Can I quote post, a quote post? Well, tough, I am. Matt Birchler talking about dunking on people being a sport:

…a surefire way for you to generate engagement this week is to talk shit about…

The first thing that comes to mind reading Matt’s post is the outline of all the performative behaviour that happens on social media. Big brands and users alike farming the rage of other people for attention. There’s nothing that seems to get people going than when they hate something you like, or like something you hate.

As I’ve written about before, of course hate what you hate, and embrace it, but there becomes a line when, as Matt writes about, your personality is outlined more by the things you hate than what you enjoy. You are more concerned about the external things that you should hate, than the internal, there becomes a little too much you in f^%k you.

Derren Brown talks about exactly this in the first part of his excellent book Happy. If you base your personality on doing the opposite of something, anything, you are giving up control. He uses the example of walking on the right side of the road, simply because everyone else uses the left. It might seem anti-establishment until everyone walks on the right now. Do you then cross the road?

Arcing back to Matt’s post, he have all been teenagers and disliking the right things was “cool”. It’s an important part of growing up, but why look at other people so much? Why let others dictate what you like and don’t like? Even if the reason they like it, you hate it — other people are making your decisions for you. Certainly, you can have a f^!k you personality, but you might find you are only screwing yourself.