I connect better with original people

[The Penguin]

To me, a person that I consider original is a person does not mainly based their life on trends. They are not afraid to be different and act out beyond the norm.

All the time I hear people talk about Facebook, talking about pop culture, share details about their reality TV shows. Now, of course, everyone has a right in whatever interest them. But for me, it finds it gets a little dole hearing the same thing, again and again. I want to hear something completely different that beyond the norm. Learn something new with new experiences. It seems most people follow trends and society as it is a lot easier to do than acting beyond the norm.

 

[ThatSkyWing]

I tend to like original people myself. I don't get the love people have for most reality TV shows, I hate Facebook, and I never know anything about pop culture, and I don't like it when people talk about those things since I find trends to be boring.

 

[Suzanne]

Me too Penguin

That is one of the things I enjoy about my faith actually, is that I get to discuss many different subjects and I am in the minority with Facebook, because I never befriend ones I know; too surreal for me.

I have not even bothered to join all these other online activities. In fact what is popular, I stay away from. Took me years to join Facebook and love it, but I only befriend spiritual sisters and thus do not experience the usual drivel on there. Mostly about the bible and what is happening in the world.

I am a deep thinker and love deep conversations.

 

[The Penguin]

Took me years to join Facebook

The hardest thing for me to accept is it hard not to avoid it. Starting my business, I learning how important social media is. There still many people out there don't care for it, and they might be successful. However, I heard many people been more successful using it. For personal use, I learned most people I see use FB share content I don't care about. Outside of this, I know people share many family photos on there. However, as I don't have a strong bond with family, this does not mean much to me. So as I comment in FB in other posts on here, my main focus is business only. FB consumes too much of people lives and there other things I rather to do with my time.

 

[KinksFan]

I also get along better with original people. They're not afraid to be themselves like most people are. They're also very interesting individuals, because they talk about things that are unique and that's hard to find in today's world.

 

[113]

I avoided Facebook for years. Eventually I signed up, and began to use it for networking. I now have over 4,000 friends and subscribers there.

Facebook is a huge time waster, and it rewards people for posting inane content. It's very difficult to have an intelligent conversation there. Forums are much better.

The only reason I haven't deleted my account is that I don't know very many people offline, and it's a kind of minor safety net. If something goes wrong, I can send out a message there, and maybe someone who can help me will see it.

I don't know anything about pop culture or TV though, other than what is posted on Facebook or on the covers of supermarket tabloids.

 

[Naturalist]

Most people I like very much fit this category. Some of them, others find really annoying or obnoxious, but I think they are interesting because they are different from the norm. I am also grateful for the people who can appreciate me for the same reason, and overlook the ways in which I can be annoying.

I think that actually one of my best traits is appreciating people others find too odd to be seen with... and as a result, I have a life filled with interesting, even outstanding, people and lots of great stories! One of my early mentors was avoided as sort of an outsider, but has written several books, traveled extensively to places most people haven't heard of, and built ships (yes, ships). Oh, and he has an FBI file, which is a funny story involving a state visit from the Queen of England but one I shouldn't share. He also tells a funny story about getting told off by customs for bringing jars of peanut butter into France (he practically lives on peanut butter) and another about holding the door for Margaret Thatcher... the list goes on. In college, when someone superficial asked him how he found time at Harvard to write a book, his response was, "I don't waste time with people like you"!

One social media outlet I do appreciate is Twitter, because I only follow professional accounts in my areas of special interest (natural history, archaeology) so every day there are lots of tweets from interesting people posting articles, papers, announcements about new projects or exhibits, "geeky" humor, nice photographs of stuff I like (not selfies!) etc. Unlike FB, you can thus restrict your feed mostly to discussions which are more worth one's time, just by the things you choose to follow, and people don't take it as personally if you stop following them.

 

[danielcollins]

Agree!

I really struggle to make any conversation with someone, unless they've got some unique perspective or interest. Otherwise conversation is just so dry.. I'm kind of guilty of it too but that's for other reasons.

