Friday 18th April 2003: Vitriol, and its Everyday Uses
[The 'last thing i thought about, 20 minutes before my deadline' school of writing continues to flourish]
There are few things that I hate with a real passion in this world. Sure, I'll claim a powerful hatred of Americans, evangelists, and so forth, but really these people are just easy targets. It's the internet equivalent of kicking the living shit out of a frail, elderly person who's not only partially comatose, but unable to move for fear of breaking the antique vase perched perilously upon their forehead.
However, there is one exception I make to above rule. Referent informational influence. This is a collection of long words that describe something that I've been annoyed by for the last 10 years, but have only found the words to express a few months ago, as part of my AS-psychology.
Essentially, this is what happens when a person doesn't really know what to do in an unfamiliar situation, and so, they copy the actions of others whom they've witnessed performing this same action. Now, historically, this was just fine and dandy. Homo Erectus-junior wouldn't know quite what to do with himself, but he'd seen Homo Erectus-senior slaughtering deer, roasting it on an open fire, then going off to rape and pillage in the village across the valley in the evening, so that was the right thing to do, 'cause that's normal, right? Hell yes.
However, that was then, and this is now. Now we've got some problems. Two key problems, in fact. First, there comes a point in this life, where the cathode ray tube strapped to the length of tin teaches us that learning stuff from Erectus-senior is no longer acceptable. It doesn't really specify where it is acceptable to learn from, which generally results in one of two things. Either, all the Erectus-juniors try learning from each other, which is about as effective as having a stimulating conversation with a ham 'n' cheese toasty or a hardcore football fan, or they make the logical leap that if copying -senior is wrong... then doing the opposite must be right! Problem solved!
From here stems one of the most irritating personality types to ever walk this earth: the anti-conformist. This is the kind of person who grows a haircut in which small ecosystems could be concealed, attaches as large a quantity of metal to their person as possible, and listens to terrible grunge bands because, uh, my parents would hate them, right? Too right, and with good reason. And the worst thing is, this sort of person thinks himself an individualist, despite having a subculture devoted exclusively to his style of behaviour. I mean, we've all heard the phrase, right? "I want to be an individual, just like everyone else"? It's usually the anti-conformists saying it, yet not one of them turns it on themselves. It's like the Pope blaming religious fundamentalism for the ills of the modern world, or Graham Norton referring to someone as 'a right poofter.'
[So according to you these people conform to a movement called anti-conformism. That's pretty fucked up. -YZ] [YZ == Yahtzee, owner and sometime writer of Fullyramblomatic.com]
Still, as annoying as the anti-conformist might be, they're positively delightful examples of humanity when compared to the alternative. This is what happens when Erectus-junior, having just learnt of how he should denounce those aged over 30 from his Truth Viewer (Panasonic, 18", £299 from Jungle.com), makes the only logical leap worse than simply doing the opposite to Erectus-senior: "TV will show me the way."
There's no name for these people, but they're easy to spot, all around us, every day. They're the 10-year-old girls who loudly boast about their boyfriends, on the grounds that all their favourite characters on imported American doctrine-TV have them too. They're the cretins who talk as if they're commentating on a Third Division football match, even in everyday conversation. They're the people who pay more attention to advert breaks than the programs that annoyingly interrupt them. They're the people taught the Correct Interests, the Correct Way to Look, and the Correct Behavioural Style and Mannerisms. And I hate 'em all.
Hate 'em.
However, all is not lost. You too can help. Ask a friend just why they're doing what they're doing. Stamp the 'individual like everyone else' phrase on a few foreheads. Slap a fashion writer round the face. Egg a celebrity. Firebomb an American TV station. Make creative use of the Compton Effect. Become controller of a major TV station. Hell, become Prime Minister, and pass a law proclaiming that anybody found behaving according to the will of marketing executives and media moguls must spend three months undergoing the Warm Marmalade Torture.
Just don't tell anyone I said that. Christ, would I look strange! I mean, what would people think?