God, I hate this phrase. “YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!” Really? Am I though?
I was playing video games recently and the interactions I’ve had with other players got me thinking.
Many of these toxic male assholes get so used to doing things their way, they expect all the other players to follow the same unspoken procedure.
They ask, “Do you know what you’re doing?” If you think this means, “Can you play this game well,” or “Have you done this before,” that may not be the what the asker of the question means. I’ve come to realize, what they’re asking is this:
“Have you followed my procedure the same way that I do?”
“Can you communicate the way I want you to?”
“Do you have the ability to read my mind, understand my thoughts immediately, anticipate my actions and adjust accordingly?”
Well, if not, then YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!
In one game session, I was ejected because I disobeyed an adamant player, refused to accept his orders, and mocked him incessantly. I played last night and another stubborn jerk from CA said if anyone goes against his orders, he blows them up and leaves the game, so I walked away because I knew his attitude was going to be a problem from the start. This morning, this old boomer from Australia decreed that everyone else must only play his way, and when we continued to “make mistakes”, according to him, he blamed all of us. He said we were doing it wrong, but we weren’t.
Some like-minded people get along and communicate well. Others, not so much. Just because one player found a compatible group and was effective in the past, it doesn’t mean all subsequent sessions need to be exactly the same. These inflexible imbeciles need to understand that everyone is different, they all have different styles and abilities, and they can’t be forced to perform exactly the way they are commanded to.
It’s no wonder 99% of gamers are male. Women probably encounter such an overwhelming amount of toxic behavior, I imagine they’d either hide their gender or avoid gaming entirely.
Outside the XBOX
Let’s break this discussion outside the realm of gaming for a minute. This type of thing happens in the workplace and everyday life.
Take a look at this recent post I found on Reddit:
Essentially, what this absolute garbage human is saying is:
- Employees are lesser mortals than their glorious benefactors.
- BE FEARFUL and speak, think, act, function the way I COMMAND because there are CONSEQUENCES if you don’t!
- THE COMPANY and those leading THE COMPANY are ALL POWERFUL! You are NOTHING and you will mindlessly OBEY!
- Even after THE COMPANY royally FUCKS YOU OVER, you better GROVEL on your KNEES and be THANKFUL FOR IT!
This may be the voice of one, but how many others think like this? Ask yourself if you know a similar person. Does this way of thinking inspire others to be the same? Should it?
And what about the specifics of how we perform our duties while on the job? If we don’t act like subservient little robots, following every command to a “T” then we are performing below expectations. Didn’t smile when performing customer service? Doing it wrong. Forgot to shave this morning? Doing it wrong. Is the component in Figma one pixel too far to the left? Doing it wrong.
Family Fun
When I was growing up, I was taught to pivot quickly around my dad. He was the leader, and I was instructed to always watch him closely. I needed to think ahead and prepare for his next action. He couldn’t be bothered to open his mouth and explain what he wanted. I had to be the one that considered him, adjusted to him, and acted on 47 different possibilities of what he might need.
Working with my dad years ago, I sat for lunch and ate an orange. I’ll never forget it. As I peeled off chunk after chunk of the peel, he said, “Let me teach you how to eat an orange.” My immediate thought was, “I know how to eat. I’ve been doing it for years. All I have to do is open my mouth and insert food. It’s easy. It’s brainless. A baby could do it. You don’t have to teach me anything. Are you seriously suggesting that I don’t know how to eat? Because if you are, you’re obviously wrong. What in the world are you talking about? You make no sense.”
What he MEANT was, “You are peeling an orange in small chunks and what you SHOULD do is peel it in a spiral so it remains whole because it’s easier to dispose of that way. I was taught to do it this way, therefore you should do it that way also.”
I was not peeling an orange incorrectly. It may have been inefficient, laborious and illogical according to my dad, but it was not incorrect. The orange was being peeled. The peel was being removed. It just wasn’t happening in a way that he approved of, which doesn’t mean SHIT TO ME.
Just because the procedure is different, that doesn’t make it incorrect.
As I write this blog post, there is a WordPress extension called Yoast SEO that tells me how to write and it’s the most annoying thing ever invented. Word complexity, passive voice, subheading distribution, sentence length, consecutive sentences, paragraph length and transition words are all calculated and judged. It gives me a goddamn score! It is currently telling me that my readability “needs improvement” according to some settings that some idiot baked into the code. I can’t even express myself “correctly” according to this piece of shit plugin. Once again, I’m “DOING IT WRONG.”
Says Who?
Who sets these rules? “Wrong” according to who? One individual? A hundred? The entire world? GOD HIMSELF?
If there’s one thing I know about human beings, it’s that they believe there’s power in numbers. It’s not enough that the rule comes from their own mouth, they want to give the IMPRESSION that it comes from A TON of people’s mouths!
“I’m gonna tell you this bullshit piece of information and I’m gonna MANDATE and DECREE that you accept it, because it’s OBVIOUSLY common knowledge.” Is it, though?
“Everybody knows that what I’m saying is true. Ask anyone. That’s the way it’s always been.” Really?
But, don’t take my word for it. Your honor, may I present Exhibit A, in the form of a meme about the biggest blowhard, liar, fake, fraudulent, deceiving, phony con artist of them all:
This type of deceptive or false argument is called a logical fallacy. The specific logical fallacy is called the Bandwagon Fallacy.
“Just because a significant population of people believe a proposition is true, doesn’t automatically make it true. Popularity alone is not enough to validate an argument, though it’s often used as a standalone justification of validity. Arguments in this style don’t take into account whether or not the population validating the argument is actually qualified to do so, or if contrary evidence exists.While most of us expect to see bandwagon arguments in advertising (e.g., “three out of four people think X brand toothpaste cleans teeth best”), this fallacy can easily sneak its way into everyday meetings and conversations.”
What’s the point?
I’m going to say this clearly and plainly: Stop blaming other people for your shitty expectations.
How do I know if you have shitty expectations? If you do any of these things:
- Say one thing but mean another, while being unable to clarify what you mean
- Desire that everyone around you automatically read your mind, believing in the absurdity of telepathy
- Have the inability to speak or write your desired outcome of events
- If you believe you are above everyone else, elevated to celestial status, and must remind the scum suckers of this
- If you cannot provide, sound, rational, logical reasoning for your demands, which contain no logical fallacies
- If you tell another human being they don’t know how to eat an orange
