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Roderick

Feminism

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I seem to remember reading another anti-DFW-bro piece with a similar "guy's I've dated"-style premise, but I haven't seen anyone else bring it up so maybe I imagined it. Anyway, that one is really good.

 

11 hours ago, osmosisch said:

recommending things without considering the audience

 

People* are so bad at this. 

 

(WARNING: OBVIOUS RANT ABOUT OBVIOUS THING FOLLOWS)  

 

The reason you'd recommend someone a book (or anything) is to help them find something they'll appreciate... right? But I think lots of people just recommend favorites indiscriminately, as a way of imposing their own taste influence as far as possible. To make sure their personal canon of art features prominently in their social circle. Obviously nobody is actually thinking in those terms. But still, it often feels like an entirely self-centered act that barely considers the other person at all.

 

Relatedly, I think a lot of dudes think their friends and/or romantic interests need to like everything they like, and any discrepancy in taste is some sort of problem that needs to be sorted out. This seems very adolescent to me; something that maybe we all feel but should try to grow out of.

 

*well, men are, anyway. I imagine women are forced to think about this sort of stuff in a way men never really are

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I often tend to be very cautious in recommending things. I kind of think of it like there's a few outcomes with benefits/detriments:

A - I don't say anything, everyone goes on with their lives. +0 points

B - I recommend thing I like. They like it too! +5 points

C - I recommend thing I like. They don't like it! Now I feel weird talking to them and they trust my opinions less! -10 points

 

So I try to develop a reasonable confidence that person will like thing before giving it a proper recommendation. Until then I just settle for saying I like it a lot and the reasons why :)

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Secret option D - You recommend something you don't like. Chaos ensues. ±NaN points

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Building on dium's obvious rant is another obvious point that a lot of people (inc. me) have treated it as some kind of back door cheat code into their psyche and that to 'get them' (and the implied higher level of friendship) you have to delve into all the things they like and cherish.

Of course the real mistake is assuming that's important at all.

Other even more self serious men will treat it as a filter so they don't have to deal with dumb 'normies'. Do you have your eng lit. passport ready? If you haven't heard of their thing well then they get to tutor you until they're sure you think about it the same way they do. It becomes a hobby for 'em since hey the more people that think like them then the more right they must be, right?

 

Anyway that article reminded me about another article I half remember about the author being entirely sick of lib-soc bros assigning/'recommending' Slavoj Zizek to her 'mind expansion' pile that she started being blithely indifferent to them about how she'd never heard of him.

 

I guess that's the final sad thing about it right it's 'assigned mind expansion' that comes with the premise that you aren't seen as interesting, smart, aware, or  world-weary enough so you should really invest time into studying this thing they like so a) you act differently in future b) they can quiz you on it c) they get the ego boost for knowing someone did a thing they wanted them to do.

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Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone once wrote a book in which he gleefully recounts sexually harassing women employees and his co-author gleefully recounts raping, harassing and threatening women while the two of them ran a newspaper in Moscow. 

 

I've liked Taibbi's work over the years well enough, but I'm fucking done with him and Rolling Stone for having employed him.  It's not like this is some rumor shit or anything, they literally published a book recounting all the awful shit they did while in Moscow. 

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