For me, it’s kinda the other way around. I’m often the sort of person that does exactly that, refuse to try something exactly because it’s popular.
Why? Well, when everyone around you is doing a certain popular thing (let’s think like video games or sports, but could be anything really), I sit on the sidelines and realize it’s becoming an addiction for them, and I’ll literally count the years my friends and others waste away partaking in that addiction.
Don’t ask me how many years I watched friends waste playing Call Of Duty. For me, I like to mix it up, a different hobby or project or whatever almost every day.
This is something I do, so I’ll take a crack at it—though, bear in mind, it might be total bullshit.
It’s a defense mechanism. Many popular things are—in my estimation—objectively terrible. Every time something utterly devoid of merit (and often actively detrimental to the public good) is generally agreed to be a popular sensation, the connection I feel to my fellow human beings takes a hit.
I want to believe in people—in society. But I’m clearly a judgmental sob. So maybe by avoiding the popular things, I’m trying not to further my own alienation.
The refusal to try something just because it’s popular.
Fuck pickleball.
For me, it’s kinda the other way around. I’m often the sort of person that does exactly that, refuse to try something exactly because it’s popular.
Why? Well, when everyone around you is doing a certain popular thing (let’s think like video games or sports, but could be anything really), I sit on the sidelines and realize it’s becoming an addiction for them, and I’ll literally count the years my friends and others waste away partaking in that addiction.
Don’t ask me how many years I watched friends waste playing Call Of Duty. For me, I like to mix it up, a different hobby or project or whatever almost every day.
If you’re enjoying your time, it’s not a waste.
It’s social signalling, and it’s supposed make the curmudgeon seems better than the common rabble and therefore high-status.
That is a reasonable explanation of people who announce their refusal to participate in a fad.
What of the people who just ignore the fad, without publicly declaring their refusal?
This is something I do, so I’ll take a crack at it—though, bear in mind, it might be total bullshit.
It’s a defense mechanism. Many popular things are—in my estimation—objectively terrible. Every time something utterly devoid of merit (and often actively detrimental to the public good) is generally agreed to be a popular sensation, the connection I feel to my fellow human beings takes a hit.
I want to believe in people—in society. But I’m clearly a judgmental sob. So maybe by avoiding the popular things, I’m trying not to further my own alienation.