar kind of kick today out of being into totally mainstream stuff, now that most of the people I know have developed niche interests to some extent. It's quite fun to big up U2 to a serious rock fan, for totally valid reasons, or Pizza Express to a foodie.

far as the title of the post, i wouldn't say that about anybody i am friends with. but something i miss terribly from grad school world (which was otherwise hell on earth) was getting into serious discussions about literature/philosophy/cinema with a couple people there. over unbelievably amazingly excellent senegalese food + lots of coffee and cigarettes. sadly each of them's on the opposite side of the country now.. and i find i don't push myself so much anymore to keep up on these things because i don't sit around and talk about them. and i think they're perpetual students just to actually stay in a world where most people are engaged with the same things. i sometimes run into a guy from my undergrad who's always been pretty intense about these fields but he's the kind of person.. known him for a long time and he's hardly a bit less distant than he was in the late 90's. oh well.

I'm always trying to find friends who keep pursuing their education after they're finished with school by teaching themselves about different schools of thought and random skillz. A good friend is hard to find!

for me though on this point it's less about where your tastes lie as the their depth and breadth or lack thereof. obviously your interests are partially a product of your surroundings, especially in the beginning. but at some point i dont understand how you dont at least try to take some initiative. i have friends whose tastes haven't budged since high school, so that they still have the same 20 pearl jam and red hot chili peppers albums on constant rotation. i dont know how someone could stand that, even without the thought occurring "i must be missing tons of good stuff."

xpost to ismael

i've stuck with my closest friend of.. wau, nearly two decades, but have the impression a lot of the time she's thinking, god, you're weird.

i have friends whose tastes haven't budged since high school
this! i should talk, though, i'm currently listening to the new jack swing i was into in middle school/early high school XD

Yeah, ok rent, I don't get that either. I had a similar experience with some university friends that I've long planned to write about here, actually. Britpop was the big thing through my student days, but had obviously died by the time I left, and at that time there were a few UK developments jockeying to take over. Garage was one of these, so I went to see Craig David when he was getting popular. I happened to bump into university friends, mentioned that I'd been to the concert, and took massive abuse for it - from people who were still buying Oasis albums and going to Shed Seven reunion tours! I've never understood this.

im worried that it sounds like im stressing about whether i can remain friends with someone who still likes pearl jam, which isn't the point of course. its that they still ONLY like pearl jam because they dont care and what if anything that says about them nore broadly, and whether this internet nerd/english grad has a meaningful future with them or whether it will just get more strained over time.

ha, daria, obv new jack swing is still cool

hunter s thompson? how adorable. have you read marek hlasko's _the eighth day of the week_? now THERE was a badass. they called him the "communist james dean," you know.

yeah ismael i have friends who will still fly across the country to see oasis and while asking them whether they think its not premature to start going down memory lane at the exclusion of all other avenues wouldn't change anything obviously, i worry (a little) that if oasis keeps playing for the next 40 years they'll keep going to see them and talking about them, i guess in part to try and recapture some happy high school memories or to commemorate the Nth anniversary of when their tastes stopped developing, and ill have to sit through dinner parties filled with this kind of thing, which maybe i can liveblog here.

I feel like this is so much less of a problem for me than it was in high school - I'm not sure whether this is cause most everybody went to college, or because wikipedia was invented

guys for every one of your friends that you think "what a weiner, he still listens to oasis" about, there's two dudes lurking on this forum that think you guys are square losers because you know of the right Modeselektor 12"s.

*DON'T know of the right Modeselektor 12"s.

Both versions of your point work!

haha, yep!

no one has the responsilibity to seek out "new" and "exciting" things. that urge is completely voluntary, and is usually mostly fueled by posturing to show off to other people that do.

my mom has a fit if i bring home a movie with subtitles. i still love my mom.

To a certain extent. But some folks have naturally short attention spans and voracious cultural appetites.

xp

My best friends don't read much and have okay tastes in music, but they're witty and curious about the world. What else do I need?

I just don't understand this obsession with taste: I want arguments not opinions. What's more important than taste is judgment.

