When I see someone doing something wrong, I have a very strong desire to set them straight. I want to help them. It also hurts me on the inside to witness their repeated failure.
Yet, I have also learned that very very few people are receptive to unsolicited advice. They don’t want to be told they are doing it wrong. Even if they are doing it wrong, they don’t want to do it right. They don’t want to learn anything. They don’t want to do any hard work. They don’t want to admit they are wrong. They don’t want to feel stupid.
Personally, if you see me doing anything I could be doing better, I want to know.
However, I’ve noticed there this weird sort of gray zone that happens when you do something crappy on purpose. This has happened a lot with all the back-seat gaming that happens when I stream Zelda. Sometimes people tell me good stuff that I want to know, like where to get a pile of durians to make the best food. Other times people tell me things I am already aware of, but have my own reasons for not doing. Like, yeah, I could be parrying those attacks, I just don’t GAF.
So yes, there are occasions when someone knows better, but has a valid reason for doing something in a sub-optimal manner. To be clear, those gifs above are not one of those times.
Anyway, I have tried many different strategies for approaching people and trying to help them, but I have not found one that has a high rate of success. Most people just don’t want to hear that they’re doing it wrong, and don’t want to change to do it right.
People can be real stubborn for no good reason sometimes. Plus they can get hostile if they feel you are just making fun of them. Even though you are sincerely trying to help.
I’ve written a bit about this at length elsewhere but I’ve had reasonable success not criticizing them directly but criticizing my past self or a (fictional) friend instead. That way there’s no way for them to perceive your attempt as a personal attack.
In this situation this’d look something like this (it probably wouldn’t work in this situation)
“A long time ago I used to use the rowing machine just like that, but then I had a coach who showed me that I was supposed to be pulling on the line so that it came out as far as I could get it.”
Not ideal when you’re approaching a random stranger (something I basically never do) but has helped me talk a few of my friends out of making bad decisions especially during times where they’re not thinking straight, like immediately following a bad breakup.
It usually doesn’t work immediately, they wont switch right there in front of you, give them a half hour or so when nobody is looking so they can pretend they came up with it on their own.
I noticed that I’ve started doing something similar at work, almost unconsciously. If I’m correcting someone on something I tent to start out with “yeah, I thought the same thing too until Joe Bob showed me.” And if the UI/UX of something is at all non-obvious, I make sure to point that out; “even though it really looks like you should click here, they actually want you to click over there.”
Over time I’ve noticed that fewer and fewer people go to my boss when they have an issue, and have started coming to me. Unfortunately in the real world people are squishy and are afraid feeling dumb.
Even though I try my darnedest to put self improvement above ego, I too get defensive when directly confronted and told I’m wrong. It’s not until I’ve had time to reflect and test the new information that I apply it.
If you do that kind of shit here you get assisted by one of the gym staff or surrounding people who don’t want to be killed by you. If you refuse you get ejected due to legal and safety concerns.
The first time I jumped in a gym they showed me how to do some of the basic stuff and later throughout I had friends and random gym people give me tips on how to do particular exercises optimally, especially with free weights.
All that assistance was very helpful and I’ve passed it onto others who’ve been having issues or are new to a gym environment. Also great ice breakers.
It is a weird twist of fate that Pepe became the alt-right’s frog of choice instead of the Get Out frog. His catch phrase is made for racists/anti-foreigner types. Whereas Pepe in his original context was just a dude who peed with his pants all the way down. Makes no damn sense.
My guess is that most people, like me, have no idea what the original context is for any image macro or gif macro found about on the internet. So it has to do with popularity of the meme and nothing else.
I’d think it would be more accurate to say that it’s because Pepe looks ok with any kind of hat. Before he was alt-right symbol Pepe was just another meme, which meant there were and are lots of Pepe variations with lots of different hats and other variables. And he just happened to be one of the hottest trendiest 4chan memes when the whole current alt-right thing started to gain speed.
But see Pepe was an all but dead meme on 4chan for at least a couple years before it got picked up in the last couple years by the alt-right. The phrase “feels good man,” was pretty much the only bit left.
