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Grown adults obsessing over videogames, comics, superheroes annoy me!

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posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 04:50 PM
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originally posted by: InhaleExhale
a reply to: secretboss





Adult males should be using power tools, building stuff, working out at the gym and so on....NOT immersing themselves in amusements intended for kids!!


Yeah, and females should be in the kitchen and cleaning while the males use their power tools?



No way!! I'm too busy with my vintage Barbie and Dawn doll collection.

Pizza Hut...it's what's for supper!



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 05:00 PM
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originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
a reply to: secretboss
And now having gone back and read the replies to your rant I can understand another point. That there is little else in this culture to entice people. Hard work and major responsibilities and people want only a little time to just forget about it and spin off into fantasyland. I get it.

Another thing I noticed in the replies. How so many defend their 'individual' choices for happiness. And while I am in agreement with individuals having their own 'tastes' , it is not the individual tastes that you are talking about here. It is the larger social and cultural trend that is disconcerting. Those things that people have to 'choose from' that seems to be more and more limited in it's scope.




I'm not sure what you are getting at here, but there is more to do and occupy your free time today than at any other point in history. The choices aren't narrower... They are broader. MUCH broader, and they grow broader with every passing year.


I don't know if it's a case of choices being narrower or broader, what it seems more like is a disconnect.

People are supposed to embrace their inner child from time to time, but when they do , they seem to be looked down on for doing it because it's not "grown up".

Personally, I've felt guilty for spending just a few bucks on a collectible after being excited over the find or thinking I'm too old to be buying or collecting that particular item.



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 05:06 PM
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a reply to: Cheddarhead

I used to and then I gave up.

I have a Hoburn Washburn POP sitting on my desk at work and a Jayne Cobb POP sitting on my desk here at home. I didn't figure Jayne would go over well at work since he's carrying a big @ss gun.

I don't collect things obsessively, but occasionally I see a collectible I like. I almost got a Potted Groot POP.

I can't see how it's much different than women who go all in on interior design and are constantly redoing their interior looks with new drapes and stuff. Only I might be sticking geeky figs on my end tables.



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 05:07 PM
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I don't seen an issue. To each their own. Also, never understood why it annoys people what others do in their own lives when not hurting anyone. So what because they are not into football, building hobby cars, riding ATVs, riding bulls, tennis, racing a bicycle around town, they are not lesser than anyone else with a chosen hobby.

Plus hobbies as a whole have changed, who'd have thought they went the way of a digital medium with video games, more. After all what is this site?


originally posted by: JetBlackStare
a reply to: secretboss

Ignore the haters OP. I'm right there with you.

The phenomenon you refer to is merely a symptom of a larger problem - cultural decay and the destabilization of the modern family. Put Mom to work and give Dad lots of toys. Throw in Hollywood and over-consumption. There's tons of info out there about it but, sadly, even on a conspiracy site no one want s to hear it. It cuts too close to home.

It would force people to accept hard truths about themselves and the state of the world. It's much easier and convenient to deride you and feign outrage, like you just don't get it. They can't even see that the serious problems the U.S. and the World faces today is as a direct result of a plan set in motion decades ago. Their juvenile fetishes, cosplay and captivation by Hollywood are just one part of it.


Is it anymore cultural decay than people's hobby being posting on a conspiracy forum and being into conspiracy(these days news and social topics on here) instead of working in a garage or going to the gym? OP didn't say if these men are working or not-though may or may not be alluding to it, supporting their family or not, etc., in connection to the destabilization of the modern family.



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 05:33 PM
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I am also going to point out that this stuff is not at all new.

People have been collecting comic books (adults too) and enjoying superheros and video games for a long time now. The only difference is that these things have gone more mainstream in recent years. So people feel less like they have to keep those aspects of their hobby life hidden.

Before, you likely knew a decent number of people who had those interests, but they were less likely to talk about them. That means they were and still are otherwise perfectly normal people and not at all like the people on Big Bang Theory which, btw, is a terrible representation of the average geek.
edit on 13-7-2016 by ketsuko because: (no reason given)



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 05:55 PM
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a reply to: KyoZero



Is ANYONE free from a lack of autonomy? Are we all, on each side, just products of who we group around? I would even then ask OP, "if you believe a culture is fading or changing negatively, then how can you assure yourself that your visions of culture are appropriate?" I would want to know whether or not OP thinks that culture should be conserved and static. I would want to know if OP really wants us all to be part of what he wants as a culture. I, for one, won't accept that as an individual.

