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The Harry Potter Glasses thing reminded me of something I hadn't thought about in years. At my primary school, every year during the Lent term, there was a formal dinner put on for the boarding kids and staff. The only things setting it apart from dinner every other day of the year were the presence of tablecloths, the food being slightly better than usual, and teachers/boarding staff sitting among pupils instead of having their own table on the other side of the dining hall. We were encouraged to dress nicely, but for the majority of us that meant just wearing our "best uniform" (blazer and tie for boys, same thing minus the tie for girls — usually reserved for Sunday services and end-of-year assemblies) since we didn't have the option of getting something actually "nice" from home. One kid in the year below me turned up wearing a Harry Potter costume two years in a row. Same movie promo glasses with "Harry Potter" written on the side in gold text, wearing his Harry Potter-branded dressing gown over a t-shirt with the Hogwarts crest, stuffed owl taped to his shoulder, the works. The first time he did that he drew the scar on with indelible marker and spent the next few days walking around with a big grey smudge on his forehead. Another yearly function we had was a summer fête in the run-up to the end of the year — kids and staff organised stalls selling food, running games with prizes, that sort of thing. Every year Harry Potter guy ran a Harry Potter quiz stall with his parents, who, as it turned out, were just as wild for Harry Potter stuff as he was. It was always his dad actually running the stall and getting way into character to the point where the younger kids adored him and the cynical 12/13 year-olds talked poo poo about the guy and made a point of turning up at his stall just to mess with him.  He was honestly a nice and academically successful dude and I can only remember people ribbing on him for it a few times; he just shoehorned Harry Potter stuff into every school-related thing he possibly could.Also at high school one of the guys in the same year and house as me got a bad reputation for never showering, badgering kids and teachers for help writing sex scenes in his fantasy novel, and pretending that pens and rulers were aeroplanes (and making the accompanying noises with his mouth) when he thought nobody was looking. When I got to know the guy a bit better and we'd both become a bit less maladjusted I found out that his parents had met at a LOTR convention in the seventies and that he had a younger brother who was a star rugby player and basically the black sheep of the family. As far as I know he turned out ok, I feel really bad for being a judgemental prick to him a few times when we were kids considering I really wasn't in a position to criticise other people for being bad awkward nerds, but we occasionally chat on Facebook now and he seems cool 
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Jul 11, 2013 09:40
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I love how being a star rugby player makes you the black sheep of the family when your parents met at a LOTR convention.
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Jul 11, 2013 09:57
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JohnOfOrdo3 posted:Well I never, I knew they weren't well respected but I had no idea it was that bad. Poor dumb anime loving nerds, they just can't catch a break. I guess we can only hope they grow out of it and become more productive members of society, at least for their own sakes. Well, I don't think "a good chunk of my identity is tied up in something I am completely passive in regards to" scores you many points no matter what it is. It's the difference between a guy who enjoys watching sports and someone who can't hold a conversation without trying to bring John Elway into it.
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Jul 11, 2013 10:40
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Question Mark Mound posted:I love how being a star rugby player makes you the black sheep of the family when your parents met at a LOTR convention. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPSzPGrazPo
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Jul 11, 2013 11:03
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Defiance Industries posted:Well, I don't think "a good chunk of my identity is tied up in something I am completely passive in regards to" scores you many points no matter what it is. It's the difference between a guy who enjoys watching sports and someone who can't hold a conversation without trying to bring John Elway into it. An excellent point, but sports is seen as a good thing to be into. I agree that it can be just as tiresome to talk to someone about Tennis for four hours as it is to listen to them babble on about Bleach episode 512 where they have a crossover with my little pony or some over tripe. But you'll find much more acceptance in society if you do know about sports. You can walk around in a football shirt all day without anyone batting an eyelid, but if you go out dressed in cosplay then you're going to get looks. Despite it being much the same principle.
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Jul 11, 2013 11:56
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JohnOfOrdo3 posted:An excellent point, but sports is seen as a good thing to be into. I agree that it can be just as tiresome to talk to someone about Tennis for four hours as it is to listen to them babble on about Bleach episode 512 where they have a crossover with my little pony or some over tripe. But you'll find much more acceptance in society if you do know about sports. You can walk around in a football shirt all day without anyone batting an eyelid, but if you go out dressed in cosplay then you're going to get looks. Despite it being much the same principle. I think the difference between a football shirt and cosplay is that you aren't wearing the helmet and pads. Anime/video game/comic book shirts are just as acceptable as football shirts are.
