Pretentious Crap

I can't top that.

Is it Martin Amis thinking 'horrorism' was a worthwhile 'invention' of his, and not something a ten-year-old would (not could; would) come up with?

I hate people who are pretentiously unpretentious.

swears said:

I hate people who are pretentiously unpretentious.

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Word.

Best to watch a football game while drooling all over self in those off hours when I'm not happily being sold into wage slavery by my government--don't criticize the government, that's a hard job, you know.

Anything, anything's better than emasculating myself with the "arts"...

the arts are just there so you can talk importantly about the arts.

Stop being so pretentious, Josef!

I'll say this for Joey K, he knows how to start an eye-catching thread ("Fascism!" "Mathematics!" "Genuine Lindsay Lohan drunk nude photos!"). Anyway, on new year's day just gone I found myself in a conversation that culminated with me saying "Is Heston Blumenthal the Slavoj Zizek of contemporary cuisine?", which is quite possibly the most obnoxious thing that's ever been said by me, or indeed anybody. But it amused me at the time, which is the main thing.

Pretentious crap is when you say things you know are wrong to sound right.

Yes, Tanadan. It's what happens when people have pretenses that don't match their actual knowledge base or intelligence level.

mms said:

the arts are just there so you can talk importantly about the arts.

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Most of the people I know who are into critical theory and philosophy are very talented musicians, writers, painters, architects, videographers, film makers, you name it, they do it.

Believe it or not, not everyone who has talent wants to work in the entertainment industry. I know we live in an American Idol culture, but some people would rather forego the pleasure.

swears said:

I hate people who are pretentiously unpretentious.

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I hate it when people rebel against being typically pretentious by being pretentious about things you just can't even really be pretentious about. So they stop reading Foucault, listening to Ornette Coleman, and watching The Wire, and they start reading Tom Clancy, listening to Guns N Roses, and watching American Idol, but when they talk about it, they quietly assert that neither you, nor people who enjoy that stuff, "get it" like they do.

i hate the casual and mis-use of the P word. but good topic, i wanted to write a piece about this at one time...

swears said:

I hate people who are pretentiously unpretentious.

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I have a friend (more of a FOAF really), who's actually a pretty sound guy but sometimes gets so militantly anti-pretentious he ends up sounding really pretentious - as in, he's so anti-fashion he says things like "The only reason I wear clothes is so as not to be naked in public". :slanted:

Pretentious people are most harmful to themselves and others when they buy into the conceit that everything they do cannot but be a reflection of their essential excellence and refinement - that somehow listening to Duffy or wearing a shellsuit diminishes them as philosophers, scientists or writers (which of course, in the eyes of their pretentious peers, would be true).

I worry a fair amount about being pretentious, but I worry even more about being ill-informed. It puts me in a moderately awkward position.
Anyway, couldn't give you a definition, but two things which always set my pretention alarm-bells ringing at the mo: the phrase 'cognitive dissonance', and the use of 'think' as an intransitive verb. Not sure I could rationally defend this though, it's more of a feeling I get.

Mr. Tea said:

as in, he's so anti-fashion he says things like "The only reason I wear clothes is so as not to be naked in public". :slanted:

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I'm impressed by that simply because he implies that he is naked in private ALL THE TIME.

Sick Boy said:

I'm impressed by that simply because he implies that he is naked in private ALL THE TIME.

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Aren't we all? I know I am, right now...

mixed_biscuits said:

Pretentious people are most harmful to themselves and others when they buy into the conceit that everything they do cannot but be a reflection of their essential excellence and refinement - that somehow listening to Duffy or wearing a shellsuit diminishes them as philosophers, scientists or writers (which of course, in the eyes of their pretentious peers, would be true).

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But then there are the inverse sorts who buy into the conceit that listening to Duffy or wearing a shellsuit makes them even better philosophers, scientists, or writers--you run into a lot of these in NYC, esp in humanities master's or beyond belief exclusive post-doc research programs.

It's because they're just so down to earth, see? Plus, they just don't even have to try at anything. They're smart AND they party their asses off. They don't even know who Pavement is, they've been listening exclusively to JT and Coldplay forever and doing stem cell research and getting spray tans and breast implants.

Guh.

Which is worse? I don't know.

It's just different degrees of overcompensation in different directions.

Edit: But then again, who cares about "pretentious people"?

It's like you don't want to end up coming across like one of the anti-hipsters who try so so hard to make it clear that they themselves are not in any way hipsters, even though they fit into the hipster demographic according to like any ad exec's definition of a hipster (which is obviously what matters), that it becomes achingly obvious that they are hipsters. What kind of person who isn't basically a hipster gives a shit about hipsters?

My mom is not a hipster, and you know what? She spends exactly zero time bitching about how hipsters are a blight on humanity. In fact, she probably has no idea what a hipster is. In her mind, when she sees hipsters, she thinks they're just "young" and trendy kids, doing what young people do--partying and wearing trendy clothes. (Just like they've been doing for quite a few decades now, like they did when she was a young, trendy hippy...)