tons of people in multi-use trails are just completely obvious to everyone trying to pass them. and then of course, when you do pass them, they panic and scream and throw a tantrum about how you almost hit them.

social pressure and accolades.

i have a low-pressure good-wage job. I get ton of casual feedback from everyone in my life that I am ‘wasting my life’ by not working in a higher paying job. I’ve had multiple relationships end, because I prefer to stay in my stable & rewarding job than seeking more money and climbing some corporate ladder. etc.

I may be quite happy with my life and my job. But other people tend to look down on that and it has negative consequences for my social/romantic life. They are often jealous of my conditions and/or condescending that I am not ‘optimizing’ my earning potential. A lot of people can’t fathom living outside of a toxic/stressful work environment and regard people who don’t as ‘lazy’ or ‘lacking ambition’.

Yeah I find people to be far more amendable in educational contexts than they are generally. My Russian class is the only place anyone seems to think my interest in Russian literature is cool.

What I struggle with is that I don’t use IG and other social media. And a lot of people’s polite/casual conversations are entirely based on that stuff.

I notice I have an easy time talking to people over 50, but under 40… it’s like I live on a different planet. We have nothing in common to really talk about because they just reference social media stuff and I have no context for it. I quit a bunch of stuff recently because all the new people coming in started straight up being rude/insulting me because my life isn’t governed by chasing social media trends or agonizing about response times like theirs is. I get told off by a lot of new people because I don’t text back fast enough and they take it as a personal attack or something when I said ‘well if it’s that important why not call and have real time voice conversation’.

I also prefer face to face interaction and not constantly being in discord/slack chats, which apparently is how everyone under 30 socializes these days.

It might would. could be a disaster.

plenty of volunteer communities are full of insane gatekeeping types of people.

I’m not criticizing anything. The fact you feel criticized by my comment… maybe you are doing it performatively… if only for yourself?

I mean, most vinyl snobs I know… that’s the point. It’s a way to signify how ‘hardcore’ they are about music because they spend the money/time/space on it. That their listening inexpressive is ‘more authentic and real’ than me listening to spotify in my car. It’s a form of conspicuous consumption.

it makes nostalgia for something that never existed.

there is plenty of it for say medieval history. our fantasy conception of medieval times… is mostly completely false/fake.

or take the concept of the ‘noble savage’ as if cavemen are morally pure being or something. complete nonsense.

And yet people believe these things are legit and real.

she make her money from concerts and licensing fees. not music sales

most artists income these days comes from concerts. music sales aren’t money makers anymore the way they used to be.

the point is feeling like it’s superior when it objective isn’t as some sort of form of teenage rebellion or something.

not any different in the 90s when everything was CDs and that the few ‘cool’ kids were still using records as a FU to ‘the man’. and wearing 70s clothing styles.

It’s all about making yourself feel special.

They are just like every other generation before them. They think anything that’s 20-30 years old is ancient history and they want to ‘connect’ to a past they didn’t live through and it also makes them feel different than their parents who are all into streaming services and gave up physical media who lived through the progression of formats from analog, to digital, to non-physical.

There is a large subset of hipster types who are notalgic for VHS, cassette, film and early digital cameras.

It’s because of ‘vibes’. It makes them feel different, special, more important than the ‘normies’ listening to stuff on Spotify, watching stuff on Netflix, or using iphones for photography. They think it’s more ‘authentic’, ‘analog’, etc.

Yes, they are insufferable people to be around. I grew up with Cassettes and VHS. It sucked balls. I vastly prefer my 4K streaming and high bit rate audio. But I understand that for younger people or hipster types, the ‘retro’ aspect is super appealing and it makes them feel special. I have several friends like this over the years and they love to go on long rants about how superior they are for this stuff and how ignorant the Spotified masses are.