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Jul 11, 2013 13:31
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Improbable Lobster posted:I think the difference between a football shirt and cosplay is that you aren't wearing the helmet and pads. Anime/video game/comic book shirts are just as acceptable as football shirts are. Generally, I would disagree with this. At least not where I'm from.
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Jul 11, 2013 13:35
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Improbable Lobster posted:I think the difference between a football shirt and cosplay is that you aren't wearing the helmet and pads. Anime/video game/comic book shirts are just as acceptable as football shirts are.
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Jul 11, 2013 14:53
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Improbable Lobster posted:I think the difference between a football shirt and cosplay is that you aren't wearing the helmet and pads. Anime/video game/comic book shirts are just as acceptable as football shirts are. You're thinking of American Football, I'm thinking of English Football. What you'd call Soccer because our scummy English words apparently aren't good enough for you.  So a football shift over here is just a team shirt with a sportsman name on it, no pads or helmets. Fake edit: Question Mark Mound posted:For "soccer" football, it's far from unheard of to see people in the full shorts and tall socks get-up. Basically what I was going to say. Either way, it's all good.
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Jul 11, 2013 15:08
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Corridor posted:At the art school I'm attending, there was this one kid, 17 years old, who wore a full suit and waistcoat and tie. With greased hair. And he carried his stuff around in a briefcase. There's another kid in the class who went to the same high school as him, and she told me that he wore suits every single day at school. The funny part is that everyone else in my class is 30+ years, and nobody is impressed by his mature suaveness... just slightly confused. I can only assume this was the reason that after several months, he suddenly switched over to wearing regular clothes, like t-shirt and jeans. He looks a million times cooler and more approachable now. I'd feel worse for them, but otaku have earned a reputation for incredibly creepy sexual stuff, including pedophelia.
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Jul 11, 2013 15:45
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I had a teenage boy freak out on me yesterday in a store because I was wearing a Portal shirt. Yes, of course I like Portal, that's why I own the t-shirt, but I don't want or need to discuss the game at top volume in a public place with a stranger who's younger than my own kid. I've had enough of those exchanges that it's actually curbed my buying and wearing shirts that reference stuff.
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Jul 11, 2013 16:59
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JohnOfOrdo3 posted:You're thinking of American Football, I'm thinking of English Football. What you'd call Soccer because our scummy English words apparently aren't good enough for you. And "Soccer" is in fact a word of British origin, condensed from "Association Football," that the Americans ran with. 
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Jul 11, 2013 17:06
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Cythereal posted:And "Soccer" is in fact a word of British origin, condensed from "Association Football," that the Americans ran with. Really? I did not know that. Fair enough, I lose this round of knowing things about things. I retract my previous statement 
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Jul 11, 2013 17:51
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Dogdoo 8 posted:I'd feel worse for them, but otaku have earned a reputation for incredibly creepy sexual stuff, including pedophelia. That's because a lot of otaku culture is geared towards gross manchildren who want the girls to look like teens or younger due to their own stunted life. It's no secret that a lot of the companies producing the magical girl animes and things you'd assume were for little girls openly cater to the middle aged shut ins with disposable income and no taste. I believe the Kawaiiest or whomever has posted a chart before about the main audiences of these shows being young girls and middled age men. I'm talking stuff like Precure and incredibly cutesy, big eyed girly anime stuff. It's not that hard to understand when you realize these guys have been shut ins since highschool or possibly younger, and their social skills and mental age are still stuck at 14-16. That said, when I went for a bikeride right after a convention near me ended there was a taxi full of guys coming into my building holding all this nerd poo poo (plastic master sword knock off, yaoi paddles etc) and one was proudly hugging a Madoka character body pillow close to his body. It's hard not to have an opinion about these kinds of guys when they're so open about it. RazorBunny posted:I had a teenage boy freak out on me yesterday in a store because I was wearing a Portal shirt. Yes, of course I like Portal, that's why I own the t-shirt, but I don't want or need to discuss the game at top volume in a public place with a stranger who's younger than my own kid. I got a broteam sweater once and wore it public (It was a gift from my husband, he thought I liked it since I watched it for a while). The fattest, greasiest, nerdiest looking mother fucker wearing a fedora (or trillby, whatever) walked by and stopped once he saw the sweater. He then proceeded to do the really corny full body check out before flashing me a crooked smile. If I hadn't been in line for coffee I probably would have had him come up to me to talk about dudes screaming at games on the internet. The worst part was that I've never seen him walking around my college before. It was like wearing the shirt specifically summoned up the worst possible human being to cross my path that day.
