4 ms·

I disagree on two points. First, people shouldn't love you for who you are. That assumption is in popular culture but it's really pernicious if you examine it.

I disagree on two points. First, people shouldn't love you for who you are. That assumption is in popular culture but it's really pernicious if you examine it. I don't love my mother because she's my mother. I love my mother because she's nice to me, she cares about me, she sacrificed for me, she wants me to do well, etc. If my mother acted like a robot, or worse, was abusive or exploitative, I wouldn't love her. That's true for everyone I do love, and I think it should be true of all love (possible exception for one's own children). If you expect people to love you regardless of what you do or how you act, that's demanding a lot from people for no reason. Second, consider the group of people at the concert. Going to a concert is fun, even if you're just kind of standing around watching. The problem is, when taking a photo, you can't convey visually the fun of being there - so you exaggerate the visual aspect, you look happy, so you can take a picture that represents what you're actually experiencing. I grant that it could be the case that people are cynically trying to create a fantasy life for Snapchat to seem popular or whatever, but my experience with such things is just that you're trying to convey your experience with images. Going to this concert is fun, so look fun so we can snap shot it! Over Thanksgiving I took pictures of my mother, my sister, and my sister's daughter doing the same thing. On the one hand, two of the pictures were staged (I asked two of them to come here and do this so I could take their picture). On the other hand, it captured the similarity that I could see between the three of them. The picture is authentic in the same way that the Snapchat picture is - it had to be created artificially to capture something authentic.

tylerhou 9y ago
> First, people shouldn't love you for who you are. That assumption is in popular culture but it's really pernicious if you examine it. You're making a mostly semantical argument. When you say that "you don't love your mother because she's your mother", you're saying that you don't love your mother strictly based on the fact that she was the woman who bore you (`with respect to her identity`). You then say that you love your mother because she acts `how she acts`. In my experience, when people say they want to be loved for who they are, they mean that they don't want to have to act differently than how they would naturally act in order to be liked or popular. In essence, `who someone is` is commonly interpreted to be a superset of `how someone acts` in union with other sets (like `who someone is with respect to their identity`). Thus most people would understand "be who you are" not only to mean "be who you are strictly `with respect to your identity`" but also "be who you are with respect to `how you act`". You're missing the latter in the definition in of who your mother is. Your second point is valid. In my experience it is difficult to maintain physically a peak level of excitement for a whole event.
noobermin 9y ago
Another commenter replied to your first point and I hold their sentiment. Regarding your second point, there is a spectrum here between "recreating authentic experience" and closer to "making something that isn't real" for likes. An extreme example is that I live in a hipster neighborhood with a bunch of European inspired architecture (in the midwestern USA). I once saw two people hold up their small puppy they had on a leash up to autumn leaves in a plant in order to take a picture, around shoulder level with outstretched arms. The dog was clearly in distress, but they continued for one or two times while the dog was whimpering and trying to get down. The dog was not "experiencing the autumn leaves." Instead, I'm guessing this was closer to "I've seen these sorts of posts in ig, and it's popular, so I'm going to try to recreate it for likes." Why else would someone do that? So that's an extreme towards GP's point while you seem to be on a spectrum towards another area where it's more like amplification over manufacture.

tylerhou 9y ago

> First, people shouldn't love you for who you are. That assumption is in popular culture but it's really pernicious if you examine it. You're making a mostly semantical argument. When you say that "you don't love your mother because she's your mother", you're saying that you don't love your mother strictly based on the fact that she was the woman who bore you (`with respect to her identity`). You then say that you love your mother because she acts `how she acts`. In my experience, when people say they want to be loved for who they are, they mean that they don't want to have to act differently than how they would naturally act in order to be liked or popular. In essence, `who someone is` is commonly interpreted to be a superset of `how someone acts` in union with other sets (like `who someone is with respect to their identity`). Thus most people would understand "be who you are" not only to mean "be who you are strictly `with respect to your identity`" but also "be who you are with respect to `how you act`". You're missing the latter in the definition in of who your mother is. Your second point is valid. In my experience it is difficult to maintain physically a peak level of excitement for a whole event.

noobermin 9y ago

Another commenter replied to your first point and I hold their sentiment. Regarding your second point, there is a spectrum here between "recreating authentic experience" and closer to "making something that isn't real" for likes. An extreme example is that I live in a hipster neighborhood with a bunch of European inspired architecture (in the midwestern USA). I once saw two people hold up their small puppy they had on a leash up to autumn leaves in a plant in order to take a picture, around shoulder level with outstretched arms. The dog was clearly in distress, but they continued for one or two times while the dog was whimpering and trying to get down. The dog was not "experiencing the autumn leaves." Instead, I'm guessing this was closer to "I've seen these sorts of posts in ig, and it's popular, so I'm going to try to recreate it for likes." Why else would someone do that? So that's an extreme towards GP's point while you seem to be on a spectrum towards another area where it's more like amplification over manufacture.