ArticlesShopping
I find shopping in a mall to be remarkably exhausting.
I was told once this was a symptom of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but I don’t think that is it.
Some would blame the Gruen transfer, but I haven’t seen much evidence that such a phenomena is more than just an invented term to describe tiredness.
Introspecting, I think the problem is that I enter a slightly elevated level of paranoia within shops. I am aware that my attention is being deliberately grabbed, that my mood and behaviour is being deliberately manipulated, and that I am being deliberately lied to, without stop. The effort to avoid such attacks – low-level that they may be – is tiring. I find such shopping far from pleasant.
Pegs
There has been a “game” called pegging that has turned up at juggling and unicycling conventions over the past few years.
Someone would turn up with a pile of laundry pegs, and surreptitiously attach them to people’s clothing or pony-tails. When the victim notices, they are supposed to use the acquired peg to do the same on someone else.
I hated that game. I despised it with a passion. The first time I was ever pegged, the peg went straight into the pegger’s beer.
Why?
One crucial point is that it is game that is inflicted on people who didn’t agree to play. I would feel much differently if there was prior consent.
The second point is that it is a game of bullying. It is played with the intention of making you feel good by embarassing someone else.
The third reason is that it fosters a similar sense of constant low-level paranoia. Conversations are interrupted anytime someone casually walks too closely behind you. People are constantly patting their own shoulders and pants looking for pegs. Any sense of being relaxed amongst trusted friends is lost.
Yes, I am guilty of pegging people back in revenge – only the chief instigators of such games, and only because punching them in the jaw over such a minor infraction is socially unacceptable. I have repeated gently touched their backs in fake pegging attacks until they are reduced to constantly fidgeting. Mostly, I have discarded pegs by the handful, both from my back and from the backs of other innocents. Once, when I discovered pegging was being actively encouraged by a convention organiser, I covered myself in several dozen pegs to prevent anyone else from getting any sense of victory by pegging me.
Fortunately, the game has become passe now, and I can begin to relax again.
Water Pistols
What I realised recently was that water-pistols fall into the same category.
I have been to a number of BBQs where someone has brought water-pistols and I can see they encourage the same behaviour… a few people with water-pistols getting pleasure from the discomfort of others, while everyone else stops being relaxed and starts maintaining a constant concern about whether their phones and cameras are at risk, and whether their drink is going to be spilled or splashed.
I am not talking about kids playing water-pistol battles. I am not talking about sweaty people on hot days requesting to be squirted. I have no objections to that.
I certainly have no objection to the behaviour in the photo.
I am talking about when you have one person with a water-pistol, and a large group of innocents shying away from being hit. I am talking about the lack of consent, and people seeking enjoyment at the cost of others.
Of course, it is only a bit of water. It is only a little peg. It is just a few seconds of a shopper’s attention. It isn’t hurting anyone.
However, the size of the stakes isn’t the point here. It is about the anti-social and bullying behaviour making what should be a relaxed and pleasant fun into a tiresome and stressful experience.
Comment by Sunny Kalsi on February 22, 2011
hmm… so you don’t like it because you can’t consent to playing the game?
What if you wanted to play?
Comment by Julian on February 22, 2011
It’s not that I can’t consent. It is that none of us were asked. We weren’t even given an opt-out.
If I was asked, then if I wanted to play, I would say yes.
(Hint: I am more likely to consent to your water-pistol game if I am not carrying a camera and I am not carrying out a conversation, and if everyone is carrying with a water-pistol.)
Comment by AndrewD on February 22, 2011
I’ve never come across “pegging”.
I do however agree with your general sentiment, but with one general exception.
Generally, if I happen to be with water pistol, the person I most want to squirt (independent of whether I actually do) is usually the person with the metaphorical stick furthest up their butt.
You see, these people are usually the ones that turn my “relaxed and pleasant fun” time into “tiresome and stressful” time, usually using their words rather than pranks.
Maybe the advocation of such pranks has a purpose – broad leveling of the collective playing field.
“Dis me, peg you” – like that.
Comment by configurator on February 23, 2011
“sweaty people on hot days requesting to be squirted”?