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Jul 11, 2013 19:08
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Horrible Smutbeast posted:That's because a lot of otaku culture is geared towards gross manchildren who want the girls to look like teens or younger due to their own stunted life. It's no secret that a lot of the companies producing the magical girl animes and things you'd assume were for little girls openly cater to the middle aged shut ins with disposable income and no taste. I believe the Kawaiiest or whomever has posted a chart before about the main audiences of these shows being young girls and middled age men. I'm talking stuff like Precure and incredibly cutesy, big eyed girly anime stuff. It's not that hard to understand when you realize these guys have been shut ins since highschool or possibly younger, and their social skills and mental age are still stuck at 14-16. The thing that bothers me is that people associate that with Japan in general. So much so that when I tell people that I study Japanese culture and society, I get the "oh, I didn't know you were a pedophile  " treatment.Also, I'm bummed that I have a Voltron shirt that no one has recognized
Smoking Crow fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Jul 11, 2013 |
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Jul 11, 2013 19:25
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As someone studying Japanese culture and society, you should be ashamed to wear a shirt promoting the gaijin mish-mash mockery of Beast King GoLion and Armored Fleet Dairugger XV  Fake edit: might as well wear a Robotech shirt while you're at it
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Jul 11, 2013 20:49
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Meyers update: I was talking to my friend's mom on the phone this morning, and I asked for more info. She started to tell me about how Meyers' mother is a huge hoarder, but then her son (Meyers' brother's friend, we'll call him Nick) kept yelling "IS SHE TALKING ABOUT ANDY, I WANT TO TELL HER ABOUT ANDY" so she turned the phone over to him. Bullet points: - Andy often reverts to Meyers when he is feeling left out of a conversation. Like if Nick and Andy's brother Will are talking about a video game they play that Andy doesn't, he'll start speaking as Meyers and claim to not even know what video games are because it's 1972 or whatever. - Remember how I said that Andy refuses to wash his vintage clothes? Nick told me that once he, Will, and Andy/Meyers went to the movies, and Meyers got a little too enthusiastic with the popcorn butter dispenser and got it all over his shirt and jacket. According to Nick, that jacket still has a shiny grease mark on it, months later. Also, since they're in the South, the clothes are permeated with a persistent sweat-funk. - Will briefly had a girlfriend, before his mother's insistence that Andy be allowed to go everywhere with them drove her away. After the breakup, Andy informed Will that it was because he hadn't treated her well enough, and that when he (Andy) finally has a girlfriend, he'll ask her to marry him right away so she knows that he's for real. - Meyers is on the record has having voted for Richard Nixon in the alternate timeline.
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Jul 11, 2013 22:08
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Ascetic Crow posted:The thing that bothers me is that people associate that with Japan in general. So much so that when I tell people that I study Japanese culture and society, I get the "oh, I didn't know you were a pedophile I was transferred to Japan to work for a couple years and over time became conversational in the language and relatively familiar with the culture. Now that I'm back state-side, it's very hard to find people who can discuss Japan normally. It's either people like you describe who think I'm a weirdo for having any interest in Japan, or the weirdos who run out of things to discuss about Japanese music once we hit the opening credits to all the animes they watch. King Gonorrhea fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Jul 11, 2013 |
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Jul 11, 2013 22:18
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Is it bad that I kind of want to grill "Meyers" about stuff from the 1970s? I want to see him describe a swinger party or the last time he played lawn darts, or going to a BeeGees concert, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he was kind of dull even back then.
