Related Recs

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forming an identity outside of your consumer choices

Of course the media someone chooses to consume and the things they like to buy can signify certain personality traits but these choices aren’t personality traits in and of themselves. people take criticism of things they like as a personal attack and I think this is partly why there’s such a dearth of incisive cultural criticism today. Encouraging people to personally identify with the products they buy = the devil’s marketing strategy…

@taterhole

Oct 7, 2024

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MISANTHROPY

Recently a close friend (my ex-boyfriend) called me a misanthrope. I felt a little insulted, but I didn’t disagree… Scrooge is a misanthrope. That guy notoriously really sucks until he isn’t a misanthrope anymore. Then everyone decides he’s better. I’m not sure I agree with this. Maybe Scrooge was right all along! Scrooge’s real issue was the degree in which he was misanthropic (also his hoarding of wealth but that’s not what this is about). You can’t let it control your life. But a little bit of misanthropy never hurt anyone. Am I really a misanthrope? Sure, yeah, I don’t really like people! Or at least… I don’t like most people. Or maybe what I mean is that I don’t like people because I have to or because I should. The sole reason I like a person isn’t just because they are talented or successful or beautiful or (ugh) popular. Sure, if someone I do like has those qualities then that’s great of course… But for a long time, I think I may have deluded myself that some of my friendships were deeper than my attraction to those qualities and how they benefited me and vice versa. Like an ouroboros of narcissism disguised as friendship and intimacy. For a long time, I was nervous to give in to what felt like my less personable traits, like being critical of people, or being reclusive, because I didn’t want to degrade my social capital, I didn’t want to be perceived as the bitch I was afraid I really was deep down inside. But the more I felt guilt over my feelings of dislike, the more I started to hate myself, the more I started to act in ways that I never would have, had I just been more conscious of the reasons behind my lifestyle in the first place. And I know that not everybody has experienced this, but I know I’m not the only one who has. The realization that I was living a life that was a rejection of my actual self in order to protect my place in “the world” was not an easy one to come to. It’s not like it’s easy to admit to yourself that you aren’t immune to the shallowest impulses of human behavior and connection. It’s so much easier to continue pretending that you enjoy the presence of everyone around you, that you like all the things they do and make and say. It’s easy to accept someone as being interesting and smart because everyone says they are and because they are right there looking at you, talking to you. And so it’s then very easy to assume that you are also smart and interesting, because they are, or at least everyone says they are. And if questioning someone's merit also questions yours? Well it’s just easier to not. It’s easy because it feels good to be liked, it feels good to be liked by people who other people like. It feels good to receive admiration for simply ‘being’. But just because something is easy doesn’t mean it’s right. And just because something feels good doesn’t mean it’s good for you. And this is where a little touch of misanthropy comes in to save the day. And not like, hate for mankind! Just an acceptance of your own moral failings, and those of the people around you. It’s weird because as soon as I took myself out of the center of the dissatisfactions of my life, only then was I finally able to honestly relate to everyone. It’s like… We are all equal to each other in our inadequacies, but then different in what we do about it. So, once you’ve come to the realization that you might suck and that the people around you might suck, and that both of these things lend themselves to making the entirety of your life suck, you can take action!

@blu-hunt

Oct 13, 2022

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smug little bastards

I was going to 🚫 anti-rec this but then I realized that people—who really are in fact people, complex and dynamic and unique, not one-dimensional characters, not bit parts in my life, not non person characters, or whatever—I realize that people, with their rough edges, like the smug little bastard that just came to mind (he's not really a smug little bastard, but he was once in that one moment, in that one coffee shop, giggling chubbily and saying people "should stay in their lane") — — I realize that people, with their rough edges and sharp elbows and blindspots, are in fact a gift to me: because that visceral reaction within me is in fact a pretty damn good mirror that reveals my own rough edges and blind spots So here's to those people that annoy us, irritate us, and rub us the wrong way: may we become better because of them! (And they because of us)

@mattshawsome

Mar 26, 2025

Top Recs from @nathanpthousand

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Astrophotography

I quit smoking cigarettes so I needed something else to stand around outside doing. So far I’m not very good at it but it’s really put into perspective what a waste of money cigarettes are.

@nathanpthousand

Mar 9, 2025

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CONTEXTUALIZING THE MOON

4.5 billion years ago a planet named Theia got a little squirrelly and smashed into proto-earth and they splattered rocks and lava into space and it made a ring that eventually collected into a ball and now I’m looking at it hovering over Dick’s Sporting Goods

@nathanpthousand

Apr 12, 2025

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ART MUSEUMS

gimme that peak experience I wanna feel part of something so big and profound and yet so small and insignificant at the same time

@nathanpthousand

Apr 7, 2025