I think peoples interests and hobbies are very varied, but they don't shout about it so you rarely hear from these people. Most of my friends are all odd balls, none of them I would consider "popular"

 

[Progster]

I agree, I get on much better with original people. I don't follow pop culture, don't watch TV, don't go to the cinema. The thing which I really don't get is this celebrity culture which has arisen in recent years. I look at the list of TV programmes, and I read: Celebrity this, celebrity that. Who are these 'celebrities' anyway? Where do they come from? Who decides the moment when they become a celebrity? To me, people are just people, and a celebrity is just another person who happens to be in the public eye. I don't give a damn about their private life, whether they prefer to drink coffee or tea, etc. I can't stand this superficial obsession with their private lives. I guess I'm just not a people person, and would much rather settle back and watch a good documentary than superficial mindless reality shows, soap operas or celebrity shows. I find the latter just so... boring!!

I also don't get things like youtube culture of viral videos and memes, sometimes I watch those and just think, wth? What are people watching, what's all the fuss about? The ice bucket challenge is one example - this started off honestly enough as being a way of collecting money for charity, but by the end everyone was doing it not because they had any intention of giving money to charity, but just because they'd seen the youtube videos and because x number of their friends had done it. It had lost all intent and purpose. People (particularly young people in this case) listen to music, not necessarily because they particularly like the music, but because their group of friends are listening and so they listen to fit in and not be the odd one out. I could never do that, I've never felt the need to copy others just to fit in. I call this phenomenon 'Mindless Copycat Syndrome'. Why should I pretend to like something I don't? Just because most other people are doing a certain thing does not mean I have to, and if they are going to reject me for it, they were never worth bothering with in the first place. People should accept and celebrate diversity.

 

[brady]

For personal use, I learned most people I see use FB share content I don't care about. Outside of this, I know people share many family photos on there. However, as I don't have a strong bond with family, this does not mean much to me. So as I comment in FB in other posts on here, my main focus is business only.

Penguin, have you checked out Quora? It's an awesome q/a site that gives me my fix of intelligent, original conversation. The cool part about it is the specificity of the dialogue based on your unique interests. They have a list that I could not even get through of things to select as interests. I picked over 100.

Agree 100%. For better or worse I quit Facebook years ago.

 

[The Penguin]

Penguin, have you checked out Quora?

Yes. I did a Google search one day on something and I was directed to that site. I hate that site as it wants you to have an account, or sign in with a social media website before you can read. I find that very lame. Though my frustration is not directed at you, but Quora.

 

[brady]

Yes. I did a Google search one day on something and I was directed to that site. I hate that site as it wants you to have an account, or sign in with a social media website before you can read. I find that very lame. Though my frustration is not directed at you, but Quora.

Not including you of course, I think it's hard to get people to say anything substantive online without asking for at least their name. So if you want like, Grad School level discussion or credentialed experts, it's just so hard online.

 

[113]

Quora is a good site, but the login screen is awful. Not only do they want you to sign up, but you have to use your real name and they will make you verify your identity by government ID if they think it's a fake name.

Also, if you want to comment, you can't do it anonymously, which is terrible on discussions about autism where one might not want it linked to one's real name.

You can bypass the login screen with the browser console (Firefox: right click, then press q). Find the element with the inspector and press the delete key. It should be easy to make a simple bookmarklet or extension that does it quicker. Maybe I'll do that when I get back to my computer...

 

[The Penguin]

Quora is a good site, but the login screen is awful. Not only do they want you to sign up, but you have to use your real name and they will make you verify your identity by government ID if they think it's a fake name.

Also, if you want to comment, you can't do it anonymously, which is terrible on discussions about autism where one might not want it linked to one's real name.

You can bypass the login screen with the browser console (Firefox: right click, then press q). Find the element with the inspector and press the delete key. It should be easy to make a simple bookmarklet or extension that does it quicker. Maybe I'll do that when I get back to my computer...

Yes I knew a way to bypass the login. But after learning an article someone wrote I didn't like, avoid that site at all costs. I do have my own sites I like to get info

 

[113]

If anyone is interested, here is a quick bookmarklet to bypass that annoying screen. Highlight and drag this code to the bookmarks bar in Firefox. (It's untested in Chrome, but might work.) Then right-click on it, choose Properties and rename it to "Read Quora". Whenever you see the blocking login screen, just click the bookmarklet and the form will disappear.

javascript:(function () { var $x = $(".modal_signup_background"), $y = $x.next(); $x.remove(); $y.remove(); })();

I've been meaning to do that for a while...

Edit: here is another one for Pinterest:

javascript:(function () { $(".UnauthBanner").remove(); })();