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Jul 11, 2013 22:23
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Fascinator posted:- Will briefly had a girlfriend, before his mother's insistence that Andy be allowed to go everywhere with them drove her away. This is very nearly loving child abuse, I really REALLY hope Will just ups and leaves home and doesn't tell his mum where he's living, this poo poo could honestly ruin his life if it's allowed to continue.
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Jul 11, 2013 22:28
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^ Agreed on that point. I hope that Will either moves somewhere far away or has the fortitude as an adult to put his foot down and refuse to be Andy's social surrogate/babysitter. Baofu posted:Is it bad that I kind of want to grill "Meyers" about stuff from the 1970s? I want to see him describe a swinger party or the last time he played lawn darts, or going to a BeeGees concert, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he was kind of dull even back then. Meyers, from what I can tell, can really only speak about the 70s in relation to the present day, though he does have a few pop culture references. He loves Barry Manilow, for example. But Andy is by no means any kind of authority on the period. According to my friend's mom, he's failed to recognize references to such major 1970s topics as the oil crisis, desegregation busing, and the Khmer Rouge. His sum total knowledge of the era seems to be confined to a few scattered pop culture references, clothing, and a general knowledge of what products did and did not exist during the 70s. I'm a historian, and one of my colleagues is a specialist on social movements and pop culture of the 60s and 70s, and is currently working on an article on the 60s and 70s in popular memory. I told him about Meyers and he is completely fascinated and said that he wishes there was a sound academic reason for him to interview Meyers.
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Jul 11, 2013 23:33
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Judging from what you've said, an interview with Meyers wouldn't really go anywhere.
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Jul 11, 2013 23:49
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Fascinator posted:^ Agreed on that point. I hope that Will either moves somewhere far away or has the fortitude as an adult to put his foot down and refuse to be Andy's social surrogate/babysitter. Grab a psychologist and you guys could be his "historical advisors" as he delves into the mind of this poor mistreated child. Wait what am I saying, he's about my age. Dude was completely ruined by his mother, which is at the very root of this problem. She obviously has a few issues herself. I just hope she doesn't gently caress her other kid up too badly. I wonder what their dad's opinion on all this is? I imagine he's more sane but he sure as hell didn't stop his wife from destroying any chance of his son having a normal life
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Jul 11, 2013 23:51
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Fascinator posted:Andy's mother apparently has a blanket policy that if his brother is invited anywhere, that means Andy must be invited too, which both explained his presence at the party and made me feel horrible for the brother since that has got to be a strain on his social life. Andy goes with his little brother to the movies, to the mall, and to parties, regardless of whether or not he's wanted. That poor kid. If the brother resists, his mother cries and makes a scene about how awful it is that he doesn't love poor Andy and doesn't want to make him happy. My mom actually had the same policy for myself and my younger sister ("Charlotte") for a while, and boy did I hate it even though Charlotte was/is a non-crazy person and the policy ended once Charlotte got a bit older and acquired her own group of friends (she was never forced bring me along). Mainly my mom didn't want my sister to feel "excluded" (I think my mom has a bit of paranoia about being excluded, herself). But in my opinion it is never appropriate to force siblings to include each other in their social lives, even more so if there's a significant age difference (when I was 13, and Charlotte was 9, there really were worlds of difference in the kinds of things we were interested in discussing with friends!) And when you get to the point where one sibling is insane, that's just... ugh. I used to harbor a lot of resentment against my mom about never being able to have visits with friends without Charlotte, but apparently I should just be thanking my lucky stars that Charlotte wasn't channeling a 1970s secretary. Incidentally, I never really blamed Charlotte for this; even as a kid I knew it wasn't really her fault and now that we are both adults she agrees that our mom's policy was unfair. This leads me to wonder whether, if I had turned into a total shut-in, my mom would have forced Charlotte to bring me, her older sister, on outings with her friends. I think I wouldn't have wanted to go anyway, because that would have been super awkward, even if I didn't have any friends of my own! Or if Charlotte hadn't acquired her own group of friends, would I have been forced to room with her in college?! I hope not, but I'm glad I didn't have to find out. Anyway, fascinating stories as always, Fascinator. 
