Have you ever run across a situation where someone assumed you either did, or do, like a thing but in reality you do not? Mind you this isn't about things one doesn't like alone, but things people think you would like but do not.

For example I have been told on several occasions I should watch The Big Bang Theory and that I would like but I have seen it and I do not like it. At all. I've seen some over the top hate for it online but that is sort of par for the course with online discussions. I just didn't find it all that funny or engaging.

Another is Star Trek: The Next Generation. I don't hate it by any stretch but I don't really enjoy it all that much but since I liked TOS and DS9 it seems assumed I must love all things Trek when I really do not. The only Star Trek media I own is The Wrath of Khan and have little interest in the owning anything else. To be fair I like the cast and there were interesting ideas occasionally but overall it just never clicked with me. I watched it once and haven't felt the need to go back to it.

What about you? Anything people have assumed you like that in all reality isn't your cup of tea?

I’m a Nerd.

People assume I’m into Anime.

But, it leaves me cold. Sure, I get the appeal, but it’s just not for me.

People assume because I like Anime I would like JRPGs, I do not, I hate grinding.

People seem to assume that all people who work in IT love Star Wars, Star Trek, and LOTR. I'm not really into any of those things. I'm passingly familiar with all of those IPs but definitely not a big fan of any of them.

I also don't think I've really seen any anime I've liked very much yet.

I've also had people tell me I'd like Big Bang Theory, and while it can make me chuckle, I've never really sat down to watch it on my own cause I'm just not interested. It's a show about a bunch of stereotypes made for people who aren't that stereotype. I've met few people who self identify as nerds who like it.

Another thing is Critical Roll. I have watched it and I just find watching other people play DnD to be dull. I can watch people play a sport, or a video game. It's a visual medium after all. Watching a bunch of people's faces as they play a mostly headspace game just isn't fun to me.

I've found Harmonquest to be very good, but they take some pretty significant pains to make the viewing audience the target of the story, not the players. They also eliminate almost all of the mechanics in favor of storytelling.

Big Bang is the big one for me for sure. Most the rest don't count because I like enough geeky things that I'm usually a fan of whatever I'm accused of being a fan of.

AD&D.

It......it’s not a very good roleplay system.

I got started on World of Darkness, which I feel is the better system. Clear combat rules, story driven.

AD&D is just ‘roll a D20’. It’s not my bag.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
AD&D.

It......it’s not a very good roleplay system.

I got started on World of Darkness, which I feel is the better system. Clear combat rules, story driven.

AD&D is just ‘roll a D20’. It’s not my bag.

the rules are nothing, the will to tell the tale is everything...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I got started on World of Darkness

Good lad.

Erm, a girl I very much fancied in my late teens was convinced I liked guys - if that counts?

People assume I am a right winger. This leads to interesting conversations people with me thinking I am a fellow rabid supporter when I am not.

 Frazzled wrote:
People assume I am a right winger. This leads to interesting conversations people with me thinking I am a fellow rabid supporter when I am not.

Ahhhh, fellow advocati diaboli or just looks according to the stereotype?
Also i know that situation having the dialect of a chronic political stereotyped Region.

People assume I'd be into superhero movies because I'm a Star Wars fan but I have a bit of an aversion to them. On the other hand I love the 40k background, but like SW it's something I came upon as a kid, so all of the suspension of disbelief happened when I was young

People assume because I work for the NHS I'd be left wing and a remainer

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
AD&D.

It......it’s not a very good roleplay system.

I got started on World of Darkness, which I feel is the better system. Clear combat rules, story driven.

AD&D is just ‘roll a D20’. It’s not my bag.

Nonsense. It'd be just as easy to say WoD is 'roll a bunch of d10s'. WoD combat rules are anything but clear (and mechanically they're a mess with multiple failure points) and 'story' depends on the people involved in both systems. I've done dungeon crawls in WoD, and intrigue in D&D.

That all said, its also worth noting that AD&D has been dead and gone for two decades now...

I definitely have a very shallow list of people whose opinions I trust on things like music, movies, videos, comedy, etc. If the suggestion does not originate from one of them, I'm unlikely to try it.

My father is a modeler/hobbyist so thankfully he knows that if it's a geek/gaming gift he checks with me about scale/game/etc. He knows how pointless it is to gift a gamer something for a game/army they don't collect, etc.

I'm a gamer and role-player but I did not cut my teeth on D&D and people assume I know all about it. I've played a handful of times and I find it decidedly mediocre. I think it's kind of the 40K of role-playing games. You know you'll find people who play it locally with enough ease. I grew up on worse games though.

People assume that once I say that I like playing video games that I'm into the esports scene or more specifically, League of Legends and CoD/Battlefield. It's a little annoying to have to restate that I'm more into indies or narrative driven games, like LoU and Witcher 3 and get blank stares from self proclaimed "fellow gamers".

I’m pretty open about trying new things, just for the sake of trying something new. So if someone suggests I should try something, I usually will give it a try.

I’m also very direct, and mostly open about my likes and dislikes, so people seldom assume about me... they either ask or I’ve told them already.

I have one story, though, that stands out. I come from small town Ontario. I didn’t stand in the Ocean until I was about 24. In college, a friend-of-a-friend met me for the first time. I was wearing (denim) shorts and a Hawaiian shirt... might have been part of a Halloween costume, maybe? Anyhow, they assumed I liked surfing... somehow pulled that together out of what, I don’t know, but this person assumed that hefty me, with my Hawaiian Shirt, must like surfing. We’re friends still, but I remember being dumbstruck when she told me / us (my wife). I had no idea what to say.

A lot of people keep telling me to watch Black Mirror because I like the Twilight Zone, anthologies, and sci fi. I tried three episodes, and each one was a horribly depressing evening-killer. I don’t need that in my life.

 Grimskul wrote:
People assume that once I say that I like playing video games that I'm into the esports scene or more specifically, League of Legends and CoD/Battlefield. It's a little annoying to have to restate that I'm more into indies or narrative driven games, like LoU and Witcher 3 and get blank stares from self proclaimed "fellow gamers".

What's LoU?

People tend to be shocked when they try to talk to me about Game of Thrones as I'm generally geeky and into fantasy so they assume I watch it. I watched the first series as it had Sean Bean in it, but didn't feel any particular want to continue to the next series. My sister is still trying to get me into it as she dislikes nearly all fantasy but loves GoT and can't understand why it didn't click with me.

I love Star Trek, but the series I love are TNG and Voyager. People are usually very surprised that I didn't think much of the original series or DS9, and even moreso that I rank Babylon 5 above DS9.

I've had people be surprised I don't watch current Doctor Who, as I watched it religiously through Ecclestone/Tennant/Smith. But I found Matt Smith's last series underwhelming, so stopped watching when he left as it felt a good time to stop.

I love Harry Potter, so people assume I love Fantastic Beasts but I'm actually indifferent to those films.

And as others have mentioned more personal/less geeky things, I'll add I've had people confused as depending who I'm dating I'm assumed to be either straight or gay, when actually I'm bi and my partner doesn't define my sexuality, and my sexuality doesn't define how I look or act.

Voss wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
People assume that once I say that I like playing video games that I'm into the esports scene or more specifically, League of Legends and CoD/Battlefield. It's a little annoying to have to restate that I'm more into indies or narrative driven games, like LoU and Witcher 3 and get blank stares from self proclaimed "fellow gamers".

What's LoU?

Last of Us.

Voss wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
AD&D.

It......it’s not a very good roleplay system.

I got started on World of Darkness, which I feel is the better system. Clear combat rules, story driven.

AD&D is just ‘roll a D20’. It’s not my bag.

Nonsense. It'd be just as easy to say WoD is 'roll a bunch of d10s'. WoD combat rules are anything but clear (and mechanically they're a mess with multiple failure points) and 'story' depends on the people involved in both systems. I've done dungeon crawls in WoD, and intrigue in D&D.

That all said, its also worth noting that AD&D has been dead and gone for two decades now...

You're both right... and you're both wrong at the same time.

In the end, the system is less important than having the players and GM in sync and looking for the same thing in their game.

Game of Thrones.
It is fantasy, so I must like it. Nope. Not enough to sit through a whole episode, anyway.

Firefly, everyone looks at me funny when I say I not a fan

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
A lot of people keep telling me to watch Black Mirror because I like the Twilight Zone, anthologies, and sci fi. I tried three episodes, and each one was a horribly depressing evening-killer. I don’t need that in my life.

I'd suggest maybe trying a few of the newer ones as going global has caused the endearing British misanthropy to get dialled down a smidge, heck San Junipero might even have a happy ending

my persnal grump being a nerd-gamer is the GW assumption from normies (cos apparently theres only GW or histroics)

Because I wear 3-piece suits a lot, people think I must be in to Peaky Blinders (I appreciate this isn't geek media but it's the only thing I can think of).

In actual fact I find any drama shows or movies about crime a massive turn-off and have never watched a single minute.

Im into metal/rock music. Therefore I should like Ska/Nu-metal/Punk.

Nope.

As a nerdy looking gentleman, everyone assumes I am into video games.....I am not.

At my old workplace, every meeting started with people talking about running and doing marathons. At least they didn't assume I was into it.... LOL

I like fantasy, so people assume I like Harry Potter. I loath Harry Potter as much as anybody can hate a work of fiction.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I like fantasy, so people assume I like Harry Potter. I loath Harry Potter as much as anybody can hate a work of fiction.

THIS. The number of people who have gawked at me like a mad man for not having read Harry Potter is more than I can count. It's little more than a wish fulfillment bildungsroman story to me, and not a particularly great one at that and which actively gets worse as Rowling doubles down on being woke and retcons things into absurdity. If I want magic in my story, I'd prefer LoTR or Warhammer, none of this magic school stuff.

 Grimskul wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I like fantasy, so people assume I like Harry Potter. I loath Harry Potter as much as anybody can hate a work of fiction.