But I don't. I just sit there and go "oh I don't know. I guess I just read a lot." I don't really mind, but apparently other people don't want to hang out with some "super genius" like myself who make them feel stupid because I can make an off the cuff joke about the 3/5ths compromise and they don't know what that is

No offense, but this is just creepy.

guys for every one of your friends that you think "what a weiner, he still listens to oasis" about, there's two dudes lurking on this forum that think you guys are square losers because you know of the right Modeselektor 12"s

That would be a fair and amusing point, except that we're not talking about obscure stuff, I was taking abuse for liking the new, popular, groundbreaking-thing-that-the-kids-are-into - i.e. what Oasis were five years earlier. I had thought that was why my contemporaries got so excited about it at the time, but evidently I was wrong (and I still occasionally take abuse for it now, ten years later!)

What iatee says is right though - I'd've been annoyed about it when I was a kid, now I just find it a bit bewildering. Plus I have a sneaking suspicion that it's not really dignified for a grown adult to care so much about this stuff (ahem)

Plus, once you discovered e.g. a place like ILX where it's pretty hard to outcool your peers, that pressure's kind of off and you can just enjoy stuff for the sake of it. Having said that, I can get a similar kind of kick today out of being into totally mainstream stuff, now that most of the people I know have developed niche interests to some extent. It's quite fun to big up U2 to a serious rock fan, for totally valid reasons, or Pizza Express to a foodie.

i've noticed this reversal lately where friends who are now married dads are really into deep music like radiohead and my morning jacket. it can be pretty fun to argue with them about coldplay even though i don't really like the band in the first place.

Whiney G. Weingarten, you must live in Brooklyn. In other parts of the world people are enthusiastic about art and music because they like it. A lot of times these people are older than 25 or a little more mature, and they've come to the realization that the cool game is a stupid reason to do anything.

Holla!

Is Pizza Express a faster version of PIzza Hut?
I've never heard of anyone ironically enjoying bad food. Collecting it and used for hazing, maybe.
The bad food would have the last laugh.

Pizza Express is perfectly nice! There's nothing ironic about liking it, you get a decent pizza and I've had lots of good evenings eating there. It's just that no-one who took food seriously would love it - it'd be like having, say, INXS as your favourite band

if you were a rock critic

Pizza Express should use "What You Need" in an ad campaign

Whiney G. Weingarten, you must live in Brooklyn.

lol

i have a beard too fyi

Good thread.
A few things
1) Rent, in the OP does your friend listen to War Child by Jethro Tull?
2) About people who play the same old music: Have you ever been on ILM and looked at the whatcha listening to threads, or rolling ____ 2009 threads. I haven't heard 99% of the stuff mentioned. It is daunting to try to be on the music bandwagon when there is millions of artists.. and giving each artist a fair listen would take about an hour at a time. Yesterday I went in one of those 'favorite albums of 2009' threads and actually decided to pick a band and go to their myspace and hear one or two songs by them. Before yesterday I had pretty much given up on finding new bands because the task is so tedious.
3) I does appear that some friends don't have a soul when they don't care for music (except maybe DMB) and they don't discuss anything the slightest bit philosophy related. But 'not having a soul' is obviously an understatement. I don't discuss much 'big life issue' things either. I haven't read Hunter S. Thompson but I sure do love Jack Kerouac.
4) I would like to be that 'genius' because he remembers the stuff from puclic school. Last night I clarified that what my friend just explained is Dramatic Irony. He thought I was smart. I only remember the names of 2 of the 3 types of Irony: dramatic and situational.

5) I'm not going to give a similar story about friends who aren't big picture people and therefor don't seem to share the same interest in life (and music) as I do. But people here already mentioned that what we got with our friends is still pretty good. Sharing insights, humor, lust for babes, friends, hobbies/entertainment is still pretty good. I know that's not what the OP wants to talk about. I think OP wants to know how some people are the way they are. HA! Okay I do have a story. I have a friend who listens to classical music until college. Sometimes he thinks that my obscure tastes are ways of showing off. Sure I love to play my music for other people, but mostly I do it because I rather be listening to band ______ than classical music in the car. Also I would love to turn someone on to new music. Not to show off, but so people can understand where I'm coming from half the time.

I used to know someone who wouldn't listen to any music that was more that two years old. He was also a major coke head. Hey maybe the two things were related...

^^^ has to mean CONTROVERSIAL MODERATOR EDIT

Oh god, some people, not my friends, wouldn't recognize a popular Led Zeppelin song because they only listen to current radio rock and hiphop. What can we say about these people. The ones that used to blast Korn in their cars, but now they have some similar substitute band. Variations of these people make up a majority of people my age. What can we say about them?