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Jul 12, 2013 00:10
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Dick Burglar posted:As someone studying Japanese culture and society, you should be ashamed to wear a shirt promoting the gaijin mish-mash mockery of Beast King GoLion and Armored Fleet Dairugger XV It's what I know, drat it  Also, don't talk poo poo about Robotech, Robotech is awesome.
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Jul 12, 2013 00:58
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Question Mark Mound posted:Do you have a link to this interview? I have some friends who definitely need to learn from #2. I found a thing about the poll, but the rest of it is pretty weird because Japan is loving weird. Or maybe the poll is just poo poo. Apparently having your spouse as your wallpaper makes you a jerk because it upsets single people, and having your kids also sucks because then people have to think of something nice to say. I'm drat sure the 'Japanese non-otakus find otakus creepy' thing is true though. One of my favourite one-off mangas is called Manhole, and the plot catalyst features a fat creepy guy who abducted and raped an 8-year-old girl. When the cops bust into his apartment, it's all wall-to-wall anime dvds and figurines and posters of saucer-eyed magical girls. One of the reasons hikikomoris are so prevailing over there is that the average otaku *knows* how hated and reviled he is by the rest of society.
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Jul 12, 2013 04:57
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Corridor posted:I found a thing about the poll, but the rest of it is pretty weird because Japan is loving weird. Or maybe the poll is just poo poo. Apparently having your spouse as your wallpaper makes you a jerk because it upsets single people, and having your kids also sucks because then people have to think of something nice to say. Ooh what other wallpapers annoy people? Do pictures of Earth from orbit upset hardcore Japanese first nationalists? Actually I wonder if the kids thing has anything to do with modern Japanese life style making having kids harder and harder.
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Jul 12, 2013 05:14
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I like how at the conclusion of that article it specifies that they don't like the preset wallpapers either. Come on! As for Andy/Meyers' dad, it seems to me like he tries to get Andy to act normal, but the mother's constant coddling and justification of Andy's behavior makes it impossible to follow through on. When I saw them all at the party, he spent 20 minutes convincing Andy to put on a bathing suit by telling him that all the other kids were wearing one, and later on he spent awhile convincing Andy to go out and socialize with the kids. Granted, Andy isn't a kid, but whatever. From what I've gathered he doesn't really try to stand up to his wife about how she treats Andy. Or Will. Part of that may have to do with the fact that he works very long hours and is often on the road for work. Morgan le Fay, that sucks, and I'm glad to hear you don't resent Charlotte for that. I do think that, in situations where one child is far ahead of the other socially, or the other child has a disability, there should be situations where the other child is included in the "normal" child's non-family plans, but we're talking super rarely. Like once every couple months, if the situation is appropriate and the other participants are cool. Forcing a kid to essentially hold their social life hostage to their sibling's needs is a really good way to foster resentment and screw with both kids' social growth. You can't freely make friends if you have the specter of Crazy Andy looming over every occasion, and the other kid never learns how to socialize on their own terms and begins to expect other people to provide for them socially. Thread content: A longish story about Andy's crazy mom, which also includes a bonus Andy sighting. I've been telling this story for years, but until yesterday I didn't realize that it was actually about Andy's mom because I am terrible at putting things together. Andy's mom (we will call her Debbie) and my friend's mom ("Sarah") used to be pretty good friends until Sarah realized what a psycho Debbie was. The peak of their friendship coincided with the engagement and wedding of Sarah's second daughter, my friend's younger sister Cathy. Sarah is a very nice lady, not malicious at all, but she gets extremely over-enthusiastic sometimes and as a result will overstep some boundaries. Cathy was happy to have her mom and her mom's friends helping with the planning and making things, but when Sarah in her enthusiasm did stuff like appoint a new flower girl without asking Cathy first when the old one dropped out, or ordered bouquets before Cathy had picked her colors, Cathy had to tell her to please not make any decisions whatsoever without asking her first (Cathy was paying for it). Sarah realized that she'd gone a little nuts, sincerely apologized, and told her helpers (one of which was Debbie) that from now on if they found something that they thought was great for the wedding, to ask Cathy first, not her. Debbie interpreted this to mean that Cathy was pushing her mother out of the wedding and was being a huge Bridezilla, and began nursing a huge grudge against Cathy. This got worse when she asked Cathy if Andy and Will were invited to the ceremony and reception, and Cathy replied that the wedding would be child-free except for attendants. Now