THIS. The number of people who have gawked at me like a mad man for not having read Harry Potter is more than I can count. It's little more than a wish fulfillment bildungsroman story to me, and not a particularly great one at that and which actively gets worse as Rowling doubles down on being woke and retcons things into absurdity. If I want magic in my story, I'd prefer LoTR or Warhammer, none of this magic school stuff.

The only thing they react more strongly to is being told someone in fact has read the books and/or watched the films, and doesn't particularly care for them.

I found them to be, you know, fine. Perfectly serviceable "school, but..." tween-to-YA stories, and the films had some cool visuals, but I physically cringe whenever I hear someone my age(30's) enthuse about how they're "a Ravenclaw", or how much more original it is than [insert whatever objectively superior classic fantasy series you just mentioned], or how some new mindshart Rowling has coiled out on her twitter makes them, like, totally reevaluate the whole story in the context of [insert presently trending Culture War issue here] and that, like, totally just confirms for them how much of a work of genius it is. Vom.

It's worth remember that this is how most people feel about whatever deep lore you're into. Potterverse isn't really any different than Star Wars EU or any extended comics trivia. I personally enjoy it, but its also probably the first major property since I've stopped taking exhaustive fictional lore seriously and started enjoying it more for the silly trivia.

 LunarSol wrote:
It's worth remember that this is how most people feel about whatever deep lore you're into. Potterverse isn't really any different than Star Wars EU or any extended comics trivia. I personally enjoy it, but its also probably the first major property since I've stopped taking exhaustive fictional lore seriously and started enjoying it more for the silly trivia.

There's a difference between appreciating something to a level beyond the typical consumer, and Potterheads. I'm not talking about fandom - cosplay, "deep lore" trivia, merchandise etc - I'm talking about the way a segment of the Potterverse fanbase cannot seem to conceptualise the world except in the context of the Potterverse and its author. They talk about themselves - as in, their actual real personalities - in the context of Hogwarts houses or other factions from the books. They discuss politics filtered through the events and characters of Potter. They take everything Rowling says as gospel and relentlessly savage anyone who dares dissent(I had to shut down my old twitter account for months after she came out against Scottish independence because I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in something she said, and that was it, just perpetual aggro from delusional Yaaas Kuhween nutters and random American tweenagers with zero knowledge of the actual subject at hand that just went on & on). And given how large the overall fanbase is, there are tons of them.

you best not be mocking the bumbling badger of mediocrity that is House Hufflepuff (for "the rest"), the bitter meddlers who in all likelyhood caused the various wizard wars just to get back at everyone the hat thinks are better than them, even managed to throw one of their own under a bus to deflect any suspicions in the most recent set to

 Yodhrin wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
It's worth remember that this is how most people feel about whatever deep lore you're into. Potterverse isn't really any different than Star Wars EU or any extended comics trivia. I personally enjoy it, but its also probably the first major property since I've stopped taking exhaustive fictional lore seriously and started enjoying it more for the silly trivia.

There's a difference between appreciating something to a level beyond the typical consumer, and Potterheads. I'm not talking about fandom - cosplay, "deep lore" trivia, merchandise etc - I'm talking about the way a segment of the Potterverse fanbase cannot seem to conceptualise the world except in the context of the Potterverse and its author. They talk about themselves - as in, their actual real personalities - in the context of Hogwarts houses or other factions from the books. They discuss politics filtered through the events and characters of Potter. They take everything Rowling says as gospel and relentlessly savage anyone who dares dissent(I had to shut down my old twitter account for months after she came out against Scottish independence because I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in something she said, and that was it, just perpetual aggro from delusional Yaaas Kuhween nutters and random American tweenagers with zero knowledge of the actual subject at hand that just went on & on). And given how large the overall fanbase is, there are tons of them.

So like LunarSol said, pretty much the same thing as with other IPs among their respective fringe superfan elements.

Steampunk.

To avoid upsetting peeps and therefore disturbing the Mods, lets just say I have very strong opinions on the matter.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Steampunk.

To avoid upsetting peeps and therefore disturbing the Mods, lets just say I have very strong opinions on the matter.

I have a sudden, desperate need to glue random gears onto a dancing skull.....

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Steampunk.

To avoid upsetting peeps and therefore disturbing the Mods, lets just say I have very strong opinions on the matter.

That thread got locked while I was writing a long and in depth response to it... One of the most unnecessary thread lock I can remember.

 gorgon wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
It's worth remember that this is how most people feel about whatever deep lore you're into. Potterverse isn't really any different than Star Wars EU or any extended comics trivia. I personally enjoy it, but its also probably the first major property since I've stopped taking exhaustive fictional lore seriously and started enjoying it more for the silly trivia.

There's a difference between appreciating something to a level beyond the typical consumer, and Potterheads. I'm not talking about fandom - cosplay, "deep lore" trivia, merchandise etc - I'm talking about the way a segment of the Potterverse fanbase cannot seem to conceptualise the world except in the context of the Potterverse and its author. They talk about themselves - as in, their actual real personalities - in the context of Hogwarts houses or other factions from the books. They discuss politics filtered through the events and characters of Potter. They take everything Rowling says as gospel and relentlessly savage anyone who dares dissent(I had to shut down my old twitter account for months after she came out against Scottish independence because I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in something she said, and that was it, just perpetual aggro from delusional Yaaas Kuhween nutters and random American tweenagers with zero knowledge of the actual subject at hand that just went on & on). And given how large the overall fanbase is, there are tons of them.

So like LunarSol said, pretty much the same thing as with other IPs among their respective fringe superfan elements.

Well, no, because what I just described is literally not "pretty much the same" as anything else. Star Wars "fringe superfans" dress up in Stormtrooper armour at events. Star Trek "fringe superfans" argue which captain/series was better. Potterheads take an online "what House am I" quiz and will quite seriously drop the result into a casual conversation as if it sums up their whole IRL personality, view politics in terms of goodies and baddies because everyone they agree with is a Harry and everyone they disagree with is a Voldemort, and will in large part take their views on who fits into either category based on the social media pronouncements of a children's author.

When I start routinely running into Wars fans over the age of 12 who construct their entire personalities around an "are you Jedi or Sith?" online quiz, or Trek fans who're only capable of discussing politics by willfully butchering everybody's arguments in order to crudely map them to Alpha Quadrant species so as to associate negative or positive qualities from the fiction with actual real people, or [insert whatever here] fans who literally parrot [whatever]'s author's points of view and will brook no disagreement with them, then I'll reconsider my view of rabid Potterheads as something uniquely awful in fandom.

Yodhrin wrote:]relentlessly savage anyone who dares dissent(I had to shut down my old twitter account for months after she came out against Scottish independence because I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in something she said, and that was it, just perpetual aggro from delusional Yaaas Kuhween nutters

Yodhrin wrote:There's a difference between appreciating something to a level beyond the typical consumer, and Potterheads.

Yeah, gakky fandom running people off social media is definitely unique to Harry Potter, alright.

I think a lot of these are good. I think for me it's anime, dark souls, rpgs or blizzard games. I can see the appeal of each but let me explain their downfalls. Anime has lots of harem animes or slice of life crap anime with cutesy girl singing so high pitched in the intro or outro i have to skip both. Dark souls is fun but i prefer strategy games and if I have to play a hard game I just play xcom. Rpgs have too many fetch quests, 15 mins dialogue scenes or more and you try so hard to make your character look good and then you cover them up and sometimes in mismatched armor. Blizzard games are too grindy and I just get a bit bored. They seem overrated. They are good but starcraft 2 esp. When pro played has so much apm my eyes hurt and I feel like gm players would cause seizures for some with all that mouse movement. I don't have that kind of reaction time jesus.

The last thing I know someone said I'd like is Twitter and maybe once upon a time that'd be true but it is reaching 4chan and Tumblr levels of crap. I've honestly liked people till I realized how uninteresting many people are on Twitter and always so political. I want to be silly between Monty python humor mixed with drawn together humor and maybe a bit of borat mixed in but that'd never fly and then id never hear the end about how offensive and awful i am and id just get banned. Lighten up people life is too short and someone will always be offended somewhere. It's a fruitless endeavor to please everybody.

 Ouze wrote:

Yodhrin wrote:]relentlessly savage anyone who dares dissent(I had to shut down my old twitter account for months after she came out against Scottish independence because I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in something she said, and that was it, just perpetual aggro from delusional Yaaas Kuhween nutters

Yodhrin wrote:There's a difference between appreciating something to a level beyond the typical consumer, and Potterheads.

Yeah, gakky fandom running people off social media is definitely unique to Harry Potter, alright.

To be fair, SW went decades before a crummy movie brought out this level of garbage. Potter fans made the jump to toxicity MUCH more rapidly.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

Yodhrin wrote:]relentlessly savage anyone who dares dissent(I had to shut down my old twitter account for months after she came out against Scottish independence because I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in something she said, and that was it, just perpetual aggro from delusional Yaaas Kuhween nutters

Yodhrin wrote:There's a difference between appreciating something to a level beyond the typical consumer, and Potterheads.

Yeah, gakky fandom running people off social media is definitely unique to Harry Potter, alright.

To be fair, SW went decades before a crummy movie brought out this level of garbage. Potter fans made the jump to toxicity MUCH more rapidly.

I can't deny that Twitter wasn't so toxic during the OT or prequels.

and of course muddling the other boy wizards background with Harry is a good trigger (also if Harry had Constantine instead of Dumbledore I suspect evil Tom would have been dead by about Chapter 7 of book 1)

 gorgon wrote:

To be fair, SW went decades before a crummy movie brought out this level of garbage. Potter fans made the jump to toxicity MUCH more rapidly.

I can't deny that Twitter wasn't so toxic during the OT or prequels.

Interesting idea for a thread. Things from the top of my head...

Probably the one I hear most is I have to try out Rick and Morty. So I have. Several times. Multiple episodes. And I just really dislike it. Not fun, not entertaining for me at all.

Next up, I quite enjoy One Piece. But it is one of only two animes I enjoy at all. I've had multiple friends recommend me some, but none caught my eye.

Next up, Counterstrike. I quite enjoy FPS, but CS alwways felt incredibly boring to me.