Yep.
And just who IS to say what that culture should be and how and IF it should change at all. As so many have shown in this thread, many are against OP's clamoring against this modern submission to modern tech and modern entertainment values simply because they themselves are to one degree or another involved in this trend. This is a gaming society now and even that seems to me to be only one aspect of the larger entertainment culture around us.

Here I'm not saying right or wrong, just noting change or explosion of previously unrecognizable social trends. My take on OP is that he may not just be ranting from his own personal opinion, but rather is only guessing at some of these larger questions and was attempting to express them. Now well however as has been shown by replies to him. Or he may just be expressing a personal peeve.

My personal opinion is that for most of our existence, few if any 'individual's had the ability to see beyond the vision of which ever and when ever flock in which they resided. This holds for primitive man and Roman man and industrial man, my parents who were WWII man and even mine, hippie man. What I have learned from all of that is that I am not the complete individual I for most of my life considered myself to be. This however does not preclude that there is some spark, some flame, some unique consciousness that IS me but rather that in finding this individual I think of as me, I will not find it in concurrence with general social tendencies. It is all for me alone to discover and hold on to as my waning years are upon me and much of what I have always considered to BE who I am I now find to only be who I thought I was at the time. As memory and abilities slowly crash around me I am forced to rely more and more upon fostering and discovering this cogito erto sum that I hope really is me.



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 06:16 PM
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a reply to: secretboss

First of all bud, real men work so hard during the day, that they do not need to go to the gym. Real men don't give a god damn about the chisel level of their abs either, because real men do not care a god damn what they look like, as long as the two following bases are covered.

A) Can I take care of all my various business.

B) Am I at least clean, dressed, and presentable.

My job for example, involves cutting metal, using power drills, drill presses, angle grinders, hammers, chisels, power drivers, wrenches, saws and God only knows how many other bits of random kit. You get good and hot doing it. I build stuff in my spare time. Put a rubber sheath together for my knife the other day, put up the odd shelf. You know the drill.

But the simple fact of the matter is, that the only thing an adult male should not be doing, is prettifying himself in a room full of mirrors and weights. A man ought to go and get himself a job that does that kind of work AND earns him money at the same time, not obsessing over his pack, and literally navel gazing his life away. Furthermore, me and my kid have a fantastic relationship. Why? Because as well as teaching him the importance of working hard, I teach him the importance of learning to relax when the day's activities are done.

So, tell me again, how is it more wrong for a grown ass man to play video games and enjoy superhero paraphernalia, than it is for a guy to be SOOOO interested in what he looks like, that he spends his precious downtime indulging in ego stroking in a public place, working out all the muscles but the one that counts?



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 06:40 PM
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originally posted by: JetBlackStare

originally posted by: nightbringr

I'll be damned if anyone tells me i can't play Skyrim. The government has too much control over us as is.


Just quoting that for irony.

Riiiiiight.

Care to actually explain the irony there, or shall i simply assume you mean the government MADE me play Skyrim? *eyeroll* Because EVERYTHING is a conspiracy, right?



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 06:45 PM
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After a long day of cleaning the roads, I love good video game, windwaker, my favorite...I sit back and let my man win the game..
I made him a big carry too..
What's wrong with men playing video games?
The way they hate on women gamers..
What's up with that?
I don't think that is very brotherly and kind
As my male friend have always been
Did I red the op correctly?
Grown Ups are too old to have fun?
Why?
So what other than video games is fun and acceptable?
All genders play pool
And then some..
Anyways, thanks for the interesting thread
And food for thought.



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 06:57 PM
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a reply to: secretboss

Your disapproval of my existence pleases me.



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 06:59 PM
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a reply to: secretboss

Apparently these men never got the message that we all need to put away our childish obsessions...

And become obsessed with non childish things...like....

Sports!






posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 07:09 PM
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a reply to: nullafides

That is an interesting question ... does the OP disapprove of grown men who obsess over fantasy football? It's basically like an RPG for the football obsessed.



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 07:28 PM
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a reply to: Krazysh0t


I'm not sure what you are getting at here, but there is more to do and occupy your free time today than at any other point in history. The choices aren't narrower... They are broader. MUCH broader, and they grow broader with every passing year.


Yes, I agree that choices abound and that fact makes what I am trying to get at that more difficult to explain to myself let alone anyone else. But let me try.

First of all, I think that when we hold conversations, and in those conversations use examples to demonstrate whatever the point is that we are attempting to communicate, that both the speaker and the listener have a tendency to focus on the example rather than the larger issue of which that single example might clarify. That is, a general larger topic may pass by the way as one or the other will get caught up in defending or trying to comprehend the specific example.

