Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[prabe]

Folks who come into a thread praising a thing just to say they personally don’t like it are the same yum-yuckers who want to criticize your pizza toppings.

I would say I don’t understand but I used to be that insecure too.

Yeah, I'm very intentionally staying out of the threads where people are being fans of games I have no interest in--even the threads where at least some people are complaining some about those games. I'm genuinely happy people are getting enjoyment out of those games, even if I very much don't want to play them, I have no interest in bashing someone else's fun. At least, not that fun.

 

[gnarlygninja]

Folks who come into a thread praising a thing just to say they personally don’t like it are the same yum-yuckers who want to criticize your pizza toppings.

I would say I don’t understand but I used to be that insecure too.

I'm of two minds about this. I do find that most of the people doing it are not really adding much more, or worse, are there to argue. And if it's thing I notice someone doing habitually it makes me start to consider putting them on ignore. But sometimes when I don't like something I want to talk about why, and I find talking about it in places full of people who do like it is more helpful and leads to more productive discussions than going to places full of people who don't like it.

 

[Ryujin]

I'm of two minds about this. I do find that most of the people doing it are not really adding much more, or worse, are there to argue. And if it's thing I notice someone doing habitually it makes me start to consider putting them on ignore. But sometimes when I don't like something I want to talk about why, and I find talking about it in places full of people who do like it is more helpful and leads to more productive discussions than going to places full of people who don't like it.

Just caught myself about to do this and had a quick, "Why the hell would I do that?" moment.

 

[Deset Gled]

I can totally see tree bark if it's from the right tree, but you were decidedly talking about redwood tree bark which is far, far too grainy and not in accordance with the Eight Holy Virtues as extolled by a 2009 blog post.

Look, the fact that I have posted 15 articles discussing tree bark and have explicitly defined "bland" to mean "without bark" should not make you assume that I'm promoting tree bark. I'm just asking questions. It's all very academic. Frankly, it's insulting for you to label me as pro-bark.

 

[RealAlHazred]

"I'm just asking questions" is my favorite statement to make when I have no actual questions.

 

[el-remmen]

I'm of two minds about this. I do find that most of the people doing it are not really adding much more, or worse, are there to argue. And if it's thing I notice someone doing habitually it makes me start to consider putting them on ignore. But sometimes when I don't like something I want to talk about why, and I find talking about it in places full of people who do like it is more helpful and leads to more productive discussions than going to places full of people who don't like it.

There’s a difference between good faith exploration of something that didn’t work for you and trying to understand what other people liked about it and “all things of x genre are terrible and I don’t need to actually try any of them to know that and you have bad taste for liking it.”

To be clear, you don’t have to like anything but your not liking a thing is less interesting than you think it is and definitely does not make you interesting or reflect some elegant taste you’ve developed.

 

[CleverNickName]

(walks into a pizza shop, clears throat)
"Why are so many people still eating here?! This place has been open since 1974, and there are tons of new pizza places all over the city!"
(nobody notices him)
"There are better options out there, people!!!"
(still ignored)
"You don't have to keep eating the same pizza from the same place! This place is boring!"
(nobody is listening)
"What's so great about this place, anyway?!"
(still ignored)
. . .

I can understand the frustration of trying to start a new pizza shop in a town where everyone is so accustomed to eating a very specific brand of pizza with the same ingredients. But maybe telling people their favorite pizza isn't actually good and they don't really like it as much as the say they do isn't the best approach.

 

[Hussar]

Ok, yes, I know I'm being annoying.

But, I'm keeping my idiocy confined to one thread, I'm not spreading it anywhere and it's just SOOOOO cathartic to get all bent out of shape and argumentative about something that really, really doesn't matter because if I start to talk about the stuff that actually does matter, I'm probably going to wind up on some sort of watch list.

So, let me vent in peace and I promise to keep it contained to one place.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Just caught myself about to do this and had a quick, "Why the hell would I do that?" moment.

Yeah, the problem with that is its almost bound to have that insider/outsider dynamic where some people at least consider it an attack, and those people round on the pink monkey.

 

[Thomas Shey]

(walks into a pizza shop, clears throat)
"Why are so many people still eating here?! This place has been open since 1974, and there are tons of new pizza places all over the city!"
(nobody notices him)
"There are better options out there, people!!!"
(still ignored)
"You don't have to keep eating the same pizza from the same place! This place is boring!"
(nobody is listening)
"What's so great about this place, anyway?!"
(still ignored)
. . .

I can understand the frustration of trying to start a new pizza shop in a town where everyone is so accustomed to eating a very specific brand of pizza with the same ingredients. But maybe telling people their favorite pizza isn't actually good and they don't really like it as much as the say they do isn't the best approach.

There's some strong wisdom here, but there's always the question in your mind that, especially these days, have they really looked into other kinds of pizza? Are they sticking with what they have because they genuinely prefer it, or is their understanding limited by not having broad experience?

That's always kind of been an issue with traditional pizza, but when its so easy to have nothing but that, you can always wonder if they're sticking with it just because its acceptable, rather than being what they'd really prefer.

The flip side, of course, is assuming no one can prefer traditional pizza except out of ignorance which a stupidly hot take.