Last, Rammstein. I really enjoy german bands, but Rammstein was always to weird to me.

 Vulcan wrote:

And again, to be fair, I have to admit there was some toxicity going on at the time. Just... not modern levels of toxicity.

Which makes me wonder. Is it something in the respective fandoms that induced the toxicity... or is this just a time where toxicity is more pronounced and common?

A lot of it just has to do with accessibility and entitlement. The Web 2.0 movement allowed a single person to participate (dominate) the conversation worldwide and created a lot of opportunity for vocal minorities to drive the conversation. As companies responded to this feedback rather than ignore it, it planted the seeks for a culture in which fans increasingly felt ownership and control over their favorite properties than the actual creators. What's really pushed things into overdrive is the mainstream acceptance of the formerly niche properties making these fans feel like they're losing the control they thought they had. There's probably a LOT more to say about the matter, but that's the crux of it. A mix of the web allowing outside influence via raw dedication and a huge influx of people buying into properties without really being dedicated enough to care about influencing the web.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

And again, to be fair, I have to admit there was some toxicity going on at the time. Just... not modern levels of toxicity.

Which makes me wonder. Is it something in the respective fandoms that induced the toxicity... or is this just a time where toxicity is more pronounced and common?

A lot of it just has to do with accessibility and entitlement. The Web 2.0 movement allowed a single person to participate (dominate) the conversation worldwide and created a lot of opportunity for vocal minorities to drive the conversation. As companies responded to this feedback rather than ignore it, it planted the seeks for a culture in which fans increasingly felt ownership and control over their favorite properties than the actual creators. What's really pushed things into overdrive is the mainstream acceptance of the formerly niche properties making these fans feel like they're losing the control they thought they had. There's probably a LOT more to say about the matter, but that's the crux of it. A mix of the web allowing outside influence via raw dedication and a huge influx of people buying into properties without really being dedicated enough to care about influencing the web.

I think you're on the money, but I'll go a step or ten farther and say that I believe that social media has influenced how we debate, talk and even think about things. Is it really a coincidence that polarization in society spiked (it had been climbing for years, but it seemed to go next-level IMO) at around the time we started communicating in short, very limited bursts in a semi-anonymous medium that rewards loud, bold statements? Then factor in the echo chamber aspect, and I don't think it's outrageous to say that the nature of the medium drives people into extreme views. Real-life conversations aren't always polite and respectful either, but IME it's much more likely that you can have in-person debate about The Last Jedi/politics/whatever without things going nuclear from the get go. Although I also think that that real-life communication skills are also declining. Look at what's happened on college campuses.

I dunno. The more I sit back and watch, the more I think the internet -- but mainly social media -- has changed us. Maybe not wildly so, but noticeably and measurably. Probably dovetails into Marshall McLuhan's work -- "the medium is the message", etc.

Certainly communicating via tiny, omni-directional pulses is a huge part of it. The "forever" nature of the web has also lead to a lot of the entrenched opinion problem. "If they were wrong 7 years ago, what's to say they aren't wrong now?" is a pretty crippling way to go through life.

I think a big thing is, and i say this having been part of many fandoms, people use them as safe spaces and as a way to escape(Not the shows, the fandoms).
And when things dont go the way they want, whether from the show itself, or the fandom, they panic and think that is being taken away.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 gorgon wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
It's worth remember that this is how most people feel about whatever deep lore you're into. Potterverse isn't really any different than Star Wars EU or any extended comics trivia. I personally enjoy it, but its also probably the first major property since I've stopped taking exhaustive fictional lore seriously and started enjoying it more for the silly trivia.

There's a difference between appreciating something to a level beyond the typical consumer, and Potterheads. I'm not talking about fandom - cosplay, "deep lore" trivia, merchandise etc - I'm talking about the way a segment of the Potterverse fanbase cannot seem to conceptualise the world except in the context of the Potterverse and its author. They talk about themselves - as in, their actual real personalities - in the context of Hogwarts houses or other factions from the books. They discuss politics filtered through the events and characters of Potter. They take everything Rowling says as gospel and relentlessly savage anyone who dares dissent(I had to shut down my old twitter account for months after she came out against Scottish independence because I pointed out a factual inaccuracy in something she said, and that was it, just perpetual aggro from delusional Yaaas Kuhween nutters and random American tweenagers with zero knowledge of the actual subject at hand that just went on & on). And given how large the overall fanbase is, there are tons of them.

So like LunarSol said, pretty much the same thing as with other IPs among their respective fringe superfan elements.

Well, no, because what I just described is literally not "pretty much the same" as anything else. Star Wars "fringe superfans" dress up in Stormtrooper armour at events. Star Trek "fringe superfans" argue which captain/series was better. Potterheads take an online "what House am I" quiz and will quite seriously drop the result into a casual conversation as if it sums up their whole IRL personality, view politics in terms of goodies and baddies because everyone they agree with is a Harry and everyone they disagree with is a Voldemort, and will in large part take their views on who fits into either category based on the social media pronouncements of a children's author.

When I start routinely running into Wars fans over the age of 12 who construct their entire personalities around an "are you Jedi or Sith?" online quiz, or Trek fans who're only capable of discussing politics by willfully butchering everybody's arguments in order to crudely map them to Alpha Quadrant species so as to associate negative or positive qualities from the fiction with actual real people, or [insert whatever here] fans who literally parrot [whatever]'s author's points of view and will brook no disagreement with them, then I'll reconsider my view of rabid Potterheads as something uniquely awful in fandom.

Gotta agree here. Have a peek at r/readanotherbook on Reddit to see a lot of what Yodhrin is describing above. It's just next level of fandom cringe.


As for myself, I don't really care for modern console gaming (or a lot of computer gaming TBH) at all. Nothing about modern games just clicks with me and a lot of people are surprised by that despite my other geeky leanings.

I don't care for much anime. Maybe I'm just turned off of the genre due to the weebs but I do like a couple of titles, namely Outlaw Star; but that was probably because I was first exposed to it on Cartoon Network in my teens and not had it shoved in my face by some smelly dork in cat ears.

I'll admit I liked The Big Bang Theory. To a point. I'd say this was roughly season 5 when the original premise of the show veered off from what it started out as and now I just don't care for it and stopped watching. It is not something I'll admit to liking, much like Rick and Morty, which is a show that I adore, but the fanbase gets on my tits so much.

Season 5 of Big Bang Theory is where the show pretty much became Friends part 2, which is fine. We watched the show through to the end, and managed to stick the landing as much as any decent sit com could hope, better than most. There have been a lot of sitcoms that started stronger and then crashed and burned for several years.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Season 5 of Big Bang Theory is where the show pretty much became Friends part 2, which is fine. We watched the show through to the end, and managed to stick the landing as much as any decent sit com could hope, better than most. There have been a lot of sitcoms that started stronger and then crashed and burned for several years.

What about 'how I met your mother'? I thought that was supposed to be friends part 2.

 gorgon wrote:
I dunno. The more I sit back and watch, the more I think the internet -- but mainly social media -- has changed us. Maybe not wildly so, but noticeably and measurably. Probably dovetails into Marshall McLuhan's work -- "the medium is the message", etc.

This is one of the more interesting tangents I've seen develop in a while. The funny thing is, if we try to split it off into a separate thread to discuss, my money says it gets locked within 3 pages. We've lost the ability to rationally debate what caused us to lose the ability to rationally debate, essentially.

 gorgon wrote:

I dunno. The more I sit back and watch, the more I think the internet -- but mainly social media -- has changed us. Maybe not wildly so, but noticeably and measurably. Probably dovetails into Marshall McLuhan's work -- "the medium is the message", etc.

Or more general theories of technological determinism. Tech tends to dictate the shape of our societies far more than our societies dictate the uses of tech.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Season 5 of Big Bang Theory is where the show pretty much became Friends part 2, which is fine. We watched the show through to the end, and managed to stick the landing as much as any decent sit com could hope, better than most. There have been a lot of sitcoms that started stronger and then crashed and burned for several years.

What about 'how I met your mother'? I thought that was supposed to be friends part 2.

I saw half a dozen episodes, and Ireally enjoyed NPH’s Barney character, but never felt any interest in following up on any of them. I guess they were more the Ross and Rachel friends and not so much the Chandler, Joey, Monica and Phoebe friends. Big Bang Theory, for all of its faults, at least kept me (or my wife, really) coming back to find out what happens next.


Also, didn’t How I Met Your Mother totally whiff the ending? I remember people turning on it like it was Lost.

How I Met Your Mother had a really strong first six seasons, which is far more than most sitcoms, but holy crap the last 3 just dive bomb so hard. I think Game of Thrones is the only other show that had anything approaching that level of decline. Weighing in on Big Bang Theory, I absolutely loved the first 2 seasons. After that, I don't know if the quality of the writing went downhill or if I just got burnt out on the premise, but season 3 onwards just dragged. It didn't help that I hated pretty much every character that was added to the cast. Bernadette in particular, her voice makes me want to tear off my ears. Amy was also a character I never cared for, and both became series regulars after fans demanded they return after their guest appearances. I'll never understand how that happened.

As for the topic question itself, I gotta say the show for me that probably most fits that phenomenon is Community. A couple of my closest friends really liked it and referenced it all the time. I watched it and just... didn't understand the appeal. I found it painfully unfunny.

As for myself, I don't really care for modern console gaming (or a lot of computer gaming TBH) at all. Nothing about modern games just clicks with me and a lot of people are surprised by that despite my other geeky leanings.

Same. I haven't been without something to video game on since I first got my ZX Spectrum at aged 9ish.

Yet I've found I'm increasingly left cold with gaming. Some of it I certainly think is explained with my resurgent interest in analogue gaming over the last 8 years or so, one only has so much time after all, I don't think that explains it entirely.

I think what I realised when I made the jump to current gen, which I was already late doing, was that the games haven't really changed for a long time now. Sure, they're infinitely more refined in terms of visuals etc, but there's barely any change in the gaming experience now than the PS2/XBox era.