So yes, I agree that our consumer mentality in this day and age is inundated with a variety of movies and books and foods and sports and music and the list goes on. And that living within this abundance of choices has the appearance of freedom. But it is that freedom that I question. It is that mentality that I question. Let me try to explain that more fully, not just to you but mostly to myself.

In this culture in which these choices abound, it almost seems to me that the very idea of choice has become trivialized. Please let me repeat that last sentence for my own benefit. "It almost seems to me that the very idea of choice has become trivialized." The grossed example of that trivialization would be in the existential question of coke or pepsi.

For me, the question of individuality is intimately intertwined with a supposed individuals ability to make choices. Not coke or pepsi choices but rather existential choices on how to be or how to act or how to think. And more importantly, how to grow up, how to develop, how to mature.

In our past, I don't believe that these choices were available to people, their options on how to be were limited to the slot in the tribe or community that were allotted them. And as that may have been true in ages past, I think that for many it still is, that people tend to find a niche and stay there allowing their consciousness to melt and blend with that 'spot' in society. Few, if any, I think, have developed the ability to really think on their own, to develop concepts on being that challenge the prevailing paradigm within which their consciousness exists. And I am not saying matter of factly that this is wrong or that this is bad, just that it is.

Well, I kinda arranged my thoughts there enough that I could express them to some degree of coherency. But the thing is is that for me anyway, all of that is moot if we do not question that larger paradigm, how it has come to be, how it is affecting us and where it might be leading us.

When I say that the concept of choice has been trivialized I mean that we can have this illusory belief that we have free choice, that we indeed HAVE free will and that by making these simple choices we can prove it to ourselves.

But here is another example. The magician. The guy who can lead anyone to believe that they chose one specific card by their own free will. Only to find out that they had been controlled with subconscious promptings for over half an hour and that that decision which they thought was their own was really nothing more than a subconscious implant placed there by the magician.

And the importance this has for me Krazy is simple. I do think that the possibility of being an individual and HAVING free choice or free will is greater for many people than any time in history. And to that I add that more so than any time in history, we as a species face cataclysmic repercussions not only from our almost blind journey through the ages from wandering tribes to global civilization but also from what we are doing right now and what we are NOT doing right now.

I think that one of the things we are NOT doing right now is facing the existential dilemma that confronts us. We are to busy for the most part in choosing coke or pepsi rather than in choosing how we as individuals and as a species will face this next century.

So in that case, yes, I think that our choices are limited as in that those who would profit from our coke and pepsi choices of illusion would just prefer to give us more and more choices on how to be entertained rather than how to overcome our looming demise. While the consumer may have more choices, our species choices are dwindling rapidly.



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 07:37 PM
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a reply to: TerryMcGuire

TerryMcGuire

That was a stellar post, and laid out what you were getting at wonderfully, assuming I have read it right. To test my assumption, I will try and put what you just said, into a neat sentence.

Essentially, this is the wrong conversation.

What you seem to be getting at, is that our choices where the irrelevant things are concerned are meaningless on the wider scale, only effecting the small matters, not the large ones. And I totally agree with you.

What we need to be doing, both Coke drinkers and Pepsi swillers, Trekkies and Star Wars nuts, Batman fans and Superman fans, and yes, even those preening goons from the gym, is figuring out how to be better people, how to make informed choices about not just our immediate future as individuals, but also how to sculpt a tomorrow for our children's children, that is not an oxygen deprived, crap hopeless, irradiated nightmare.

Unless I have missed my mark, you hit yours right on the head.



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 07:43 PM
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originally posted by: secretboss
Another guy I know at work (40 something, married with 2 children) collects action figures and buys videogames for himself! Videogames and action figures?! At 40?? Seriously???

And just the other day, I saw a balding dude on the street, definitely in his 40s, wearing a Batman T-shirt!

I could go on and on. But seriously, what is going on? Adult males should be using power tools, building stuff, working out at the gym and so on....NOT immersing themselves in amusements intended for kids!!


I think it's safe to say my husband has more tools than you could probably identify. He's an industrial mechanic by trade.

I gave him a Batman shirt many eons ago, random gift while we were dating. It's better than the other one I gave him that said "Ass, it's what's for dinner" with a bent over stripper. That one wouldn't go over well in public, but it's still funny.
Our kids gave him a Skyrim one for Christmas, "Fus Ro Dah". We don't play that one as much lately, arrow to the knee and alla that.

