In the maze of thoughts ... Would you like Fine and Fake? Nah, I prefer Awesome and Authentic. Also, how do you get star-struck?
Whew, took me a while to get back into the writing. Been a bit creatively busy with my other artistic venue. Anyway, this post from Soatok got me inspired and while I already answered there, I think the idea deserves a bit more than a small reply. So, let’s dive in.
I don't like being a centre of attention. Now, before you scratch a bald spot on your head from trying to figure out what the hell am I blabbering about, I don't mean as in I hate being in a spotlight. I'm not exactly comfortable in such situations but I've learnt to handle myself over the course of time. What I mean by my distaste towards being the centre of attention is having it all the time. You know, being popular. Why? Because I'm just a human being which happens to do something that people like and happen to share it with others. I don't intend to create a cult of personality. Like, fuck no. And believe me when I tell you that the fuzzy folks suffer from this quite a bit. The term “popufur” (portmonteau of “popular furry”) exists for a reason and it makes my skin crawl and my ears curl into my head. But this could be a whole another rant and not only I'm not in a ranty mood but also don't really want to dive into this topic. That said, it loosely links to what I hinted to at the beginning and to a later part of the post.
Now, to roll back to Soatok's thread, he's been talking about his feelings towards the so called “wine and dine” events or you could say culture; shortly what they are, how they make him feel and that sort of thing. This led me to an answer which pretty much aligns with such events. To quote the relevant part:
Overly megalomaniacal, sterile, awkward and “classy”. I never understood what's the point of such events? Build up some weird sense of superiority? A show off thing?
You can probably see where I’m going with this. The fake aristocratic feeling of the event. The sanity and sterility of all interactions. It’s as if everything you say and do is so meticulously crafted to the last detail. As if you were a perfectly trained dog being led on a leash, being fed every single action like a command. It’s all “precise and perfect”.
And FAKE AS FUCK. You see all those “happy smiles” masking the awkward internal screaming. Or hiding the mildly deragned person. This applies especially when you’re among the people from “higher places”. I can vouch for this experience not just during events but somewhat during my everyday life. As you may know or have figured out, I’m an IT tech during the day. Specifically SW/HW engineer but that’s just a detail. However, the office space I’m in is mostly populated by various managerial folks. And whoo boy is it an experience. We usually tend to meet up during lunch time and sometimes the conversations are just … disconnected. It’s amazing how absolutely oblivious and detached these people are. And they aren’t even anywhere high in the “chain of leadership”. They’re just PMs, LMs etc. But scratch the surface and you’ll see the real person. Usually emotionally immature, mildly self-centred and about as empathetic as a run-of-the-mill serial killer. Now imagine spending an evening with these folks. It’s this just ten times worse. It’s like being an Ace person that has been invited to an orgy (would very much relate since I’m an Ace myself). Pardon me the mildy distasteful analogy. There’s a reason I tend to avoid any form of “team-building” (trust me, you don’t build a team over these things) or company events.
“But Rawi, you need to build connections!” Connections with who? People who are about as reliable as a used Cybertruck (if it lasts long enough and in good enough state that it has any resale value)? People that are about as sincere about their actions as populist politician is about raising pensions? Like, what kind of skills can I learn from these folks? How to be an insufferable arrogant dick? How to parade my self-perceived supremacy?
Alright, I’ll cut the list here before I start chewing my desk from frustration. But you probably get my point. Trust me, if I’m to suffer through such thing, someone with a pet will be my saviour. I’ll happily spend time playing with someone’s fluffy companion if I’m allowed to rather than listen to another “business conversation”. Or I’ll “escape” for a while to decompress. Or, if there’s someone who happens to be a genuinely decent person, it’s likely we’ll manage to find some cosier corner away from the crowd and have some quality time of our own. Now now, keep your mind out of the gutter.
Now, how does this link to the popularity thing? Well, kind of does because some of these events will be combined with meeting some guest of honour or some in general someone famous. And as you may know, people tend to go head over heels to be on these. They’ll spend their hard-earned resources to be there. And then what? An autograph? Few minutes of awkward silence mixed with fawning?
Like seriously, what were you expecting? These folks are just people like everyone else. They have their lives, their friends, their own plans of spending time and their own schedules in some cases. Don’t get me wrong it’s not like they aren’t interested but they’re not going to go head over heels. For them it’s just an event like any other and like for many.
“Rawi, why are you such a downer?” you may ask. My dear reader, I’m not. And it’s not like I haven’t got the experience or that there aren’t well-known people I had a chance to meet wouldn’t like to stumble upon. For example, as a kid I spent some time with some of the most famous NHL players from my country (yes, there were and still probably are quite a few). Mind you, I was twelve and already didn’t really care. At NFC, I stumbled upon Fluke and Tirox, both quite famous furs. And while I did have a chance to say hello to Fluke, that was it. No need to hound him around and go crazy. If someone told me I could get to an Aviators’ concert (the furry musician from US, might know him as his fox fursona Sky), I’d take the chance (but only in Europe and easy to access location). But still, I’m there for the music and the experience. I still wouldn’t go insane over Avi and would let him have his time first and foremost. Because, as mentioned before, all of them are people like everyone else and share their hobby like many others. The only difference is that they commited a lot of time and passion and happened to make it into something that makes them earn their living.
R.R.A.