Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

[Chux]

You're so vain.

[Finch]

(compass, i will go see it with you if you want)

Our theater was full of HIPSTERS. Chrome bags, mismatched clothes, girls who look like they paid to dress like bums. It was glorious.

[icarusfall]

You're so vain.

I totally am.

[Tain]

I can only imagine the theater scene. Legions of nerds making sure to laugh REALLY LOUD at every forced reference: "Hey, everybody! I totally understood that! Did you hear me laugh? That's because the casual reference to my specialized lifestyle really hit home. Hysterical stuff. Not everybody would get that reference. But I sure did."

this dude at work excitedly quoted some line about the bass line for final fantasy ii and i had no clue why this was noteworthy (let alone funny) at all

i mean i wasn't a dick to him about it or anything but what gives

and then there's that tagline

Still probably seeing it, but these are warning signs.

[Finch]

man, i know someone who's too cool for his britches

[Tain]

coolguyglasses.gif

[Mman]

how was it not represented?

He leveled up and when bad guys you get a ton of money, proportional to the difficulty of the boss.

[Compass]

this dude at work excitedly quoted some line about the bass line for final fantasy ii and i had no clue why this was noteworthy (let alone funny) at all

That reminds of a subset of the behavior I spoke about before, where people will laugh -- and laugh HARD -- while looking around, at things that aren't even jokes. It's like, dude, okay, you get the reference. We're impressed.

It's not just movies either. I remember at a big company meeting a couple years ago, the CEO mentioned Kotaku in a barely-joke and there was much tittering. "I recognize that! Hey, everyone, I recognize that from the Interwebs!" Or like when ebay first started getting big, late night hosts could name-drop it in the punch line to the worst joke ever and still get plenty of laughs. "Oh, he said 'ebay'! I read about that in Time! I better chortle uproariously to signify to my fellow show-goers how current I am!"

I really just hate audiences in general.

[A Robot Bit Me]

It makes people happy to think that someone is bearing witness to their lives. The more esoteric and isolated the way of life, the more surprised they are by someone recognizing it. The more surprised they are, the harder they chortle.

That and the pedantic, forced "I totally got that reference, acknowledge my acknowledgment,"
thing that you mentioned.

Lonely people. Lonely, lonely people.

[Compass]

Totally. I even concede it's more often the mostly benign former over the they-need-to-die latter.

People really are horrible. But I'm also probably way too hard on them.