We're gamers, and we love what we play. If it sucked, I certainly wouldn't play any of them. I might add a Warframe shirt to his wardrobe for Christmas this year. I might drop a hint for one myself.
Don't you have any hobbies or anything that brings you joy outside of "Ugg made stuff. Mate with me, female"? You strike me as kinda jealous.
edit on 7/13/2016 by Nyiah because: (no reason given)



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 07:48 PM
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a reply to: secretboss

Like just about everything else that other people do... my default setting is as long as they don't bother me I won't bother them. To each his/her own.

That being said, although things like this seem to bother you a bit more than it bothers me, I do get a general sort of sense that there is a growing group of young to middle-aged adults that absolutely refuse to grow up and become adults.

Please understand I'm not saying that people playing some video games is bad. Although I'm not really a gamer anymore I do play some video games with our 4 year old from time to time and every seven years or so when a Zelda drops... I'm on it like ticks on a bloodhound.

Nor is watching superhero movies bad (although for my personal taste the market has been so saturated so I'm sort of sick of them).

Nor is having a collection a bad thing.

Back to my "refusing to grow up" comment... I'll probably explain myself poorly so please feel free to call me out (as it could help me refine my description).

In my neck of the woods there have been adult day care programs popping up. I don't mean daycare centers to help Grandma during the day while the adult kids are at work. I mean full fledge "return to childhood" daycare where there is story time, finger painting and nap time. (I had read a terrific/horrific article about this a few months back but a few searches only gave me results for the take-care-of-granny daycare centers... I'll take another look if time allows).

Then there are these stories you hear popping up now and then about "professional cuddlers" that people actually pay.

Then there are the "adult coloring books" which while I admit can probably be an okay way to decompress and isn't a big deal on it's own... as part of this trend (for lack of a better word) it just seems odd to me.

There are also those that are in their late twenties/early thirties that still live with their parents. Let me be clear about this and state that I'm not talking about the people in that age demographic that work and help their parents to an extent with bills and household responsibilities (which I saw a lot of about 10 years ago). The organization I work for has been hiring a TON of younger people (I can't prove it but I'm sure it's because they get them on the cheap which I'm not sure is wise because two or three people with no experience don't make up for one person with experience and all that... but that is for another thread). My point here is as I get to know a lot of these young professionals that live at home... it seems that they are still trapped in their teenage years. Pot this and get drunk that and stay out all night this and trying to convince my parents to get me a car that.

To be fair to this thread, this post and myself I admit I lack the social/psychological vocabulary to properly define what I'm trying to describe.... but as far as I can tell there is "something" there.

I also want to reiterate that while I do observe the world around me... to each their own. If people want to spend their time and money doing this or that and they don't bother me or cause harm to others, God bless 'em.



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 07:53 PM
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a reply to: TrueBrit

As did you Brit. You read my points exactly but for one minor point. That being that we are not having the wrong conversation but rather not holding it within the context of the much larger issues that face us. All of us.

And thanks for the 'stellar'

T



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 08:00 PM
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a reply to: TerryMcGuire

No thanks are necessary.

I believe in credit going to those to whom it is due. Your post highlights the sort of thinking we need more of in the world, thinking that brings people together to consider the realities of things more widely, even as they continue about their own small business, rather than as abstracts, beyond their desire or ability to think about at all, as some seem to.

There is much in the world to be concerned about. War, poverty, famine, disease, economic meddling by governments and other coporate bodies...getting through the day is all very well, but having no plan for tomorrow is unwise, and yet, that seems to be the default setting, when what is required is thinking that puts the species decades ahead!



posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 08:04 PM
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a reply to: TerryMcGuire

Nail on the head with that post.

It was actually laid out in a BBC documentary called "The Century of Self".

It was a 4 part series which detailed how the top psychologists of the world analysed the group herd mentality of Nazi Germany and how they could stop that from ever happening again. It was a form of mass psychosis in the minds of the psychologists. They found that if they could shift the minds of the people to a consumer/desire based society that the masses would be more focused on themselves then it might stop the mass psychosis occurring again.

It's 4hrs long but it's one of the best documentaries I've ever watched.




posted on Jul, 13 2016 @ 08:55 PM
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Had to take a break from playing Star Wars: The Old Republic to respond to this. I have to admit I'm half expecting this post to be a deliberate jab to provoke all the gamers out there....and there are a lot of us. I'm in my fifth decade and my gf is in her fourth and we're both avid gamers....in fact, we "met" through online gaming


But I have to agree with a previous poster....Aquaman? Now me, I proudly wear my Batman shirt (Adam West style) at times (though right now I'm wearing a Star Trek "red shirt" T-Shirt)....

Don't knock us gamers and fans....most of us hold down normal jobs, have families, pay bills.....and enjoy other things as well as gaming and sci fi/fantasy/superheroes....

Go us!




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