(also Lex I have heard plenty of people say "I am not really into things", indeed as I get older I find I myself am not as into things! Even things like fashion, which might be dismissed by first year indie snobs! In fact I spend more time being bored, and doing things I think are dull, rather than being fascinated by things. Work has been a big reason for this! Do you think this kind of statement is outright incorrect, or just that it is usually unhelpful?)

the OP talks of "profound incuriousness" as the problem with the friends. I tend towards replying: profoundly incurious about EVERYTHING, or just about the things you deem worthy of being curious about? The latter rankles as elitist in an obvious way. But if it's the former, that the problem is that these people are profoundly incurious about EVERYTHING (and let's suppose you're right about this, obv. it's very hard to know; a lot of the caution on this thread is about how hard this is to know): then I can see why you wouldn't want to be their friends. It's still interesting to wonder why incurious people would make worse friends: are we looking to learn something from them? Or is their curiosity likely mean more fun and adventure for you? I mean: what do you get out of relationships with curious people that you don't out of profoundly incurious people?

and sure, i know people who don't think v deeply about the narrow band of culture they consume, but all of those people do have interesting ideas and thoughts about other subjects - politics or finance or whatever.

i am pretty sure i could tell if somebody didn't happen to like ricardo villalobos but actually was into politics/finance or something instead. I don't think it's radical to say that some people really aren't into anything.

Okay, maybe bad analogy. I just mean, geez, maybe the dude next to you likes Dave Matthews, yeah. But maybe dude could actually school your ass on Herzog/Kinski history if you gave him half a fucking chance.

or maybe he couldn't, then it'd be ok to look down on him, right?

I think ZS is kinda trolling here, I felt sorry for the dog guy too, that dog was cute.

Dude, nothing even one whit on the awesomes ZS...I don't want to turn this whole thread into a gloss of yr few statements here.

The stories he's told, about his chat with his Boulder roomies, and showing some unamused people the Tuppence site (RIP Tupp)....that they could be considered 'trolling' is bonkers to me. Like a failed anecdote and sharing things you thought were funny (that got an uncomfortable reaction) are things calculated to provoke others? This makes no sense to me!

Maybe it is this hyperanalysis of non-existent subtexts of other people's behaviors that makes it hard for me to befriend others. Maybe I'm a simp or a naïf or an aspie, who knows. I sure feel like it sometimes. But having to interface with that kind of non-innocent scrutiny as an undertone of any interaction, it makes me totally loco to know someone is doing that.

I can't handle gossips or shit-talkers or people who assume the worst about others. Not as friends anyway. I think the combination of me being a complete Pollyanna and a lady with an extremely silly sense of humor and heavy earnestness about what I do...I guess it means hardly any people are on the same 'wavelength' as me.

I've learned a long time ago that pop culture or career or culture whatevs commonalities aren't some secret handshake to friendship. I still have what seems a disproportionately difficult time making friends. That's why this thread is killing me: if the only difficult factor was shared taste...god what I'd give for that problem.

I love to learn things from people!! They get to be excited and show off and enjoy Their Thing, and I get to learn something w/o having to look it up myself -- and something else from the next person at the table, and something ELSE from the next one, and so on. The perfect combination.

If someone only shows excitement about things I have already determined I DON'T want to know, and they don't want to learn things that I know, either, then what you have left is pretty much just...DOING things. Actions. Which is fine, too -- I mean, how do most people relate to their dads? They DO rather than TALK, and that's fine in limited situations and does, actually, offer changes to learn things about people that you might not otherwise.

But a full life for a "curious" and...let's say, engaged, person will probably need a bit of all of that in it. Which explains why you can be FRIENDS with the people in question and still not grok whole huge parts of their lives.

* "offer chances to learn"

eh nothing wrong with whatever ppl are calling 'elitism'; wanting to have ppl in your life who are enjoyable to talk to about things that you find interesting and exciting is absolutely understandable. not everybody's into the same shit and some ppl are not into much of anything. i don't really understand that because life is full of wonder imo, but i also don't have kids or an all-consuming career or a dense family/hometown kind of life. there's only so much time and attention in a day.

as a response, it's ok to object that the quality of 'being into' x or y is not the be-all and end-all of human value, that's true too. generosity and humor and charisma are entirely different realms of experience and have no correlation one way or another to culture nerdery.

or maybe he couldn't, then it'd be ok to look down on him, right?

