I used to be X but now I'm not - and I hate X!

SoonerMatt · #1 02-20-2011, 03:22 PM

Has this happened to anyone else? You used to belong to a certain group but have since left it, but now that you're out you feel a deep resentment toward that group you used to be a part of.

For me it's the whole gamer/geek culture. Back in HS and my first year in college I was that gamer geek. I could rattle off the differences between Gradius games and argue about which one was better. I could dissect every Final Fantasy element and give laundry lists about why certain installments shouldn't be associated with the rest of the series. Zelda was the best thing since sliced bread and Fallout was hardcore. If Scott Pilgrim was released 3 years ago I'd have been all over it like white on rice.

Now when I see or hear people talk about video games or other facets of geekdom I think it's all so juvenile and wasted time that could be spent on other activities (music, sports, reading, etc). My patience toward it had been weaning for quite some time now, but really set in a few years back. I did my best to ignore it but everyone I knew who was still in that group wouldn't let it go. I'd talk about music, current events, how school/work was going and they'd turn it into what obscure games were coming out, how Nintendo was doing, their favorite games, etc. I'd want to go out and do stuff and they'd just want to stay at home playing Castle Crashers or Halo. This reached a boiling point when Scott Pilgrim came out around my birthday and I was called a freak, insane, and various four letter words first for refusing to see it and then again when I saw it and didn't like it.

So again I ask, have any of you dropped out of a group only to subsequently become annoyed by it?

Jay Ralston · #2 02-20-2011, 03:52 PM

There are a few things. With games, I was a big Splinter Cell fan until D/A from it on, I have hated the games and have boycotted Ubisoft ever since.

With music, I used to be a big Ampeg fan but their stuff has gone to crap in the last few years. I can't stand them now. I recently discovered Mesa Boogie and love them.

rr5025 · #3 02-20-2011, 04:21 PM

I used to play a lot of video games but wasn't really a gamer per-say but I really don't like video games now. I can stomach maybe an hour once in awhile, any longer and I feel like a complete waste.

I suppose if anything I was 'straight edge' in highschool, I hated people who drank and drugs and premarital sex, was pretty homophobic and uber religious. However once I got out on my own all of this went away pretty fast (and I'm damn glad it did) and I developed my own opinions and I have to say I'm pretty much the polar opposite now (and I wouldn't have it any other way).

elgecko · #4 02-20-2011, 04:27 PM

I thought this was going to be a straight edge thread!

metallicafan18 · #5 02-20-2011, 04:40 PM

I'm in the same boat as you. I was definitely the gamer dude for 4-5 years and that's all I did. LAN parties, midnight release parties. all the good stuff. haha

At some last year I just lost interest in games in general. Some friends out of that group were feeling the same, so we just off and do our own thing now. When I look at the old group and realize what I was like, I'm quite happy I switched and I have my life back now.

Deluge Of Sound · #6 02-20-2011, 04:54 PM

I've never harbored feelings of animosity about something I don't do anymore. That's silly.

Wyrm74 · #7 02-20-2011, 04:54 PM

Hmm, interesting take on things. I guess I can look back at when I was in high school and had long hair and earrings and think "What a doosh!" But then, everyone was a doosh for similar reasons in the late 80's & early 90's.

Games? Still a gamer. Always have been, probably always will be. For me, it's the only escape/me time I get these days! Between a full time career, part time school, wife, kids, gigs, and all the other ridiculous every-day things life does to us I just don't have much time. So, when kids and wife are in bed, work is over, studying is done...I sit down and play some games for an hour or two before retiring for the evening. I let all my everyday woes just melt away and have some fun. Am I going to take up partying and going out again? Nah. Will I turn to drugs and/or alcohol for an escape? Nope. Will I jack some fools on Black Ops? Sure!

I suppose it's all about where you are in life my friends! Do what makes you happy.

arbitrary · #8 02-20-2011, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elgecko

I thought this was going to be a straight edge thread!

awesome.

warwick.hoy · #9 02-20-2011, 05:11 PM

Life's too short for hatred. There are some things I find silly but I don't hate on things I lost interest in because who knows,..I might find myself one day interested in those things again (I'm kinda wanting to get into building plastic scale models again).

Bongolation · #10 02-20-2011, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by warwick.hoy

Life's too short for hatred.

Hatred will keep you going when everything else fails.

Hatred fuels entire societies.

Hatred makes history.

It's a corrosive fuel, but it is fuel, and a vastly more powerful one than love.

Kwesi · #11 02-20-2011, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bongolation

It's a corrosive fuel, but it is fuel, and a vastly more powerful one than love.

Evidence to back up that claim

?

Bongolation · #12 02-20-2011, 05:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elgecko

I thought this was going to be a straight edge thread!

Yeah, no kidding. I hate and shun drunks as vermin.

Deluge Of Sound · #13 02-20-2011, 05:23 PM

Genocide. Racism. Slavery. etc.

But I just put "I'm Alright" By kenny loggins on my ipod.

I can't hate anything right now.

Bongolation · #14 02-20-2011, 05:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kwesi

Evidence to back up that claim

?

The past four thousand years of human history, liberally mixed with greed and cruelty.

Kwesi · #15 02-20-2011, 05:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deluge Of Sound

Genocide. Racism. Slavery. etc.

Whoa... you used to support genocide, racsim and slavery

! And here I thought you were a pretty cool guy

.

Pilgrim · #16 02-20-2011, 05:26 PM

Life includes change. You grow up, priorities change and you move on.

Let it go, put it behind you and don't stew about it.

Deluge Of Sound · #17 02-20-2011, 05:26 PM

Loggins made me see the light.

Don't worry 'bout me.

Kwesi · #18 02-20-2011, 05:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bongolation

The past four thousand years of human history, liberally mixed with greed and cruelty.

You can't tell me that hatred has been turning the world for thousands of years, man. I'd be MUCH more inclined to believe conquest or greed has but not hatred. Hatred, in itself, has NO purpose. I don't argue that many things have been done simply out of hatred but I do believe that there are much stronger forces out there.

Besides, if hatred really was as powerful as you say, the Westboro Baptist Church would have been the lords and masters of the universe looooong ago

.

warwick.hoy · #19 02-20-2011, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bongolation

Hatred will keep you going when everything else fails.

Hatred fuels entire societies.

Hatred makes history.

It's a corrosive fuel, but it is fuel, and a vastly more powerful one than love.

This comes off as a cynical view of the world.

I'm not naive nor oblivious but I find myself way happier if I acknowledge that I don't agree with something then move on.

I certainly don't hate nor regret any part of my life up to this point,...at least not that I can comment on that isn't outside the appropriate according to TB TOS.

Bongolation · #20 02-20-2011, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kwesi

You can't tell me that hatred has been turning the world for thousands of years, man.

I can and I am.

I'm a history scholar, trust me.

There have been a few attempts to make religious altruism profitable, notably the Industrial Revolution, but was it more greed than love? Maybe, and certainly before long.

On the other hand, you have episodes like the Cultural Revolution, which was nothing but an orgy of pure, senseless, unfocused hatred without even a coherent target, and historians now believe it killed more people than all previous wars combined, possibly a few times more.

If you don't like to study, I'll give you human history in five words:

The evil leading the stupid

Anything else was an accident.