Cathy was not only excluding her mother from the planning, she was deliberately excluding Debbie's children from a social event. I think we all know how Debbie feels about anyone being excluded from any sort of social gathering. According to Cathy, Debbie got visibly angry and told her that she wasn't beginning her marriage in the spirit of charity and togetherness. Cathy just told her again that only Debbie and her husband were invited. For the rest of the wedding planning, Debbie would barely speak to Cathy and would make snide remarks about how much Cathy liked it when other people were left out. On the day of the wedding, Debbie interrupted the wedding ceremony by bursting in midway through, teenage Andy and elementary-age Will in tow. (Meyers didn't exist yet but I do recall that Andy was wearing one of those Harry Potter promo scarves and a bunch of button pins. Of course I had no clue who he was, but it stuck with me because this was a formal summertime wedding.) Instead of sitting quietly and unobtrusively in the back, as befits a latecomer, she wound her way all the way up front and squeezed into the family pews, and began explaining to everyone why she was late. In the middle of the ceremony. Like ten people shushed her at once. At the reception, the best man and maid of honor gave their speeches, family members of the bride and groom got up to talk a bit about Cathy and her husband, and then the emcee opened the floor to anyone who wanted to get up and speak. Debbie made a beeline to the mike, grabbed it, and began what I can only describe as the most insane wedding speech I've ever heard. She started talking about how much love and work had gone into preparing for this wedding, and asked the room to thank Sarah for her hard work in particular...because Cathy was such a crazy Bridezilla that Sarah deserved some thanks from someone because Cathy sure as hell wasn't going to thank her. She then began rambling on about how everything in the wedding had to be done Cathy's way, and how ridiculous it was that Cathy wanted final say over wedding decor, and how rude it was that Cathy didn't even want anyone to bring their kids. She then pointed at Andy and Will, sitting quietly at a reception table, and asked the room if they were bothering anybody, and started rambling about how if you're grown up enough to get married, you're grown up enough to accept that they're a family and they stick together. At which point the emcee cut off the mike and began playing a song. Everyone in the room was just stunned, and Debbie left peacefully right after that at the request of the bride's father. After that Debbie and Sarah weren't friends, but because their husbands got along and Will and Nick were friends (and Sarah felt massively sorry for Will, who was already being asked to bring Andy everywhere with him) the families continued to interact. I remember Debbie being a crazy motherfucker at the wedding, and I remembered Andy wearing his Harry Potter memorabilia, but I didn't realize they were the same goddamn family until I texted my friend to tell her that I'd been talking to her mom and brother about Meyers and she was like "oh yeah my sister still hates his mom for that crazy-rear end wedding speech, that's why she wasn't at Nick's birthday party."
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Jul 12, 2013 19:20
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Wow. It seriously sounds like the mom has her own invented reality going on, even worse so than Andy/Meyers. In her reality, it is her duty to righteously correct the social injustices of the people she can potentially influence. What an absurdly selfish and messed up person. I can only fathom what her own upbringing must have been like for her to turn out that way. At least at the wedding everyone knew she was crazy, and it's not like people were believing what she had to say, right? Like she's far enough wacked out that people know to take everything she says with a salt mine?
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Jul 12, 2013 19:41
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King Gonorrhea posted:I was transferred to Japan to work for a couple years and over time became conversational in the language and relatively familiar with the culture. Now that I'm back state-side, it's very hard to find people who can discuss Japan normally. It's either people like you describe who think I'm a weirdo for having any interest in Japan, or the weirdos who run out of things to discuss about Japanese music once we hit the opening credits to all the animes they watch. The worst part of those weirdos is when they think they know more about Japan than the person who makes his living studying it. Please tell me about how Japan is a magical place with no racism where all nationalities are accepted equally.
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Jul 12, 2013 20:34
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Fascinator posted:Andy
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Jul 13, 2013 00:30
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Wow, I think we can safely pin down Debbie as a major factoring force in why Meyers exists at all.  Ascetic Crow posted:The worst part of those weirdos is when they think they know more about Japan than the person who makes his living studying it. Please tell me about how Japan is a magical place with no racism where all nationalities are accepted equally. Don't forget that Japan is also far more sexually liberated than the west because of all those yaoi comics and hentai.
