Thirty minute hate.

[xyzzysqrl]

Over on Planet rancourt there's a new post running down one of the things that annoys Dusty. Inspired by this, I've decided to rip him off shamelessly outline a related but different dislike of my own. (EDIT: No, wait, rip him off shamelessly turned out to be right after all.) There's one thing that's really been grating on me lately, it never fails to make me sigh in annoyance and bite back comments of my own. That's not healthy, frankly. It's been building up for a while in me, and I think I need to say something.

So what pisses me off so badly?

Negativity.

...yeah, my irony meter just pegged out too. Stick with it.

Seething hatred abounds on the Internet, be it for fandoms, within fandoms, over there on that gaming-related website, political debates, religious debates, debates about politics in religion, debates about religion in politics, in that webcomic about Republican Jesus playing video games about Harry Potter, etc. Mostly, people like to disagree with each other. I can accept that. I hold strong opinions myself, opinions which I will whip out at the slightest provocation. (Ask me about Jedi.) One thing I won't try to do is to stifle anyone -else's- take on things, though. In some ways this is easy, I try to avoid political and religious strife in general, for example.

Still, I work in the video game industry. (Okay, no. I don't. I idly screw around in the video game industry and people humor me.) I get exposed to a -lot- of opinions that come down like absolute moral truth. "You shouldn't care about that." "Do people still get excited about this stuff?" "This is going to suck." "There's no way that'll be good." Maybe worse still is just the dismissive attitude I see running through a lot of comments on assorted boards and whatnot I read.

So there's that, and yeah, it bothers me. I'm just trying to figure out why it bugs me so much. The opinions of Random Internet People shouldn't get me down, should it? It's just that after seeing so many jaded, hard-hearted opinions get tossed around, I start to feel kind of dull and jaded myself.

It's kind of human nature, I guess. Build it up, tear it down. I just really prefer the build it up part. That's all I'm saying. Even games I've given bad reviews to I can point at and name something I liked.

(Torrente? It kept me snickering at how goofy it was and it was -well lit-, a big thing for me in games. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within? GREAT world-building and spatial use. Atlantis: Evolutions? ... Well, it had that doofy shooter minigame. And I dubbed the main character "Dickweasel McDickenheimer", a name that continues to live in infamy around the apartment and get pulled out for any grating main character possible, even the girls.)

So what am I saying? Well. Take a cue from, say, xydexx. Next time you find yourself about to lay down a wall of solid apathetic grousing or flat-out hate about something, remember that life's supposed to be awesome. Try and build up instead of tearing down. Find something to be enthusiastic about.

At the very least, try not to come off as dismissive and jaded too often, please. If saying that makes me some kind of beatnik hippie loveandpeace freak, then welcome to Hippieville, population me.

Thank you.

Comments

[swordianmaster.livejournal.com]

Only two games have garnered absolute dislike from me.

Those would be:
a) SNES: Captain Novolin (which is utterly uncontrollable!)
b) Genesis: Captain Planet and the Planeteers (with the MOST TRUTHFUL AD CAMPAIGN EVER.)

Everything else will have its good points. Even FF7, which I loathe uncontrollably, gets props for having some of Nobuo Uematsu's best (and worst augh) music.

[rosycat.livejournal.com]

Move over, I'm moving to Hippieville :)

Seriously, the post makes a lot of sense .

[kiruppert.livejournal.com]

So, what about Jedi?

-K

[swordianmaster.livejournal.com]

Chlorine does not mix well with MIDI.

It causes musical death.

Aside from that, Xyzzy can explain the rest.

[xyzzysqrl]

...
I do not actually know what he's on. *point upward*

Ahem.

Anyway. Jedi. I don't like them much. They're emotional cripples, foremost, and I've yet to see one with a fully functional sense of humor. They bother me because they're presented as the shining, utmost hope of the Star Wars universe. A Jedi can do no wrong, has vast supernatural powers, and singlehandedly upstages all the lesser characters. They get big glowy swords and cool wave-your-hand abilities, and so on. They're Lucas's pet demigods.

Also, the Jedi Council is almost ALWAYS presented as doing The Wrong Thing in books, movies, etc. Not a great track record for them.

Basically I guess it's my general leanings away from heavily mystical types. I prefer people like Wedge and Han to Quin-Gon and Luke. I realize it's basically me pointing VGCats style at the Jedi and yelling "YOUR ELITIST WARRIOR CULTURE IS SILLY!", but it's hard to explain -why- they grate on me so much.

Also, I ranted on this way back in 03, over here. (Except now we have Republic Commando, my kind of SW game. Mmm.)

[xyzzysqrl]

They can do no wrong, yet they do The Wrong Thing often.

Yeah, okay. Bedtime for me. I'm incoherent.

[orrin.livejournal.com]

No one wants to hear what I have to say about Jedi, or Star Wars, because then I'd just fall into that camp against which you are railing up yonder, but I agree with you about a lot of stuff. The only Jedi I've ever really liked was Obi-wan, because he seemed way more laid back about stuff than most of the rest of their lot.

Also, why do they have crazy godlike powers that they NEVER USE?! For examples of Jedi using their powers PROPERLY check out the (ridiculous) Mace Wendu fight in the Clone Wars cartoon.

[swordianmaster.livejournal.com]

They're emotional cripples, foremost, and I've yet to see one with a fully functional sense of humor.

...KOTOR. Jolee. The most Awesome Jedi Ever. Also, not part of the council. Just a little hermit kind of like old Yoda.

[relee.livejournal.com]

Oh now I get it, that's your face wearing glasses inside a godzilla costume! I thought his teeth were all bent out of shape or something.

[kiruppert.livejournal.com]

The full-sized original.

Forgive the crappy scan, I did that as my last scanner was dying. I'm not sure why I didn't get a better scan of that later, especally considering I rescanned it to make the avatar.

-K

[rancourt.livejournal.com]

That's really rather what I was getting at in the post. :)

It's perfectly fine to have opinions, dislikes, and such. We all do. It's this recent trend of treating fashionably-negative ones as absolute truth and the systematic attempts by such 'hipsters' to categorically, personally invalidate the holders of conflicting opinions that's gotten me so bitter.

I like this idea, a lot. :) Yay for hippies. :)

[xyzzysqrl]

Then I suffered a parser failure somewhere in there and had to reprocess it to get it straight... but hey, it's a message that can stand coming from a few different sources. Thanks for putting it to mind.

A lot of people seem to like hippies. This is gratifying.

[rosycat.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I didn't realize anyone other than me disliked Jedi.
They are probably perfectly fine people taken one by one.. but I wouldn't want to hang out with them, I can't recall ever seeing one crack a joke. I've rarely, if ever, seen or heard of one relaxed, just hanging loose, having a beer, talking about whatever.
They don't seem to know the meaning of the word "relax". Or "humor". They seem so unnatural. Fascinating, but unnatural.
Mysticism I can take, no prob. Mysticism that doesn't know how to laugh, either at the universe or at itself ? Excuse my while I do something somewhat more interesting, like painting my nails :):):)

[seritaph.livejournal.com]

I... do not. But this is a personal childhood trauma thing. Some people have clowns, I have hippies.

(Yay for reallylate postings!)