Way to miss the point entirely.

I've been sitting here trying to think of someone in my life who isn't curious about anything and I'm drawing a complete blank. I think some of you are making these people up.

my main problem is wondering how in the hell people put up with me, not with trying to put up with other people.

also, many people are just not very good at discussing/putting into words why they're into the stuff they are. doesn't mean they're incurious or don't engage with anything. esp in places like ilx, and hanging out with media/creative types, it's easy to forget that lots of people aren't default articulate.

otm lex but some people are default opposed to articulacy too.

my main problem is wondering how in the hell people put up with me, not with trying to put up with other people.

yeah I have that too. a little from column a, little from column b.

otm i sometimes get exasperated when talking to some friends who seem to be interested in not much at all but i'm also a little bit jealous because they all seem better adjusted and less socially awkward compared to neurotic, obsessive, too-many-interests me.

huh i don't know anyone who's default opposed to articulacy! unless you mean, idk, people sarcastically saying shit like "ooh that was a big word" if i use any multisyllabic word in conversation but that's just harmless insecurity really

I've been sitting here trying to think of someone in my life who isn't curious about anything and I'm drawing a complete blank. I think some of you are making these people up.

No no no, I mean, I really DID know those people with no books and no hobbies blah blah, but they're an extreme and mostly what I'm trying to say in this thread (and I think several other people are also) is that the people who mystify us still THINK they're being curious and stuff, but actually look around very very little at their options. They're way more likely to consume the thing that's thrust in front of them and wonder why YOU are spending time & energy looking for something less available, less convenient, and less acceptable to a wide range of people.

huh i don't know anyone who's default opposed to articulacy!

wow you have no idea how lucky you are

I don't think it's radical to say that some people really aren't into anything

That's the bit that I find really difficult to accept - even though I've seen evidence of it my whole life, I kind of feel that it *must* be wrong, just because it's so far outside how I do things. The only feasible explanation that I've come up with is that they are into things, they just don't talk about it - or that they really don't have any interests as such, but in watching whatever's on ITV every night they gain access to some kind of all-consuming communal experience that I, hunched over my keyboard talking to a handful of geeks about Modeselektor 12"s, can't begin to understand.

Hello, most of America between the coasts and not in an urban center! xp to Dan and also to lex

Roz otm, when I came to art-school and was suddenly given the freedom to just be completely immersed in stuff I thought was interesting, it was a pretty hard knock for my social skills, only now recovering by the way. I met up with a few old friends from school who've all kinda stuck together and gotten really into their own stuff, and we both found it pretty fucking impossible to make small talk.

Abbott I am sorry to have offended you! I said I thought ZS was kinda trolling because:

1) Lots of people have had a v strong negative reaction to the whole idea of the OP
2) ZS (whom I like! He has finished ninja gaiden!) was supporting a controversial idea with the kind of examples that I would imagine someone who was trolling (ie by suggesting that other people didn't "get" a certain sensibility weren't up to it, to parody the viewpoint) would choose.
3) I really like dogs and couldn't understand how someone would find that site funny rather than uncomfortable :(

ZS I am sorry if you weren't trolling and were just offering real experiences! I have been called out on ILX before and always found it unpleasant.

Oh no you didn't offend me! I'm sorry I came off as defensive.

I can see that, too; I get the feeling the world thinks I'm 'trolling' it for similar reasons. ;_; when that is not the case.

wonder why YOU are spending time & energy looking for something less available, less convenient, and less acceptable to a wide range of people

... which would also be a perfectly valid explanation to my last point. Coronation Street isn't just thrown together, it's got plot, character and humour in it like any other story - why is it that I need to seek out Hunter S Thompson to get the same kicks?

I'm not sure rent was trying to hold the dude up as the litmus test of worthiness.

You know, I always thought it was kind of funny that some people I knew in college who were passionate about intelligent or avant-garde theater had such unimaginative mainstream tastes in music, but I figured that they kind of chose their one thing to immerse themselves in and didn't really have the time or inclination to care about anything else. I think a lot of posters on this thread would forgive their lack of curiosity because of that one thing, but you have to consider that even having the opportunity to get into that one thing is a privilege and a luxury.

