by Regulus » July 7th, 2014, 7:27 pm
[quote="Flip_FTW"][quote="SophieCub"] Different is good.[/quote]
I don't think so. I mean it's fine if you're actually being yourself and just happen to like something that other people may not then sure but kids these days seem to be purposely trying to stand out from others by liking weird stuff even if they aren't interested really, then complain that they are treated differently. Which brings me on quite nicely to my next point.
The only reason he was bullied for liking MLP is one thing and one thing only: school. That's more or less what it boils down to. Now a lot of you guys here on MLK are younger so you probably haven't experienced this yet but the older members here (not using the term "older" in a derogatory term) can probably tell you more about this if you're interested.
All that conditioning you have from where you are in school and other kids find out you like something they don't and will use that as ammo against you... Once you get out of those developmental years and especially past college... Nobody cares what you like or don't like any more.
In school the only thing you have is each other so when one is different it stands out and is basically painting a target on himself. But when you are in you're twenties, you can walk around doing absolutely anything and people don't even think twice. If you come to Brighton for a week and spend a bit of time in town, you will see some ridiculous looking people, men dressed as women, women dressed as men, don't even double take but in school you'd be bullied for that.
Because as we get older, we get so in tuned with our selves and our own lives that we just don't have time to waste on people who don't like the same stuff as us.
When I was a kid in school who had a pet tarantula:
Positive reaction: Wow that's cool, aren't you scared of the poison killing you though?
Negative reaction: OMG THAT'S WEIRD YOU'RE GAY ETC
Now I'm 22? Completely different!
Positive reaction: Oh cool, I love exotic pets like reptiles etc, we have a snake (or bearded dragon or whatever the case may be)
Negative reaction: Hmm spiders are not really for me dude.
You could say it is because people get more mature as they grow older but you'd be wrong, the truth is more so that people are just selfish and they just don't care any more. They have more important things to worry about than broadening their horizons and experiencing new things outside their comfort zone. I mean, Britain's Got Talent is on TV tonight aint nobody got time to care about you liking spiders.
And that goes for anything. If you like something in school that someone else doesn't, they WILL hate on you for it and you will be called gay, why? Because it is school and that's just how school is. But when you're older? You can walk around with an MLP T shirt and the only people who will ever even mention it are fellow fans.[/quote]
This is mostly true. However, there's something I'd like to point out.
It depends on location. If you live in any small town or any close-knit community, you're going to have the same experience as you would in school. What matters isn't so much the maturity of people, but the amount of people. I've seen quite a few people with MLP T-shirts, bumper stickers, and so on. No one says anything about it, but that's because I live in a big city. Where I used to live, in a much smaller town, that sort of thing was very rare.