I wanted to get something off my chest for a while, and now it is time.
Dear Nerds, my brothers and sisters, why are so many of you judgmental assholes?
Let me take a step back. I love to share information with people on facebook on twitter. I find something I love, and I post about it. I love music. I love Star Wars. I love working out. I love my San Francisco Giants. I love humor. I love a lot of things. I find that I am a much happier person when I spend more time celebrating life rather than criticizing it. There is a time and a place to be critical, especially when it comes to my self improvement, but for the most part I don’t relish in negativity (or the negativity of others).
So many people use social network platforms, and other methods of communication, to spread their negativity and to put each other down. I sometimes see negative conversations manifesting when people try to have political discussions, or deeply personal conversations about ethics, religion, and morality. I can understand why these conversations become so negative, because they are so deeply personal, but surprisingly I see it more when one of my fellow nerds try to rip on something someone else loves. I see it with my fellow nerds more often than any other group I follow on Twitter and Facebook.
The criticism normally comes as a statement that suggests it is a statement of fact. A good example would be:
“I think people who like Baseball are idiots.” or
“People who enjoy Power Rangers need to grow up,” or
“I don’t understand why people even pay attention to Star Wars anymore,” or
“People who LARP are losers.”
Or just people who who make open comments about art and artistic things like:
“I hated that movie, it sucked.” (Where’s your movie?)
“That TV show was the worst thing I ever saw” (where is your Television show?)
“That was the worst album I ever heard” (where is your record deal?)
I see those type of comments and feel sorry for the person who says it. Why? Because I know that person is actually hurting inside and is a very insecure person.
When I was much younger, and I had a head of hair, I was insecure about the fact that I wasn’t very “cool,” and didn’t believe that I had very much talent, or was good at anything. My main obsession was music, and I would spend about 50% of my income on buying CDs (that’s right kids, people actually paid for their music!). Whenever I had free time, I would listen to music, and just day dream. I had a passion for music, it was MY THING!
Whenever I listened to other people talk about music, it often triggered a mental response in the back of my mind where I thought “But wait, I LOVE music! I spend all my time understanding and finding new music! This is MY THING! Not yours! Mine! What do you know?!,” and I would spend time defending my space by critiquing other people’s tastes, as if the topic was my territory and no one else. I was insecure about myself. I had no confidence, and I sought to put other people down because it was the quickest way to make myself feel better.
Did it make me better as a person? Nope. Did it make my friends feel better when I made fun of them for loving something? Nope. It was a lose-lose situation. I simply choose to hurt my friends feelings in order to feel better about myself, because I was weak. Did it work? Oh sure, for like five minutes, then I would have some awful fallout with a friend and lose an opportunity to have a good relationship with someone.
When it comes to art, sports, and media, it is all very subjective. People like what they like. If my best friend wants to love football, how does that honestly impact my love of music? It doesn’t. What my friends love and like doesn’t have any impact on what I love or like; other than the possibility that I may like or love once they talk about it, and if I don’t, then who cares?
It’s totally fine to dislike something, or even say something like: “Meh, I didn’t like that song too much,” or “You know, football really isn’t my thing,” but if you don’t like something – then move on. Why spend the extra energy putting someone down for liking it in the first place? Isn’t it better to know someone, like someone, or love someone who has passion for life rather than someone who doesn’t give a damn about anything? Why spend the extra time to hate something? If you didn’t like something in the first place, why spend any more energy on it?
My nerds, you need to stop spending so much time ripping other people down for what they love. You should be spending more time loving yourself, and work towards improving yourself so that little voice inside your head that says “It’s time to strike and be critical” becomes a afterthought. It is harder, believe me, to criticize yourself and accept your short comings (and try to over come them)…but in the long run, you will like yourself better for it. You may even discover that the world is a much brighter and better place when you don’t fill it with your black clouds.