I keep meaning to make a dive into the Indy sector and look out some stuff that isn't just the latest installment of Franchise X, but just haven't had the enthusiasm.

Zombie films. I get zombies can be unnerving and there's a some immune but wouldn't the military have some serious containment protocols. If I recall in 28 weeks later they wondered off into abandoned homes despite the danger from zombies or crazy people. Also leaving the couple alone in containment together while exchanging fluids with a possibly infected woman. I did oddly enjoy 28 days a whole lot but there are so many questions. How often do zo,bies need to eat. I mean in a swarm they're fearful but you only really need to outlast them with food to win. Ok so they have a strong bite but any form of higher thinking isnt really there and they're slow. Tricking zombies to get away or come to you should be pretty easy in the form of loud noises. That could be perfect for ambushes or for leading them to a new fake threat so you can retreat.Regardless I find zombies not as big a threat. If some scientist told me about 'the thing existing and replacing people I'd crap my pants. Zombies are just less scary to me.

Zombies are a joke. Even if you could have rotting corpses shambling around, all you need to do is be able to walk and it isn't a problem.

A modicum of thought and really basic tactics takes care of the problem permanently.

Future proofing already exists: cremation. For folks who find the idea of burning grandma's remains offensive, I'd love an explanation as to why letting her corpse wander around and eat people is _less_ offensive.

Chalk me up as another Big Bang drop out, I really enjoyed the early seasons, found it less enjoyable from about 5 onwards and didn’t even bother with the last two seasons.

TV Anime. Bad art. Bad acting.

ST: DS9 - the most non-Trek Trek. They don't go anywhere! Plus of course, it's not Star Trek. It's Babylon 5.

I have to agree on zombie movies. Dead bodies degrade far too quickly for there to be a real threat for very long. In hot and humid conditions (say, a midwest summer) they rot away in a couple weeks, in hot and dry conditions (the desert southwest) they dry out in a couple days, and in the winter they just plain freeze in a matter of hours.

And all three destroy tissue on a cellular level, which means even a zombie virus can't keep the body moving anymore.


I never got much into video games either, especially console games. Definitely not ones based on reflexes and hand-eye coordination; button-mashing just doesn't translate into action to my brain.

Of course, this may be because I got into 'light' medieval combat recreation (or 'boffer swords', as the heavy and more serious medieval combat recreation fans put it) as a teenager. My reflexes got set to 'analog' instead of 'digital' fairly quickly.

Why 'light' instead of 'heavy'? There was no way in this world I was going to wear a gambezon and heavy armor in the 90+ degree heat and 80%+ humidity of a typical midwest summer.

Which brings me to another thing I don't like - LARP. I may like RPGs, and I may like fighting with padded swords, but I prefer my RP characters to NOT be limited by the amount of exercise and practice I don't have time for...


EDIT: Holy... I just noticed. Today marks the ten-year anniversary of my joining the forum. Where did the time go?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Also, didn’t How I Met Your Mother totally whiff the ending? I remember people turning on it like it was Lost.

I really liked it, but I was also never invested in "the mystery" of who the titular mother was. It was never going to be a satisfying mystery in the sense the "whodunnit it was Col Mustard all along!" sense, with the show's basic structure leaning heavily on a Ross/Rachael will they won't they between two characters that you know from the beginning won't. In total fairness, I also have a bit of unique viewing of it. My own mother died in the middle of the show's run and it made me acutely aware of the way the story was being told and the ending it was building towards. That said, there's no doubt the show needed to wrap up sooner and in particular the final season is a bloated mess of trying to keep a good thing going beyond its time. I just didn't have the dumpster fire reaction to the final episode the rest of the world seemed to when it didn't line up with their theories. Then again, I almost never react that way... twice that I can think of off the top of my head.

 Ouze wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
I dunno. The more I sit back and watch, the more I think the internet -- but mainly social media -- has changed us. Maybe not wildly so, but noticeably and measurably. Probably dovetails into Marshall McLuhan's work -- "the medium is the message", etc.

This is one of the more interesting tangents I've seen develop in a while. The funny thing is, if we try to split it off into a separate thread to discuss, my money says it gets locked within 3 pages. We've lost the ability to rationally debate what caused us to lose the ability to rationally debate, essentially.

I fear that's the case, yes.

Voss wrote:
Zombies are a joke. Even if you could have rotting corpses shambling around, all you need to do is be able to walk and it isn't a problem.

A modicum of thought and really basic tactics takes care of the problem permanently.

Future proofing already exists: cremation. For folks who find the idea of burning grandma's remains offensive, I'd love an explanation as to why letting her corpse wander around and eat people is _less_ offensive.

Yeah, tbh, most zombies are only scary by virtue of plot or the idiot ball being passed around the main characters/government. They're not fast or smart enough to be a viable threat, and any competent military would put down an outbreak fairly quickly. Worst case scenario, they literally rot away and it requires effectively virus "magic" for them to not be an ineffective mess in a year. Even the more feasible zombie types like in 28 days later don't work out because they will die in about a week or so since they aren't ever shown to scavenge food or drink water, which means they should run out of gas/adrenaline fairly quickly and you can just wait them out in an even shorter time frame. Zombies IMO make the most sense in a fantasy setting since it's literal necromancy and an intelligent force controlling them from behind the scenes that makes them a viable threat.

Voss wrote:
Zombies are a joke. Even if you could have rotting corpses shambling around, all you need to do is be able to walk and it isn't a problem.

A modicum of thought and really basic tactics takes care of the problem permanently.

Future proofing already exists: cremation. For folks who find the idea of burning grandma's remains offensive, I'd love an explanation as to why letting her corpse wander around and eat people is _less_ offensive.

Meemaw died for her right to party so you best respect it. Why you gotta roast her for that?

Football. The american kind. I just.. hate it. I don't understand what the point is, and why it's so popular. People around here make such a big deal over it, and I hate having to pretend I know what other guys are talking about when strangers make small talk. They just assume every guy loves football and can't wait to talk about it. The game is stupid, and fantasy football is just D&D for people who think they aren't nerds. Best day of the year is Superbowl Sunday, because that marks the end of people going crazy over football till the next 8 months or so.

I do like the idea of tailgating though, just because I like anything involving food.

 Necros wrote:
Football. The american kind. I just.. hate it. I don't understand what the point is, and why it's so popular. People around here make such a big deal over it, and I hate having to pretend I know what other guys are talking about when strangers make small talk. They just assume every guy loves football and can't wait to talk about it. The game is stupid, and fantasy football is just D&D for people who think they aren't nerds. Best day of the year is Superbowl Sunday, because that marks the end of people going crazy over football till the next 8 months or so.

I do like the idea of tailgating though, just because I like anything involving food.

Agreed football is weird including some of the patriotism or half time shows like when Beyonce knocked the power out. My older dad once said he prayed the other team would be punished for cheating in one case. I had to suppress a laugh. As far as the patriotism I'm more talking about flying military aircraft over the stadium. Isn't that expensive and highly unnecessary? I once saw them fly a b2 stealth bomber over the stadium and it just boggled my mind.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
As far as the patriotism I'm more talking about flying military aircraft over the stadium. Isn't that expensive and highly unnecessary? I once saw them fly a b2 stealth bomber over the stadium and it just boggled my mind.

The military started paying the NFL to do stuff like that as a recruitment/promotion thing, and yes it is expensive. You can just search NFL military and lots of articles will pop up.

Because I play/played RPGs people assume I like/play D&D 3/3.5/PF when I really do not like that system at all and even stopped playing for a decade or so after 3 came out because I just didn't care for it as a game.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
A lot of people keep telling me to watch Black Mirror because I like the Twilight Zone, anthologies, and sci fi. I tried three episodes, and each one was a horribly depressing evening-killer. I don’t need that in my life.

Betting you watched the pig one as one of the three.
I was lucky enough to see San Junipero first.
It's not perfect but it's got some cool concepts.

 Ahtman wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
As far as the patriotism I'm more talking about flying military aircraft over the stadium. Isn't that expensive and highly unnecessary? I once saw them fly a b2 stealth bomber over the stadium and it just boggled my mind.

The military started paying the NFL to do stuff like that as a recruitment/promotion thing, and yes it is expensive. You can just search NFL military and lots of articles will pop up.

Because I play/played RPGs people assume I like/play D&D 3/3.5/PF when I really do not like that system at all and even stopped playing for a decade or so after 3 came out because I just didn't care for it as a game.

That's quite an interesting story on the costs. You know I may be wrong but some put USA military brochures on our gw managers cashier table. I can see the legit reasons tho. A lot of tabletop wargame guys join the army.

I get football, but I don't really watch or follow it. I just enjoy it when someone turns it on. The strategy is fun and the segmented nature gives it a lot of little moments of drama. I generally enjoy college a bit more, but its a good game for television. I just only need to watch a handful of games each season. I certainly don't need 3 a day.

Voss wrote:


That all said, its also worth noting that AD&D has been dead and gone for two decades now...

SHUT YER CAKE HOLE!

(still running 2nd ed campaign.. did such a fun job of it, my kiddo went to college and meshed HORRIBLY with the 4th ed ruleset.. lol)

 Grimskul wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I like fantasy, so people assume I like Harry Potter. I loath Harry Potter as much as anybody can hate a work of fiction.

THIS. The number of people who have gawked at me like a mad man for not having read Harry Potter is more than I can count. It's little more than a wish fulfillment bildungsroman story to me, and not a particularly great one at that and which actively gets worse as Rowling doubles down on being woke and retcons things into absurdity. If I want magic in my story, I'd prefer LoTR or Warhammer, none of this magic school stuff.

This too. I know HP fans are as rabid as any, with my girlfriend and her former/my briefly former flatmate being die-hard fans. With the exception of those two, most if not all HP fans I meet would quite happily slit my throat as I slept for even insinuating that the books are anything but the 5th Gospel of the Bible, or that I don't like ROwling for any number of political reasons. Don't get me wrong, I love the books, but they aren't a masterpiece of literary talent.



