Armchair Psychiatrists

The world is full of tribalism. Sports, politics, technology, and anything else people spend time thinking about or enjoying. Unsurprisingly, it's something I've been exposed to far too often as a streamer. People become fiercely attached to "their streamer" to the point you could be mistaken for thinking the relationship between them is parent and child.

I'm not going to attempt to diagnose the phenomenon because that'll make this post look hypocritical by the end, however... At a high level, I think tribalism is so prevalent in everything because we feel compelled to defend the decisions we've made in the past. Rather than admitting we made a mistake or ill-informed choice, we double down and let the bias slowly creep into our brains.

In the past, I've caught myself falling into the trap of becoming emotionally and mentally invested in hockey. If my team were to lose, the rest of my night would be ruined. It's extremely unhealthy to be that attached to a bunch of millionaires skating around, especially when they don't even know you exist.

I've since realized my "support" has had such a negative effect on me and reframed how I enjoy hockey. I still watch it regularly and discuss it online, though, I'm much more mindful of when it's time to step away. If my team is losing badly, I simply turn off the game and go do something productive – wash the dishes, fold some laundry, etc. When conversing with someone that's set in their ways, I'll point out that their mind is already made up and I'm more or less talking to a wall and move on elsewhere. I know that doesn't seem that revolutionary of a tactic, but it's helped me so much in all aspects of my life, not just hockey. Being mindful of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it while I'm doing it helps me to stop bad habits from forming and repair broken ones.

I've been actively focused on spending time on the things I enjoy when I enjoy them. Sometimes you don't feel like delving into something you typically do and it's okay to say "not today". What's more, I've been very mindful of the things I don't like and avoid them like the plague – why spend time doing something I don't like when I could instead use that time for something I enjoy?

Haters gonna hate

This all leads me to the reason for writing this post. While I've not posted much here due to life being chaos (in an entirely bad way), one of my posts has proven to be controversial. Long story short, this post is a rambling rant about the issues and struggles I've had working with people over the last couple decades and how the industry and environment may change, the way people act doesn't.

I received a good bit of hate for the post on a certain subreddit, but I don't pay mind to them because those people will always hate you regardless of what you do. There used to be a point in time when people would post sprawling essays about streamers in the circle, attempting to psychoanalyze them as if they were a serial killer. I, myself, had been the subject of several posts and it became so frequent an occurrence (not just towards me) that those post types were banned.

To have such an intense parasocial relationship with a person is very unhealthy, especially one that you clearly despise. Not only are they spending so much time thinking and talking about someone they don't like, it's all based on little snippets of information they gleam from streams and second-hand sources, so their "analysis" is likely the furthest thing from the truth. Through the years, I've seen a lot of people answering one person's question about me on such subreddits, not even in a negative way, and it's still wrong. People asking what I used to do for work before streaming, for example, and someone saying I was a civil engineer on more than one occasion. Wrong! I have a degree in urban planning and worked in the power industry doing project and construction management. If there are people that like me and don't even know the facts, can you imagine what sort of fabrications a person that hates me will come up with?

Not in my house

Now, there's only so much I can and am willing to control when it comes posts and comments about me on these subreddits. I don't venture to them these days so I won't even see most stuff and I often ignore, for better or worse, the things I do see. However, it takes a special kind of sicko to come to my website and post a comment on this post in the wee hours of the morning attempting to psychoanalyze me.

I removed the comment, since I know the few people reading this will be curious, not because I'm afraid of criticism, but because it was blatantly hateful and categorically wrong. I will share the very first sentence of theirs, just to set the tone:

"Decided to go on a deep dive of the past NLSS cast and found this."

They also concluded the comment with a quote that makes me believe they're a 20-something white male that listens to the likes of Jordan Peterson (how's that for psychoanalysis?)

"The thing that all men should fear is that they will become obsessed by a small corner of truth and fail to comprehend its overall principles. If they can correct this fault, they may return to correct standards, but if they continue to hesitate and be of two minds, then they will fall into delusion." 
-Xunzi

The in-between isn't particularly important because it's just a one-by-one criticism of my feelings on that post. This is a person that riddles their comment with assumptions about my life and the last 16 years that I've been making and posting content in some fashion based on information they've seemingly gathered from a single post of mine. This post of mine, while maybe telling a bit too much, is something I purposely left vague and summarized for the sake of brevity.

This person has drawn conclusions and made statements about me having just read my poorly written post, attempting to come across as an intellectual that has life figured out. However, anyone with any real intelligence or sincerity wouldn't be doing deep dives about people and then posting a shameful attempt at a psychiatric report about them on the internet.

In fact, this is a person that exhibits the clear signs of tribalism towards a streamer and they can't handle the fact that they are fallible or flawed. They were so bothered to hear anything slightly negative or inconvenient about them that they made an account here and posted a 790 word comment on a post that they veiled as constructive criticism when really they couldn't resist the urge to defend their sheepish behaviour and thought that trying to diagnose my feelings from the last two decades was an appropriate approach.

Hilariously, the streamer they're defending has explicitly made fun of them for this very white knighting behaviour. It's like when Trump says the only people that would vote for him are morons and those same morons go on supporting and defending him.

My thoughts on you

I've been wanting to post a lot more here than I have, and that's largely because I want to move away from negativity and post about my interests and hobbies. Due to life strife the past year, it's been difficult to partake in said interests and hobbies, so I've not had much to post about!

That said, these armchair psychiatrists are something I've wanted to post about for quite some time, so I figured this latest instance was a good chance to get my thoughts out there, and my thoughts are quite simple: if you go around discussing people that you have a weak or strong parasocial relationship with online, you're troubled and you need to stop. You're the definition of a person that needs to "touch grass".

This person, ironically said this in their comment:

Just to be totally honest, a lot of the personal issues described here seem to be coming from a very high self-focus...

My response to this is that you seem to be far too focused on me, a stranger you've never talked directly to before, and should go outside and focus on bettering yourself. Making sloppy comments at two in the morning is not bettering you and it's certainly not bettering me. Just remember that when you point the finger at someone, you have a few pointing back to you.

Disclaimer

I don't intend to draw attention to comments and posts about me like the one this person made in the future and the content of it is not the real issue to me. What truly saddens me is not that this person dislikes me, but that they have spent so much of their time thinking and talking about their dislike of me here or anywhere.

Perhaps I could have a disclaimer on the site that says "don't psychoanalyze me based on the extremely limited information that I've chosen to share and the mountain of information I've kept to myself" but I feel like the type of person that would psychoanalyze me without my consent wouldn't heed such a disclaimer in the first place.

At the end of the day, this blog is simply a means to get thoughts and ideas out of my head, good and bad. Despite that intent, I still only share the tip of the iceberg. I'm not looking for help, praise, criticism, or any other form of concern. It's all unsolicited and undesired. If a person truly wants to help, they would reach out and say "hey, sorry for what you're going through – I'm available to talk if you want."

If, however, you're the type of person with an email referencing a character from One Piece (I'm not making this up) and you attempt to "figure me out" from a single post, then you've told me more about who you are than you could ever learn about me.

Get a life. Sincerely.