Simply put, a lot of people have priorities that go beyond having new cultural experiences. Things like raising kids, earning a salary, etc. Pragmatic stuff. Does this sometimes make it a challenge to talk to them, if you're a person for whom varied cultural experiences are a big part of what makes life worth living? Absolutely. But apart from wanting voters to be informed when they go to the polls, I can't get too worked up about people not knowing the stuff I know, unless they're outright hostile to it (and usually that's a defensive maneuver anyway).

Hello, most of America between the coasts and not in an urban center! xp to Dan and also to lex

― But not someone who should be dead anyway (Laurel), Monday, May 4, 2009 12:44 PM (4 minutes ago)

most of the US is between the coasts and IS in an urban center (if you're counting suburbs, which in discussions like this we probably aren't)

xp oh dude jaymc theater people always have unbelievably shitty taste in music. this is law.

....is it? Maybe I don't understand cities & suburbs. I think of most of the country as being...country.

(several x-posts) I like Coronation Street. Never watch it anymore since I left Dublin though, my Mum still says "did you see Coronation Street last night" when I speak to her on the phone!

And actually just as an addendum, I love nothing more than when someone talks about things they like, and I find it incredibly sad when someone is like "I like Band Y but they're so terrible I know you'll laugh" etc, that's just so depressing.

the US has been a majority-urban country (by pop obv) for most of the 20th century.

(xpost) the people who mystify us still THINK they're being curious and stuff, but actually look around very very little at their options

dun dun dun! COULD BE YOU. (or me. actually, really could be me.)

Also, that is how I talk about my music taste half the time..."I really like Band Y, I know they're cheesy and ridiculous, they're fun though...."

Yeah I think I actually do it too, in situations where I don't want to talk to them, so maybe I am a jerk to then say "Come on! I won't judge!" and force other people to do so.

I was about to post a description of the uncurious strawman and then I got scared that it sounded too much like my life lately!

Haha, Gravel Puzzleworth it's no big deal. I wasn't trying to troll, for what it's worth. I was guess in a really hackneyed way I was trying to show that even though I sometimes get frustrated with trying to interact with people who don't seem to exert the smallest effort to "meet you halfway" (ie, you bring up curb your enthusiasm, they bring up jackass, and then somehow you end up listening to them talk about jackass for a long time), I realize that from their perspective I'm probably the one who is doesn't know anything and is into really lame shit.

My fatal error was that I thought I could imply this point by sharing stories about feces on dollar bills and a link to an absurd dog memorial.

I'm not sure rent was trying to hold the dude up as the litmus test of worthiness.

― fillibustar superstar! (Abbott), Monday, 4 May 2009 17:50 (3 hours ago)

no, not at all. i was surprised when this happened because if you went to university or even any halloween parties in the last ten years (which this friend has), really since the terry gilliam movie, HST is totally ubiquitous. like other ppl here, im sort of loathe to use examples, and i kind of grimace reading the opening sentences of the OP because i see how it reads, but it was just an example and it actually happened and had been preceded by a few other things that led me to starting this thread just to talk about whether other people find that lack of knowledge, which could be categorized as maybe just this side of mainstream for the people in question, and more imp the lack of curiosity these things might culmulatively suggest, at all relevant when it comes to who they spend their time with. given this guy's experience, it would be maybe along the lines of him never having ever heard of thomas jefferson or ecuador or beavis and butthead or smthg. or maybe showing him that picture of che guevera and him having no idea: like, i know you've encountered this many times, so please friend why, why dont you know?

it seems a bit disengenuous to deny that there are degrees of active engagement with the world when it comes to people, or to say that everyone is equally invested in things, and just the things themselves change. "profoundly incurious" might be a bit strong but still, someone has to be at the end of the spectrum. the suggestions that the friends im talking about might be way into other things is something i kind of dealt with i thought by saying that i wasnt talking about bad or different tastes. i meant people who seem to play a very small, passive role in what they consume and pursue, haven't really made a habit of taking things in, don't do much, and as a side gambit, to what extent can that strain a relationship over time (basically they have very little to say about "things", but are still great, funny people). but, yeah, the notion that relatively incurious people don't exist has been disproven many many times over to me, whether that makes me sound like an elitist or whatever or not, idk, its true in my experience.