My best friend in college was pretty much the opposite of me in terms of preferences but assumed I liked everything she did too - music, TV shows (she was into "trash" like Kardashian's and RuPaul's Drag Race). I cannot enjoy reality TV to save my life. I ended up getting a taste for some of her music but not much of it.

On the other hand, many people assume I don't like one of my favourite bands simply because I'm a dude, or that its purely based on attraction to the lead singer. My girlfriend assumed I wouldn't enjoy Pretty Woman but did assume I would like Queer Eye. She was wrong on the PW account but I actually quite like QE.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vulcan wrote:
I have to agree on zombie movies. Dead bodies degrade far too quickly for there to be a real threat for very long. In hot and humid conditions (say, a midwest summer) they rot away in a couple weeks, in hot and dry conditions (the desert southwest) they dry out in a couple days, and in the winter they just plain freeze in a matter of hours.

And all three destroy tissue on a cellular level, which means even a zombie virus can't keep the body moving anymore.


I never got much into video games either, especially console games. Definitely not ones based on reflexes and hand-eye coordination; button-mashing just doesn't translate into action to my brain.

Of course, this may be because I got into 'light' medieval combat recreation (or 'boffer swords', as the heavy and more serious medieval combat recreation fans put it) as a teenager. My reflexes got set to 'analog' instead of 'digital' fairly quickly.

Why 'light' instead of 'heavy'? There was no way in this world I was going to wear a gambezon and heavy armor in the 90+ degree heat and 80%+ humidity of a typical midwest summer.

Which brings me to another thing I don't like - LARP. I may like RPGs, and I may like fighting with padded swords, but I prefer my RP characters to NOT be limited by the amount of exercise and practice I don't have time for...


EDIT: Holy... I just noticed. Today marks the ten-year anniversary of my joining the forum. Where did the time go?

On zombies - I hate slow moving zombies. Its one of the reasons I stopped watching the Walking Dead. Its the same as horror movie cliches - the characters die 80% of the time but their own stupidity, and 10% by stupidity of others.The other 10% is characters being equally stupid by being attached to someone who gets infected and not shooting them immediately, or by being weak-ass concientious objectors.

The zombies I do like are more like Infected. We're talking 28 Days Later, World War Z (movie version, sorry!) or even the Croatoans from Supernatural season 5. While not zombies, they are close enough, and pose a serious enough threat in forcing the living to move faster than a brisk walk. The WWZ movie in particular, where the zombies can climb high walls using their own bodies as ladders and swarm in higher numbers than bullets can kill - that is interesting, and takes care of the issues of decay and "running out of steam" that undead zombies have, while the Supernatural Croatoans have the advantage of being supernatural, so those rules are never an issue.


Just on the video-games one - I'm totally into video games, but I don't play PC. Never owned a PC stronger than to do schoolwork unfortunately. I didn't even do ICT at school and know as much about computers as a trained monkey. But every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks that because I'm a nerd I know what a motherboard is or how to code. I have to google something every time my laptop does a thing I can't fix. And more than that, every gamer I meet thinks I must AT LEAST have a steam account, but I don't because PS4 is enough to satisfy me and I prefer the controller anyway.

I also don't LARP or cosplay, but my peers at school assumed I was every kind of nerd there is because I painted 40k figures.

As someone who read all the Harry Potter books, buying the last three in hardcover and two copies of the last one because we didn't want to chance being spoiled...those fans need to shut up. HP was an exciting series on par with the Dresden Files or King's Dark Tower, and it's done. If someone gives you guff for not reading HP, give them guff back for not reading its predecessor, So You Want to Be a Wizard (which is like an American Harry Potter but the magic works and the kids aren't stupid).

Now that I think about it, if Harry Potter had been American, Voldemort wouldn't have gotten past "avada--" before finding his face full of lead.

 Ahtman wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
As far as the patriotism I'm more talking about flying military aircraft over the stadium. Isn't that expensive and highly unnecessary? I once saw them fly a b2 stealth bomber over the stadium and it just boggled my mind.

The military started paying the NFL to do stuff like that as a recruitment/promotion thing, and yes it is expensive. You can just search NFL military and lots of articles will pop up.

Because I play/played RPGs people assume I like/play D&D 3/3.5/PF when I really do not like that system at all and even stopped playing for a decade or so after 3 came out because I just didn't care for it as a game.

There was also a time when NFL players used to be in the locker room for the Star-Spangled Banner during regular-season games.

I do quite like Harry Potter overall. It's a fun little universe with a lot of really fun details and well realized side characters that flesh out the experience. The books themselves get a little bloated along the way, but tie up better than most long running series. Had I been the right age, it would have been for me what Star Wars was, so I get it, even if my appreciation isn't on the same level as it is for people who grew up along side it.

Ok, I would firmly fall into the geek culture stereotype checking most of the boxes.

What happens is when a very wide "generalist" such as myself runs into the geek "specialist" of a given genre of geekdom.

People get all excited that I understand what they are talking about and can follow along... until we get too deep down the rabbit-hole.

Hentai, Vampire the Masquerade, Emo culture, Fantasy Battle (in general), Japanese visual novels are a few items I am not as keen on.

There is this strange assumption that whatever that person is REALLY interested in I must naturally be equally excited about.

Funny how confused and hurt these people get when they realize their favorite thing I find boring or irritating.

You all have the right to what you like, it is far nicer to be happy over some interest than to tear-down everyone else's.

I'm Irish.

I loathe Guinness.

 Ratius wrote:
I'm Irish.

I loathe Guinness.

Releatable.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
I dunno. The more I sit back and watch, the more I think the internet -- but mainly social media -- has changed us. Maybe not wildly so, but noticeably and measurably. Probably dovetails into Marshall McLuhan's work -- "the medium is the message", etc.

This is one of the more interesting tangents I've seen develop in a while. The funny thing is, if we try to split it off into a separate thread to discuss, my money says it gets locked within 3 pages. We've lost the ability to rationally debate what caused us to lose the ability to rationally debate, essentially.

I fear that's the case, yes.

I'd say what little ability we had got lost mostly online.
The percived anonimity is imo the biggest issue for that. Because you don't sit in a persons face you suddendly can forget all manners because the online communication has become so automatic and natural for us and is percived at most as a debate in a small circle for us even though the whole discussion / rant / gakstorm we are brewing up is visible for literally everyone.

 Ratius wrote:
I'm Irish.

I loathe Guinness.

I hear that. Not Irish, but spent enough years working in a bar listening to half cut evangelists espousing the miracle drink, while lamenting how it didn't taste the same as it did in Ireland.

Didn't like it in the UK, didn't like it when I was in Ireland.

If I want to drink ditch water I've my own field I can go and collect some from, I don't need to spend £6 a pint on it in a pub!

The funny thing is you hear all the time "its an acquired taste - keep trying it and it'll grow on you".

I'd rather drink warm Dutch Gold tbh (gold dutch is the lowest form of lager life there is. Period ).

There's anther one for the list. I don't like alcoholic beverages, and I don't understand people who can't have fun without alcohol.

But when you live in a small town with nothing else to do, everyone assumes you drink too because everyone drinks, right?

That’s not just in small towns. It seems like wherever you go people get angry if you say you don’t drink.

 Ouze wrote:
People seem to assume that all people who work in IT love Star Wars, Star Trek, and LOTR. I'm not really into any of those things. I'm passingly familiar with all of those IPs but definitely not a big fan of any of them.

I also don't think I've really seen any anime I've liked very much yet.

Other than LOTR, that's pretty spot on for me.

Additionally, I work in IT and folks assume that I know anything and everything IT-related. Evidently I'm supposed to know why a certain phone app doesn't work they way they want. :/

Knowing a lot of math apparently means my math skills are best used in simple division, subtraction or similar. As someone that studied some calculus it almost feels like trying to get da vinci to work a painting for 20 dollars or something at some small town gallery or a master chef making the most basic pancakes.

Sorry if I tooted my horn at that but it almost feels insulting. If you need help with division or subtraction find your nearest 5th grade math student to help you. Also to be fair everybody does everything with calculators these days and often people are forgetting simple math so just get a calculator.

 Ratius wrote:
I'm Irish.

I loathe Guinness.

Well, it is pretty gross.

 flamidngkillamajig wrote:
Knowing a lot of math apparently means my math skills are best used in simple division, subtraction or similar. As someone that studied some calculus it almost feels like trying to get da vinci to work a painting for 20 dollars or something at some small town gallery or a master chef making the most basic pancakes.

Sorry if I tooted my horn at that but it almost feels insulting. If you need help with division or subtraction find your nearest 5th grade math student to help you. Also to be fair everybody does everything with calculators these days and often people are forgetting simple math so just get a calculator.

People need to know how to do math the "hard" way in order to develop their number sense and logic. But as someone with a math degree, I hear you.

About six or seven years back, I was in a shop, playing some pick up games of warmachine. We were trying to get several games in so my opponent suggested a 15 point duel, partly because he was new and didn't have much.

I stood there, floored for a good minute, as he proceeded to pull out his phone, activate his calculator program and use it to add _three_ single digit numbers and subtract a fourth number.

It made me immensely sad.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
That’s not just in small towns. It seems like wherever you go people get angry if you say you don’t drink.

Unfortunately non-drinkers have the same problem as non-smokers - the people who simply abstain are stuck with a reputation generated by the people who abstain and then turn into smug, self-righteous neo-puritans who condescend to and berate anyone who doesn't. It's not so much that people believe you can't have fun if you don't drink, it's that a lot of the people they've met who make a point of not drinking are anti-fun in the same sense as anti-matter; when they meet fun they mutually annihilate it.

 Ouze wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
I'm Irish.

I loathe Guinness.

Well, it is pretty gross.

I'll fight yer's both, or least I would if, thanks to being an aging gimer, the falling asleep step of drinking is 3 or 4 pints lower than the getting a bit fighty stage

 Turnip Jedi wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 Ratius wrote:
I'm Irish.

I loathe Guinness.

Well, it is pretty gross.

