Posers.
I’ve seen a bunch of anger toward “posers” recently and I don’t get it. There are people getting mad because people are pretending to like something only because it is cool to like it, but they don’t really like it or get it. And that’s… bad?
How – that’s my problem – how is it bad?
If you like something you want it to do well, to succeed and thrive. More people spending money on it, talking about it, drawing focus to it bring that all home. They make the thing you love better funded and better accepted. They widen its base and spread it around.
But they don’t really like it, and so that’s bad.
Because the thing you like getting bigger is a horrible idea.
If you like something, if you truly enjoy it and want it to live, you want it to grow bigger. And that means more people looking at it. I don’t care if you somehow feel special because it is this little unknown thing in a closet just for you and your friends. That’s the way this shit dies early, by being kept hidden away. So – choose – do you want it to thrive or want it to fail? And if the answer is thrive then grow up!
Because according to you a “poser” is someone who is faking enjoyment of a thing. What you really mean is: They don’t enjoy it “enough” according to you, Grand Master Of How Much People Like Things.
I mean really. You wouldn’t want someone telling you you are enjoying things “wrong” would you? But you feel free to say it to other people.
“Oh no, this person here says they like Street Fighter but they don’t even know all the character names!”
Uhm. So the fuck what? You can like something and not obsess over it. You can like something and just, you know, like it.
You do not get to decide how much anyone else likes something, anymore than they can judge you for it.
Some people have to know every detail of a thing they like. Some don’t. It’s all fine! Look, me just kinda enjoying a thing you are hardcore into doesn’t weaken your enjoyment! It doesn’t make the thing you love any less of a thing. It just means I like it, but differently. And that is all right. It really is.
Deciding people are posers is elitist bullshit, the kind of stuff that most people outgrow around 7th grade. Get with it. Move along. Grow up. Let people enjoy things however much or little they enjoy them and understand it doesn’t affect your enjoyment of that thing one tiny bit. And then be thankful for the so-called posers – for helping that thing you love stay alive. Thank them! Your petty, twisted, selfish love isn’t enough.
These guys, the ones you think don’t care enough to obsess – they help a ton. Deal with it. And stop telling other people what they can and can’t like and how much they have to like something to be valid. Doing that is why we can’t have nice things. Seriously – you guys are the problem.
^5, Adam!
^5 right back atcha!
As always, you speak the truth. I get royally annoyed when someone or some group is accused of “selling out” in the same manner as you’ve illustrated here. If you love something, WISH it success, don’t condemn it for achieving success. People gotta eat. And, as you’ve said, be happy people are allowing the thing you love to eat, even if they don’t love it as hard as you think they should. Eating is good.
…I’m hungry. Obvs.
Mmm food.
Also, if you (not you, obviously, but you know “you”) are so super-obsessed with grading everyone’s interest based on their previous involvement with a thing then you become this wall preventing people from experiencing a thing. It’s scary to go somewhere new or talk to new people about this thing that you are just discovering and if you are always worried that people are going to tell you that you don’t “deserve” it because you weren’t into it before you were born – then, it’s even worse. And then people start to hate the totally cool thing because they hate its fans.
Wow, you are so much better at writing in that vague voice. I feel like that didn’t make any sense. But I totally speak from experience, here.
When I was a teenage punkling, anyone who looked like a punk but wasn’t in our scene as a “poser.” Because, of course, our scene was the only scene, so anyone not in it was totally posing and we could tell just by looking.
At least I was a teenager when I thought that.
“was a poser.” Sheesh.
Oh yeah, but then you grew up – which is the important part.
Exactly.