Comment by Aristotle Pagaltzis on February 23, 2011
For the pegging game, there is a very simple solution: stop caring. Attaching a few pegs to yourself to take the initiative maybe. But don’t react whatsoever outside of that. If anyone points out the three dozen pegs you’ve collected, just shrug and keep talking.
It’s not much fun trying to embarrass someone who is completely apathetic about it.
And you can drop your vigilance.
That said, this works because the consequences of ignoring the game are effectively nil. So it won’t work for the water pistol game.
At the shopping mall, it might. If you are interested in serendipitous purchases, it won’t. But if you adopt the policy of buying only things that you have put on your shopping list, you can stop caring there too.
Comment by Nemo on February 25, 2011
shopping? I think you need a better filter.
pegging? I wonder how much Wisp is to blame for that. Apparently it was a biggish thing in Europe several years ago, and we adopted it as our way of advertising our shows at folk festivals. I have a peg tree here of the different Will o’ the Wisp advertising pegs we used. I even got a stamp made to facilitate pegs that didn’t have labels attached to them with string. I’ve not seen pegging in Australia outside that though, and the level of paranoia amongst friends caused? About the same as a game of tips when there has been a moments confusion about who is IT.
Water pistols? yeah, and some people object to their photo being taken ‘without their consent’ too. Sure, if you have camera/etc around that can be damaged, it would be inconsiderate to have the game near you, but if the sort of people you hang out with at BBQs are the sort of people who include “a few people with water-pistols getting pleasure from the discomfort of others”, then frankly, I say, get better friends. 😛
Comment by Nemo on February 25, 2011
PS: I’ll get off your lawn now 😛
🙂
Comment by Julian on February 26, 2011
@configurator,
Sorry if that sounded a little too colourful, but at a BBQ you do get people who would welcome the refreshment of some cool water splashed on their face, and they invite the water-pistol carriers to shoot them.
Comment by Julian on February 26, 2011
@Aristotle,
Yes, not caring is the normal solution.
Yes, I did peg myself in an attempt to show I didn’t care.
Yes, during water-pistol incidents, I spent effort carefully not reacting to the threats or to actual attacks.
But that’s not dropping vigilance – it is giving it a different form.
And, as a photographer, I have discarded otherwise nice candid portraits of people, because a peg is prominently visible. Frustrating, because it turns out I and the subject do care.
And if the people I am interacting with are responding to the threats, even as I maintain my cool, I still lose.
But where have I heard this advice before: “If you ignore them, they will get bored and go away.” Oh, that’s right. From teachers and parents, talking about bullies.
It is precisely because I am seeing the unattractive inner-bully emerging from people, and that I no longer want to have to behave with my friends with the same rules as a school-yard, that I was pushed to write this down.
Comment by Aristotle Pagaltzis on February 26, 2011
Carefully maintaining a non-reaction isn’t what I’m talking about – apathy is. You really have to not care, not pretend to not care. Of course it doesn’t solve the problem of peggers and squirters being there and interfering with the event: it only solves the problem of peggers bothering you personally and in isolation (as that’s the only thing you always have control of).
So then… does posting about it on the blog solve anything? (Not a rhetorical question. Is the blog read by the people in question? Are you using this place to draft thoughts for writing elsewhere? Or something?)
Comment by configurator on February 27, 2011
No need to apologize, I just found your choice of words amusing 🙂
Comment by Julian on March 12, 2011
Aristotle,
I am not avoiding your question about what the blog solves. It is a tough one to answer, and every time I try, I get caught up in my thoughts and the answer ends up being unsatisfying: I blog due to maladjusted social instincts of a man evolutionarily adapted to tribal communication, not blogs.
I do not believe my blog is read by the people in question; this wasn’t an exercise in passive-aggression. Of course, I tried to write it as though it might be, just in case.
Yes, this is a place to draft my thoughts. My thoughts get clarified on just about any topic I write about here – by the act of writing, and by the insightful critiques of my readers. However, not so I can write the arguments elsewhere, but so I can live my life by them.
If I influence others to think before using their own maladjusted social instincts to act like bullies, that’s a bonus too.
Comment by Aristotle Pagaltzis on March 12, 2011
Thanks.