I'll fight yer's both, or least I would if, thanks to being an aging gimer, the falling asleep step of drinking is 3 or 4 pints lower than the getting a bit fighty stage

Beer is anyways for unciviliced barbarians. Especially when everyone wants to force it upon you because you live in switzerland and are swiss german.

*hides in bunker.

jokes aside, the drinking culture here is wierd.

Proud to be an uncivilized barbarian then!
(But I wouldn't force it upon anyone who doesn't want it - that's more of a civilized man's game.)

I like craft beer. Hand me a budweiser and I’ll dump it out. If you can’t taste the work that went into it, don’t bother. I often get labeled a “beer snob”, and I’m good with that.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
That’s not just in small towns. It seems like wherever you go people get angry if you say you don’t drink.

I have never had anyone get angry about it.... perplexed at most.

I just explain that it makes me fall asleep in two second flat, and then we all move on.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
That’s not just in small towns. It seems like wherever you go people get angry if you say you don’t drink.

Unfortunately non-drinkers have the same problem as non-smokers - the people who simply abstain are stuck with a reputation generated by the people who abstain and then turn into smug, self-righteous neo-puritans who condescend to and berate anyone who doesn't. It's not so much that people believe you can't have fun if you don't drink, it's that a lot of the people they've met who make a point of not drinking are anti-fun in the same sense as anti-matter; when they meet fun they mutually annihilate it.

That is, in my experience, complete bs. People don't know one doesn't drink throughout an entire party, fun included, until they catch one saying "no thanks". Then it's "you don't like beer?" followed by condescending questions, contempt, disbelief, insinuations and shunning. These people know I have no problem with others drinking because I brought my fair share of the alcohol, and my wife drinks, and I've never said a negative word to her. It might be a reflex action on their part, but it is not based on real experience, and it is not based on rational assumptions on their part.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I like craft beer. Hand me a budweiser and I’ll dump it out. If you can’t taste the work that went into it, don’t bother. I often get labeled a “beer snob”, and I’m good with that.

I'm kinda in the same boat.

I am allergic to alcohol past the 1 beer or 1 glass of wine stage... even with those small amounts I get the "hot sweats".. so when I DO drink, that drink better be worth it.. so I fell into "beer snob" territory.

Now, since I had abdomial surgery 2 years ago, I cannot tolerate ANY carbonation, so .. beer is bye bye..

And here in OSU Buckeye territory, that is hard for others to handle

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
That’s not just in small towns. It seems like wherever you go people get angry if you say you don’t drink.

Unfortunately non-drinkers have the same problem as non-smokers - the people who simply abstain are stuck with a reputation generated by the people who abstain and then turn into smug, self-righteous neo-puritans who condescend to and berate anyone who doesn't. It's not so much that people believe you can't have fun if you don't drink, it's that a lot of the people they've met who make a point of not drinking are anti-fun in the same sense as anti-matter; when they meet fun they mutually annihilate it.

That is, in my experience, complete bs. People don't know one doesn't drink throughout an entire party, fun included, until they catch one saying "no thanks". Then it's "you don't like beer?" followed by condescending questions, contempt, disbelief, insinuations and shunning. These people know I have no problem with others drinking because I brought my fair share of the alcohol, and my wife drinks, and I've never said a negative word to her. It might be a reflex action on their part, but it is not based on real experience, and it is not based on rational assumptions on their part.

You seem to have somewhat misread my post? I'm not arguing all people who don't drink are smug and self-righteous and people react to that, I'm saying that a subset of people who don't drink are smug and self-righteous and the rest of us get tarred with the same brush, because that's just how it goes. Making assumptions based on category/stereotypes may not be completely rational, but it's hardly a quality unique to people who consume alcohol, so getting particularly exercised when they do it just seems like someone looking for a reason to be mad.

Definitely for me it is sports. I have zero interest in any sport, but I have a pretty good knowledge of several because people just default expect you to be a fan.

Nothing against sports, I spend my time obsessing about toy soldiers so I get having a weird interest, but it does get tiresome when people start talking about the game or whatever and I have to feign interest so I don't make them feel uncomfortable.

At least I don't assume everyone else likes dungeons and dragons and toy soldiers.

A friend assumed I would be big on the MCU, play D&D and Stranger Things. Went into a tirade over the MCU but they were being thoughtful in that I love films that are throwbacks to the 80s and that I do go on about computer games and the like.

Oh, someone had me down for being the sort to live an unsavoury lifestyle, and a pub crawler of the hardest sort...I don't even drink for a start!

 Yodhrin wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
That’s not just in small towns. It seems like wherever you go people get angry if you say you don’t drink.

Unfortunately non-drinkers have the same problem as non-smokers - the people who simply abstain are stuck with a reputation generated by the people who abstain and then turn into smug, self-righteous neo-puritans who condescend to and berate anyone who doesn't. It's not so much that people believe you can't have fun if you don't drink, it's that a lot of the people they've met who make a point of not drinking are anti-fun in the same sense as anti-matter; when they meet fun they mutually annihilate it.

Which is hilarious, considering I feel being around drunk people is anti-fun. Moreover, they feel entitled to shove their version of fun in my face, and on one extremely unpleasant occasion literally down my throat. Ugh.

 LunarSol wrote:
I get football, but I don't really watch or follow it. I just enjoy it when someone turns it on. The strategy is fun and the segmented nature gives it a lot of little moments of drama. I generally enjoy college a bit more, but its a good game for television. I just only need to watch a handful of games each season. I certainly don't need 3 a day.

I dont watch football and I constantly have to deal with "Did you see the X vs X game last night?" and i just say no and an awkward silence continues. I hate it.

Did you see that ludicrous display last night?

I'm British.

Do not like or drink tea.

 Ahtman wrote:
Did you see that ludicrous display last night?

Trouble with Arsenal is, they try to walk it in.

Being into Warhammer, people automatically assume I roleplay or do CCGs.

Being into Transformers people assume I'm fervent about other 80's properties, which I'm not really. Not on the level I am with TFs, at any rate.

Being a Trekker (Not a Trekkie, I bathe and am in a committed relationship) people assume I'm a Star Wars fan as well. I'm really not.

Being in the military, people assume that I get all wound up about shooting guns all the time civilian side or that I want to go camping.

Nearly every "OMG you gotta see this!" TV drama from the last ten years, for me. It just seems like an endles calvacade of grittiness and grimdark, with unlikable antiheroes ("your main character is a drug dealer--well, we'll make ours a serial killer!") vs pure evil and a philosophy that audiences should feel worse coming out of a series than they did going in. Honestly, if I wanted that sort of story, I'd just turn on the news.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:
Did you see that ludicrous display last night?

Trouble with Arsenal is, they try to walk it in.

It was a lovely day for ground hurling, but they kept hitting it into the air!

 Elemental wrote:
Nearly every "OMG you gotta see this!" TV drama from the last ten years, for me. It just seems like an endles calvacade of grittiness and grimdark, with unlikable antiheroes ("your main character is a drug dealer--well, we'll make ours a serial killer!") vs pure evil and a philosophy that audiences should feel worse coming out of a series than they did going in. Honestly, if I wanted that sort of story, I'd just turn on the news.

100% agree with you.

 Elemental wrote:
Nearly every "OMG you gotta see this!" TV drama from the last ten years, for me. It just seems like an endles calvacade of grittiness and grimdark, with unlikable antiheroes ("your main character is a drug dealer--well, we'll make ours a serial killer!") vs pure evil and a philosophy that audiences should feel worse coming out of a series than they did going in. Honestly, if I wanted that sort of story, I'd just turn on the news.

Yes! Everyone wants me to watch The Wire or Breaking Bad or whatever drama. I don't want drama! I get more than enough from the news. Even nBSG was too pointlessly miserable for me.

 Elemental wrote:
Nearly every "OMG you gotta see this!" TV drama from the last ten years, for me. It just seems like an endles calvacade of grittiness and grimdark, with unlikable antiheroes ("your main character is a drug dealer--well, we'll make ours a serial killer!") vs pure evil and a philosophy that audiences should feel worse coming out of a series than they did going in. Honestly, if I wanted that sort of story, I'd just turn on the news.

Oh My god, YES! i am so tired of shows for adults lately being sooooo, DARK, like, seriously, when did we as a society decided that Adult and MAture means dark and cynical. I started watching cartoons to get away from that, but they are doing it too now, with war and abuse storylines.....
I just want to watching something happy.......but it seems less and less like they exist

 Elemental wrote:
Nearly every "OMG you gotta see this!" TV drama from the last ten years, for me. It just seems like an endles calvacade of grittiness and grimdark, with unlikable antiheroes ("your main character is a drug dealer--well, we'll make ours a serial killer!") vs pure evil and a philosophy that audiences should feel worse coming out of a series than they did going in. Honestly, if I wanted that sort of story, I'd just turn on the news.

It's probably just the current trend. It's much like isekai in anime and the bombardment of tropes each of those has. At one point it was medical and police dramas and in video games at one point it was WW2 games. In small doses nothing is really bad but when it becomes a trend it can become a bit boring and tiresome.

Netflix/ HBO series.

GoT.

Like, i read the books partially.
Not my cup of coffee.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
That’s not just in small towns. It seems like wherever you go people get angry if you say you don’t drink.

Unfortunately non-drinkers have the same problem as non-smokers - the people who simply abstain are stuck with a reputation generated by the people who abstain and then turn into smug, self-righteous neo-puritans who condescend to and berate anyone who doesn't. It's not so much that people believe you can't have fun if you don't drink, it's that a lot of the people they've met who make a point of not drinking are anti-fun in the same sense as anti-matter; when they meet fun they mutually annihilate it.

Which is hilarious, considering I feel being around drunk people is anti-fun. Moreover, they feel entitled to shove their version of fun in my face, and on one extremely unpleasant occasion literally down my throat. Ugh.

This, except the shoving hasn't happened to me. I'm socially awkward when people aren't randomly doing crazy stuff that no one could see coming!

 reds8n wrote:
I'm British.

Do not like or drink tea.

I think you can get away with not liking tea nowadays, a fair few people drink coffee despite the taste.

