Now for a snarky, judgmental edition of…
SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!
Every once in a while, I see this image floating around online. It’s a photo of some people at a stadium cheering for their team. And the caption? “Imagine if they were this excited over something that actually matters.”
Seriously?
Perhaps one reason it’s so mind-numbing is that you hear this said to or about kids so often. There was a radio ad several years back that began with several children talking excitedly about aliens. After a little bit of this, a woman’s voice then asks “Wouldn’t it be nice if they were this excited about math?”
It takes me a second to even come up with any words of response to either of these hypotheticals other than “Go to hell”. It’s just another version of “why are people interested in things that don’t interest me?”
Actually, it’s more than that. After all, these aren’t being said to the people but about them to others who presumably are to just agree right along that said thing-that-doesn’t-matter merits no attention and such attention should be redirected to other matters. Things the speaker personally decides are important. In other words, “don’t be interested in the things you are interested in; be interested in the things I want you to be interested in!”
The thing about the stadium cheering and the discussion about aliens was that those engaging in it were having fun. I don’t really see how the mere act of having fun with these things means completely eschewing anything more serious. How do you know none of the people in that stadium biting their nails as the kicker makes a game winning field goal attempt is also planning to attend a pro-choice rally next week? Or write their Congressperson about climate change legislation tomorrow? Or are volunteering to assist LGBT youth? Believe it or not, people can be passionate about multiple things!
Not that I particularly care even if the game is the only thing some of them care that much about.
And I hope I don’t need to point out the idiocy of whining about kids having interests outside of schoolwork!