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Jul 13, 2013 03:54
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Corridor posted:Don't forget that Japan is also far more sexually liberated than the west because of all those yaoi comics and hentai. I always wonder if Japanese teenagers say that about the west because of the massive volume of freaky porn we produce. Also Will's had to drag his brother around since he was in primary school, how is he not insane yet?
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Jul 13, 2013 05:16
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Fascinator posted:I'm a historian, and one of my colleagues is a specialist on social movements and pop culture of the 60s and 70s, and is currently working on an article on the 60s and 70s in popular memory. I told him about Meyers and he is completely fascinated and said that he wishes there was a sound academic reason for him to interview Meyers.  Popular opinions held by the non-period appropriate layman who believes himself to be an expert vs. real data acquired by experts and academics? Sounds like a perfect reason to interview him to me. Definitely worth an interesting lead-in paragraph, if nothing else.
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Jul 13, 2013 05:52
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Question Mark Mound posted:For "soccer" football, it's far from unheard of to see people in the full shorts and tall socks get-up. I see these people around where I live too, but these people are in the full shorts and tall socks get-up because they've just been playing soccer. I don't think people who wear cosplay to school have just been starring in an anime. Andy/Meyers just sounds bizarre and I feel bad for his brother. Will's probably a bit socially stunted by this point, because he's never really learned to keep friends and have meaningful friendships with people - he gets invited out maybe twice, Andy tags along, and then he never gets invited again. That kid is going to go crazy as soon as he hits college, if he can move out far enough to dodge the crazy. These stories are all really bizarre to read about, if only for a 'there but for the grace of god I go' moments I get reading them. I was honestly that weird kid in my elementary school - I had no friends, I was kind of violent, and I used to spend my lunchtimes wandering around muttering to myself about these weirdass power-fantasy worlds I'd come up with. I used to get really obsessed with things - dinosaurs, video games, warhammer. Then in Grade 7 I kind of, I dunno, stopped with that crap and became a normal person? I have no idea how, but at some point I realised I was being a weirdo and it wasn't making me any friends. Its weird, and I don't think it was an epiphany, but more it was so gradual I didn't notice until I woke up one morning and realised that I had friends and a functional life? Maybe thats a common phenomenon? Who knows. Either way, it kind of makes me happy to know that all the weird young kids in this thread might grow up and become functioning adults. I was still a horrible shitheel until I turned 16, but hey, awful worst kind of nerd is better than kid who mutters to himself about his bizarre power fantasies.
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Jul 13, 2013 08:24
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MinistryofLard posted:
That's actually not out of the ordinary. I too went through hell in elementary school because my family wasn't originally from the area compared to everyone else who was born there and would likely die there, so I did a lot of reading and all which of course has it's own ostracizing thing to add to the rest. Come high school and most of the people I'd been in elementary school with ended up not attending it because of how multicultural it was, I had my quasi-epiphany of this being a fresh start around so much diversity compared to where I'd been that I started the difficult adjustment of 'reinventing' myself to where I had a pretty good social life with a pretty varied crowd that I still keep in touch with. Things got even better when I moved out of the area as well as out of state. I still look back at the bad times as a learning experience since that's made me probably more aware than most of the pitfalls one can end up in and maybe see if I can help others see that there's more to life than becoming a self induced shut in.
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Jul 13, 2013 09:29
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MinistryofLard posted:I see these people around where I live too, but these people are in the full shorts and tall socks get-up because they've just been playing soccer. I don't think people who wear cosplay to school have just been starring in an anime.
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Jul 13, 2013 11:47
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What I want to know is why Barry Manilow? You could obsess over any 70's band and you pick Barry loving Manilow?
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Jul 13, 2013 15:07
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Ascetic Crow posted:What I want to know is why Barry Manilow? You could obsess over any 70's band and you pick Barry loving Manilow? I'm just interested that he isn't pretending to be a famous dead 70's person.
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Jul 13, 2013 15:53
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| # ? Jun 1, 2024 01:05 |
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Apart from the time travel, Meyers seems to lead the most boring fantasy life I've ever heard.
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Jul 13, 2013 17:07
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