What I can't understand is how people get on if they don't like any hot drinks, having a cuppa with someone is just such an important social interaction to miss out on!

 Kroem wrote:

 reds8n wrote:
I'm British.

Do not like or drink tea.

I think you can get away with not liking tea nowadays, a fair few people drink coffee despite the taste.

What I can't understand is how people get on if they don't like any hot drinks, having a cuppa with someone is just such an important social interaction to miss out on!

I don't mind hot tea or cocoa (I can't stand coffee)... but the warmth puts me right to sleep so it's hard to continue participating in said social interactions afterwards. Sigh.

I'm quite fond of tea. I don't really like coffee outside of Starbucks, which is more of a coffee-flavored beverage than actual coffee anyway.

 Kroem wrote:

 reds8n wrote:
I'm British.

Do not like or drink tea.

I think you can get away with not liking tea nowadays, a fair few people drink coffee despite the taste.

What I can't understand is how people get on if they don't like any hot drinks,

..also guilty , alas !

-- occasional seasonal mulled wine or something aside.

 Kroem wrote:

 reds8n wrote:
I'm British.

Do not like or drink tea.

I think you can get away with not liking tea nowadays, a fair few people drink coffee despite the taste.

What I can't understand is how people get on if they don't like any hot drinks, having a cuppa with someone is just such an important social interaction to miss out on!

That's probably because Brits generally make coffee as if it were tea. Coffee needs to be stronger before it's any good.

I drink tea, and haven’t touched coffee since, erm, 2001.

Triggers god awful migraines. Well, it at least triggered them back then. Not terribly keen to explore whether it was just a phase my biology was going through.

But it has meant I’ve basically entirely missed coffee shop culture in the UK.

Got nowt against it, or those that enjoy it. Just don’t want my brain to feel like it’s going to make a break for it out my eyes.

 Kroem wrote:

 reds8n wrote:
I'm British.

Do not like or drink tea.

I think you can get away with not liking tea nowadays, a fair few people drink coffee despite the taste.

What I can't understand is how people get on if they don't like any hot drinks, having a cuppa with someone is just such an important social interaction to miss out on!

I don't drink any hot drinks except the occasional hot chocolate in the winter, if I am in a coffee shop I will get a milk shake or fruit slushy/smoothie everywhere else its coke. I also have not drank for well over a decade due to my pain meds and can no longer abide going out, things have improved slightly in the last few years as my area has been overun with micro pubs which means if we do go out we tend to stay in one place to get a seat and the prices keep most people soberish.

Oh and I am from the Nort east of England where the main form of entertainment on a weekend for most of my life was drinking until you puked and then trying to beat someone to death followed by a take away pizza, so being tee total put me level with southerners and other soft bastards until recently.

I also can't stand anything alcoholic. I've had plenty of beers and wine and tequila other drinks and they all taste the same to me... like alcohol. I just can't stand the taste, and I don't want to get used to it if I already hate it. If I have to go to a bar, I'd rather have a $1 coke then spend all my cash on overly expensive glasses of crap. I also hate when people are like "OMG you have to try [insert drink here], you totally can't taste the alcohol at all!" .. well, betcha I can.

Kinda sucks for me though sometimes, I'm always the default designated driver and I really can't stand trying to talk to drunk friends, because they're drunk.

At the same time, i'm not preachy about it. If you wanna get all liquored up, go for it.

Funny, in out area we have a large gaming convention called "HotLead", I was at the hotel it is usually held at for my kid's hockey tournament and my wife mentioned Hotlead and the clerk laughed (?!?!).

When asked she said it was one of the largest venues they get that few if anyone drinks and there is NEVER a problem but it is the absolute strangest group of people as well.

I remember my wife sending the kids in to find me at the event, they came back confused telling her "They all look like dad!" I am not sure I am happy fitting a stereotype so completely.

Thats really weird, I would have thought with most Wargamers being men they would sell more beer than usual!

They do reckon less young'uns are drinking nowadays, very different from my days as a student.

that's cos multi-day events are all about the energy drinks and chemical flavoured fast food !

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
that's cos multi-day events are all about the energy drinks and chemical flavoured fast food !

Ah yes, wargamer must Drink energy Drinks.


The only thing i hate more then the steench of beer is the smell of these E Drinks.

I never got the appeal of energy drinks. Maybe my body is just differenter.. I had a can of Monster once, I didn't feel like I had more energy at all, or more awake or anything, but my heart felt like it was beating faster than it should. So I never touched one again.

Caffeine also doesn't wake me up in the morning, but if I have coffee or soda too close to bedtime I'll feel sleepy like normal but I won't be able to fall asleep for hours.

 Necros wrote:
I also can't stand anything alcoholic. I've had plenty of beers and wine and tequila other drinks and they all taste the same to me... like alcohol. I just can't stand the taste, and I don't want to get used to it if I already hate it. If I have to go to a bar, I'd rather have a $1 coke then spend all my cash on overly expensive glasses of crap. I also hate when people are like "OMG you have to try [insert drink here], you totally can't taste the alcohol at all!" .. well, betcha I can.

Kinda sucks for me though sometimes, I'm always the default designated driver and I really can't stand trying to talk to drunk friends, because they're drunk.

At the same time, i'm not preachy about it. If you wanna get all liquored up, go for it.

So, my real question is, where are you finding bars with coke for $1?
Usually its marked up beyond belief like everything else.

The last time I actually went to a bar, it was $1 .. so like 1992

As the designated driver, I usually got drinks for free. Of course, I also tended to tip 50 to 100% on drinks for my wife.

 Kroem wrote:

 reds8n wrote:
I'm British.

Do not like or drink tea.

I think you can get away with not liking tea nowadays, a fair few people drink coffee despite the taste.

What I can't understand is how people get on if they don't like any hot drinks, having a cuppa with someone is just such an important social interaction to miss out on!

'Social interaction'? Whats dat

I don't like: American beers. For me it seems like in USA they make only 2 types of beer. Bulk beer is water with little hops thrown in. Craft beer is hops with little water thrown in. I get that Americans like extremes but c'mon. Also I don't like IPAs.

While we're at it, as has been mentioned, Big Bang Theory. No, as a socially awkward dude in academia I don't like a show whose entire premiss is to make fun of a stereotype of me. Quelle surprise.

 Necros wrote:
I never got the appeal of energy drinks. Maybe my body is just differenter.. I had a can of Monster once, I didn't feel like I had more energy at all, or more awake or anything, but my heart felt like it was beating faster than it should. So I never touched one again.

Yeah, energy drinks also make me feel very jittery. I also don't drink alcohol, like you, I find it (usually) kind of gross and a total waste of money.

But I also just dislike drinking anything. It's just a really bizzaro thing to do, in the abstract, so I really only drink something when I am very thirsty. There are times where I might eat an entire meal and then realize I hadn't drank anything the whole time.

Backfire wrote:

 Kroem wrote:

 reds8n wrote:
I'm British.

Do not like or drink tea.

I think you can get away with not liking tea nowadays, a fair few people drink coffee despite the taste.

What I can't understand is how people get on if they don't like any hot drinks, having a cuppa with someone is just such an important social interaction to miss out on!

'Social interaction'? Whats dat

I don't like: American beers. For me it seems like in USA they make only 2 types of beer. Bulk beer is water with little hops thrown in. Craft beer is hops with little water thrown in. I get that Americans like extremes but c'mon. Also I don't like IPAs.

Sounds like IPAs and Budweiser. I’m with you, I dislike both. Give me a thick, bourbon barrel aged porter, a Rye, or a Barleywine any day. Something with flavor that isn’t just bitter.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
While we're at it, as has been mentioned, Big Bang Theory. No, as a socially awkward dude in academia I don't like a show whose entire premiss is to make fun of a stereotype of me. Quelle surprise.

People's reactions to that show were really surprising to me actually. The fact so many people seem to believe it was laughing with the characters(when in reality it was clearly laughing squarely at them 99% of the time) made me realise either neurotypical people are actually the ones with a warped perception of humour, or they're just so used to slagging off nerdy folk that they genuinely don't see any problem with it.

In any event, it serves as a useful early warning system - anyone who professes to like the show without acknowledging the reality of it can be safely jettisoned.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
While we're at it, as has been mentioned, Big Bang Theory. No, as a socially awkward dude in academia I don't like a show whose entire premiss is to make fun of a stereotype of me. Quelle surprise.

People's reactions to that show were really surprising to me actually. The fact so many people seem to believe it was laughing with the characters(when in reality it was clearly laughing squarely at them 99% of the time) made me realise either neurotypical people are actually the ones with a warped perception of humour, or they're just so used to slagging off nerdy folk that they genuinely don't see any problem with it.

In any event, it serves as a useful early warning system - anyone who professes to like the show without acknowledging the reality of it can be safely jettisoned.

but shutting them down with "but what did you think of The Guild" is funs

I don't have a problem with the humour in Big Bang Theory tbh, but it's hardly 'must watch' T.V. so you guys aren't missing out on much.

Yes it pokes fun at the main characters for being nerdy, but that's no different from the Simpsons making jokes about Homer being a fat, stupid, lazy alcoholic or Cheers cracking jokes about Sam being a narcissistic, washed up z list celeb who thinks he's gods gift to women!

Also there are plenty of jokes in the show at the expense of Penny, Zack, Mrs Cooper etc. and the stereotypes which they represent.

Big Bang just dragged on far too long, a fairly frequent curse of many a popular show and the lazy writing got to the its funny cos its that funny show (see Roseanne, Cheers, Fiends, et al)

People always assume I like wargaming. Urgh! I hate those stupid games, with the silly stupid little plastic models that don't even come painted, and the dices, and all those annoyingly boring rules. Who has time for that crap, really?

 Kroem wrote:
I don't have a problem with the humour in Big Bang Theory tbh, but it's hardly 'must watch' T.V. so you guys aren't missing out on much.

Yes it pokes fun at the main characters for being nerdy, but that's no different from the Simpsons making jokes about Homer being a fat, stupid, lazy alcoholic or Cheers cracking jokes about Sam being a narcissistic, washed up z list celeb who thinks he's gods gift to women!