that said, it is all relative, and ilx is prob way near the top of that scale, and there's tons of people here (and elsewhere) who make me feel like i would probably bore them (heh) even while what they write or say is fascinating to me. but maybe we could get along really well based on the myriad other things that make people click? but then, i wonder if it could be sustained. i do agree with surmounter and others that you look to diff relationships for diff things, and nobody wants hanging out with their friends to be a chore. really if that excitement's there when a friend is talking about smthg, then the thing itself is possibly usu secondary.

i kind of regret the "lame shit" thing in the thread title but i think i unconsciously meant it in a comic book store guy way, tongue in cheek. i guess too i thought and still think it could function provisionally as a category based on diff ppl's experiences, unless you truly think nothing is lamer than anything else.

i also realize that this is maybe the type of thing you could only really consider if you had very little else to worry about. sorry if im coming across as exceedingly arrogant or young or petty.

Since Abbott was responding to me, I'd say that it doesn't really matter whether Hunter S Thompson is worthy or not, all that matters is that he's not a guy who's on telly every night. I used him because he's just a good example of somebody you probably wouldn't come across normally, but isn't at all difficult to find by following leads (basically because a large proportion of artists/critics talk about him, while only a small proportion of all readers actually read him). Use Noam Chomsky or the Velvet Underground or, I don't know, holidays in Umbria if you prefer.

Rent's point in a nutshell, as I understood it at least, is that he likes to follow these leads (hence HST is a major figure to him) while his friends don't because they are happy to take whatever's closest to hand (hence HST means nothing to them). Rent doesn't understand why his friends don't dig around like he does, and worries about the implications for his relationships. Is that fair?

(I really should be working right now)

i didnt really even look at what abbott was responding to there tbh. but, yeah, that's a fair nutshell i think.

I also respond to sounds and colors.

I guess I just picture some of the people posting in the thread to be the type that overhears a co-worker talking about having seen Twilight over the weekend and writing them off forever as "tasteless" and "unthinking".

OK I dont know if this comment was based on my one about my co-worker and Twilight but I'd just like to point out that I merely used that as an example of something I don't relate to, I specifically made the point that when I express lack of interest I dont like then being hammered with "but why? oh go on" for FOUR DAYS RUNNING, and most importantly of all, I NEVER EVER implied the co worker was tasteless or unthinking, jesus.

In point of fact: my mother sometimes says to me she feels sorry for me, because "people who are smart and thoughtful like you think too much, and you're always depressed by it. Sometimes it's nice to just live in happy ignorance".

No! Honestly I didn't even see your post about Twilight til you called me out on that! It was just the first popular large-scale culture reference I could think of that seems to get looked at with derision by a sector of "wide-ranged" people.

Oh ok, carry on then :) Funny that everyone does use it as a current reference actually, heh.

Don't mind me btw: not well, bad mood.

I think it is bcz your eyeliner, the people want you to do the wam-PIYAH movie thing.

That is the correct pronunciation of vampire, you know.

Ah, fresh victims for my ever growing army of the undead!

I have a "conservative" relative - he has to live a conservative lifestyle for his job (he is a minister). Well he complains to me a lot about this type of person...I mean he thinks it's idiotic that people have never heard of Hunter S. Thompson. He thinks that stuff is interesting, it's just that he doesn't have time for that stuff in his line of work.

and i can't help comparing them to ilx

can imagine this being said mournfully in a broken voice in a break-up speech

This is an interesting thread to re-read. The one thing I always really related to, which I felt got lost amidst the discussion of 'interests,' was the comedy-shock response to the use of the words 'traces' and 'currency,' which if you went to college and/or read books all the time, are kind of just ordinary background words, not ten-dollar show-off Poindexter words. It's moments like that which can really throttle me out of good times with people: not necessarily the gulf between their 'normal' and mine, but the sense that for them that gulf is lit up with neon and that it marks me as an Other.

I'm sure there would be lots of things I've unthinkingly done that set up that same kind of thing in the other direction - and I suspect the resistance of lex and others is them thinking THAT's what's going on in the OP.

But it's always a bummer, whether with old acquaintances, or more typically (for me) with coworkers at a job where I'm dealing with people who aren't from my class/education background, and who up until that moment it felt like we'd kinda managed to find some common ground, shared some laughs about reality TV, bitched about the day shift, whatever.

Huh, thought this had been recently revived, guess I bookmarked it after it got linked in something? We should see if crimsonhexagon can program us a trackback system or something...

Ilx = weird shits who like weird shit.

I Don't Know Anything About Everything