Also there are plenty of jokes in the show at the expense of Penny, Zack, Mrs Cooper etc. and the stereotypes which they represent.

You're right, it's not different.

That's why I don't like it.

(On a slightly less glib note, those series aren't centred around laughing at stereotypes. While such "humor" is present it's not the central premise).

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
I don't have a problem with the humour in Big Bang Theory tbh, but it's hardly 'must watch' T.V. so you guys aren't missing out on much.

Yes it pokes fun at the main characters for being nerdy, but that's no different from the Simpsons making jokes about Homer being a fat, stupid, lazy alcoholic or Cheers cracking jokes about Sam being a narcissistic, washed up z list celeb who thinks he's gods gift to women!

Also there are plenty of jokes in the show at the expense of Penny, Zack, Mrs Cooper etc. and the stereotypes which they represent.

You're right, it's not different.

That's why I don't like it.

(On a slightly less glib note, those series aren't centred around laughing at stereotypes. While such "humor" is present it's not the central premise).

I think the difference between the big bang theory and simpsons, or even say, Friends, is that the stereotype of the character is not central to the humour or plot. Homer is stupid, lazy fat alcoholic, but has further character traits such as being a wimp and a loving husband that makes him well-rounded. Similar to sheldon, Lisa Simpson is a huge nerd/dork/science buff but that doesn't define all the interactions she has with her friends and family, only some of them. Admittedly I've only seen a little BBT but from what I can tell its just a bunch of people poking fun at each other for being nerds or autistic nerds for the amusement of a live audience with no deeper humour.

 Deadshot wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Kroem wrote:
I don't have a problem with the humour in Big Bang Theory tbh, but it's hardly 'must watch' T.V. so you guys aren't missing out on much.

Yes it pokes fun at the main characters for being nerdy, but that's no different from the Simpsons making jokes about Homer being a fat, stupid, lazy alcoholic or Cheers cracking jokes about Sam being a narcissistic, washed up z list celeb who thinks he's gods gift to women!

Also there are plenty of jokes in the show at the expense of Penny, Zack, Mrs Cooper etc. and the stereotypes which they represent.

You're right, it's not different.

That's why I don't like it.

(On a slightly less glib note, those series aren't centred around laughing at stereotypes. While such "humor" is present it's not the central premise).

I think the difference between the big bang theory and simpsons, or even say, Friends, is that the stereotype of the character is not central to the humour or plot. Homer is stupid, lazy fat alcoholic, but has further character traits such as being a wimp and a loving husband that makes him well-rounded. Similar to sheldon, Lisa Simpson is a huge nerd/dork/science buff but that doesn't define all the interactions she has with her friends and family, only some of them. Admittedly I've only seen a little BBT but from what I can tell its just a bunch of people poking fun at each other for being nerds or autistic nerds for the amusement of a live audience with no deeper humour.

Exactly, that was a better way to put across what I was trying to say.

Even then I don't like the "hurr Homer stupid hurr" kind of humor. Ignorance is sad, not funny.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
Big Bang just dragged on far too long, a fairly frequent curse of many a popular show and the lazy writing got to the its funny cos its that funny show (see Roseanne, Cheers, Fiends, et al)

Turns out when its the day job and basically whole career for hundreds of people, cutting it short just because the story is over is a lot harder to do. A lot of it just comes down to it being people's day job for a good decade and not wanting to put your entire office out of work.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
Big Bang just dragged on far too long, a fairly frequent curse of many a popular show and the lazy writing got to the its funny cos its that funny show (see Roseanne, Cheers, Fiends, et al)

Turns out when its the day job and basically whole career for hundreds of people, cutting it short just because the story is over is a lot harder to do. A lot of it just comes down to it being people's day job for a good decade and not wanting to put your entire office out of work.

a fair point, and maybe another quirk of difference between the UK and US as most of our sit-coms run very short compared to the 20ish episode 10 seasons pondside (apart from Two Pints which steadfastly refused to die)

 LunarSol wrote:

Turns out when its the day job and basically whole career for hundreds of people, cutting it short just because the story is over is a lot harder to do. A lot of it just comes down to it being people's day job for a good decade and not wanting to put your entire office out of work.

Also, sitcom actors are usually typecast after few seasons and will have trouble getting interesting roles so as long as you have even bit of motivation and the show remains popular, you might just as well squeeze everything out of it while you can.

I am SOOO late to this thread...sorry. Warning, chance to rant taken...
I have very similar things as others above. Mine mostly break down a different way/reason though.

I sum it up as (topic) Lite. As in, (topic) for people who know little about the topic. (See how I brought the keyword system in? This is Dakka after all)

For Example: (please bear in mind, I think age has a lot to do with this. I am older. I have seen TONS! I have a great memory. I catch repeated gags, twists, etc. In fact I have often thought of creating a chart that relates every sitcom episode after 1984 to either the MASH or I Love Lucy it is stolen from. This also isn't new. Somewhere there is a great article on "there are only 10 plots in the world")

I am INTO fantasy, but no, I don't like Harry Potter or Game of Thrones. Because I am INTO fantasy. Both of those strike me as fantasy lite, for non fantasy fans. One is a standard soap opera with gore and sex thrown in (See Dallas, 1980's for an example of standard everyone is a power hungry selfish bastard), and the other expects me to marvel and be amazed because a centaur showed up...ummm, no. As I said, I'm INTO fantasy. Centaurs and such are the weather, not the news. Same for the first. Someone being fireproof because, you know, dragons and all, is so original I only found it in 6-7 books on my shelf right now...

Most of the vampire shows fall into the same category. I've roleplayed for 30 years. I'm not shocked and amazed when the vampire turns into mist and sneaks under the door. What I am amazed at is how the stupid NPC's (they must be NPC's, no player character reacts the way they do) in these shows is clueless. How come no one in these shows has watched the same TV I have for the last 30 years? Please, SOMEONE keep shooting/stabbing/dismembering a bad guy even though they are "down".

Most TV shows about nerds aren't really about nerds or roleplayers etc. they are about the stereotype non-nerds create. About how non-roleplayers think RPG's go. So I'm out on those as well.

Here is one I haven't seen yet, although it certainly follows the "My job is...so I must like..." pattern.
I was a history Professor. I find it very hard to sit through 95% of the shows on the History channel because they are aimed at people who know almost nothing about the particular subject. After you've read and studied say the Battle of Midway through 30+ books from all sides, a one hour documentary barely covers the blurb on the back of the textbook. And absolutely! no! I will not be seeing the latest Midway movie. 30 seconds of CGI showing Hollywood has decided to ignore all of the relevant data on actual dive-bombing in WWII is all I needed. And yes, shockingly I managed to hear about the code-breakers once or twice or 500 times in my life...

@Elbows (from way in the beginning...) I also have a very short list of people I trust to suggest pretty much anything. Sadly, my brother is off. He describes almost any movie as "Great" because he turns his brain off at the door. Which is fine, but I am not easily amused...When he says a movie was "Okay", I generally expect it to be in the 10% range for rotten tomatoes. He saw Wing Commander the movie twice in one weekend...and desperately tried to get us to go with him. Love the dude, but he was off the list that day.

Edited for poor typing skills, and a few new thoughts I realized make my opinion easier to understand.

edwardmyst wrote:


I am INTO fantasy, but no, I don't like Harry Potter or Game of Thrones. Because I am INTO fantasy. Both of those strike me as fantasy lite, for non fantasy fans. One is a standard soap opera with gore and sex thrown in (See Dallas, 1980's for an example of standard everyone is a power hungry selfish bastard), and the other expects me to marvel and be amazed because a centaur showed up...ummm, no. As I said, I'm INTO fantasy. Centaurs and such are the weather, not the news. Same for the first. Someone being fireproof because, you know, dragons and all, is so original I only found it in 6-7 books on my shelf right now...

Hmm. That's an interesting take. I tend to read fantasy for human drama and relationships, as unlike sci-fi, fantasy tends to about characters rather than tech toys and technobabble. So I tend to regard the fantasy aspects as set-dressing in a lot of ways, and how they handle it helps me determine how well they know they genre.

For Harry Potter, I find it boring because its some brat's 'coming of age' story, and I've read dozens of those (especially with orphans as main characters as that's easy and lowers the number of characters to keep track of), and the brat in question is kind of a lazy loser, who somehow gets away with doing the minimum required and being angry most of the time. That isn't interesting. The real main character eventually suffers some kind of ice pick lobotomy and stops functioning halfway through the series. The world building was somewhat interesting to begin with, but eventually fell apart like a house of cards as Rowling failed to plan or even try for consistency. So it comes down to macguffins, suicide and a bafflingly costless resurrection.

Sadly my opinion of GoT is even lower. I don't want to read about terrible people murder raping through a bland anachronistic historical pastiche with fantasy elements loosely appended to it. There's zero draw there.

That's pretty much a spot-on description of the theory of cultural appropriation (the actual academic idea, not the Internet madness version of it).

Voss wrote:
The real main character eventually suffers some kind of ice pick lobotomy and stops functioning halfway through the series.

Curious who you consider the real main character.

 Ratius wrote:
I'm Irish.

I loathe Guinness.

Is that because you don’t like stout, or because Guinness isn’t very good stout?

The Euler diagram* that includes me and “geek culture” has a very small overlap. Anime? I like one or two, and that’s despite them being anime; I’d prefer if they were live action (and frankly, less Japanese. I find the exaggerated acting wearing). 80s nostalgia? I wasn’t into any of that stuff in the 80s; well, there is Lego, but I prefer the old Space and City themes, and find all the licences stuff a little disappointing.

Harry Potter is OK, but it’s a series for high school kids. Anyone obsessing over it after the age of 17 is a little suspect. Game of Thrones builds an interesting world and characters, but the plot has, well, lost the plot. I’m happy to bang on at tedious length about Dune, Neverness, the Arabesk trilogy or Discworld.

I’m not sure if there’s anything that people have expected me to like specifically, though, not to the point of saying so to my face.