Toward Better Communications on the BBS

But arguments about superiority are far superior to just making statements of preference. Making statements of preference is boring compared to an argument about superiority. Hell, statements of preference are just boring.

All of those three allow B to express their opinion on X and how they didn’t like it, without insulting the tastes and enjoyment of A.

Yeah, that’s real fun. Almost as fun as watching cement set.

(If it’s not clear, I’m joking here. This is a joke.)

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Do you know… this is the second time this concept has come up in the last 24 hours (the other time for me was on Twitter).

Must be in the air.

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This was the newest Wondermark, too.

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I’m also reminded of this from an earlier June (excerpted since the original is too tall for here):

ButterSafe-OpinionsShort

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I agree wholeheartedly with the overall sentiment of your post, but I’m not sure about your suggested alternatives for person B. To me, while certainly more tactful, they still read as B dismissing X and proclaiming the inherent superiority of Y.

One of the keys, in my view, is to make it entirely personal about person B. What I mean is exactly your third option (we’re on the same page, just to be clear). We’ll assume B was already part of the conversation and it would be awkward for them not to say anything about A’s suggestion. In that case B can say something tactful like your option 3, but there’s then no need to link that to Y.

Which is why I didn’t like the first two options. I don’t think B should compare X to Y at all unless it’s directly related and it would be awkward not to make the connection, in which case B could say something like “that reminded me of this”, which keeps them neutral on the topic of X but doesn’t ignore it. Otherwise, simply introduce Y as a completely separate thing unrelated to X.

I was moved to reply because in my angry-youth phase I was very much a person B, and it makes me cringe thinking about it. But the vast majority of disagreements in taste that I’ve witnessed here or at BB have been handled very well, and ~12-14 years ago when I first forayed into the comments at BB, the tactful and thoughtful ways that people commented about differences in taste actually really helped me. I learned to do that better and basically became a better person as a result. It wasn’t the only thing that was causing changes in my personality and ways of thinking at the time (I was in college after all), but it was significantly influential.

Then also, like you say, when things do need to be called out, they are called out - still tactfully, but with the required force. A useful thing to learn from. Obviously, many people haven’t learned these things yet, and many never will, and B vs. A comments are a plague across the entire internet.

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Sometimes I wonder, if we ever stopped arguing about ketchup, pizza, and American cheese, what the hell would we ever have to talk about?

First time I ran into this phenomenon online was on a Usenet group, alt.horror.werewolves, regarding Heather Nova, of all things. Talk about a tempest in a teapot.

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You like ketchup and American cheese on your pizza?!

I know we’re talking about how personal tastes can’t be wrong, but there are limits.

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But American cheese is far superior to Heather Nova. Heather Nova is boring compared to American cheese. Hell, Heather Nova is just boring.

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I mean, that’s not even pizza. That’s, like, an open-faced grilled cheese sandwich.

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You know, I have what may seem to many who know me like an irrational hatred of ketchup, but from my perspective it’s totally rational. It’s nasty and its nastiness infects everything it touches, no matter how small of an amount.

Having to scrape it off when my request for no ketchup wasn’t heeded, and then having to choke down the ketchup soaked hamburger or whatever because the alternative was not eating anything, and not getting any fries because someone decided to spray ketchup all over the entire fry vessel, was a memorable part of my childhood. Especially at summer camp in Canada, a country where they put the vile substance on literally everything (otherwise quite a nice place).

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Hey, I always had the exact same experience with mayo and mustard. Two vile substances to avoid rather than just one.

Whereas ketchup is simply the tomato, perfected.

Oh dear. Here we go.

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As someone who likes all three condiments when they are paired with the correct foods, I think the key is that personal preference needs to be honoured. (“Correct foods” of course meaning what I like them with.)

For instance, there’s this weird myth that little kids shouldn’t eat spicy food, which makes it hard on mustard-loving kids.

There’s another, even more common myth, that all kids love their food drowned in ketchup – highly unfair to the ketchup-averse kid.

A lot of food dislikes adults have seem to stem from being force-fed stuff as children. What an adult might have been able to learn to tolerate, if not like, gets traumatised out of them in childhood via forced feeding.

So: mayo on French fries, but only a little bit, mustard with home-made macaroni but not KD/PC white cheddar, and ketchup on home fries, but don’t let it touch the eggs or the toast. Obviously.

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Too many people are thoroughly self-absorbed; I say ‘live and let live.’

Like whatever fandoms you want, eat whatever food combos with whatever condiments you want.

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Don’t be too quick to judge - there’s room yet for compromise.

I can’t stand mustard either.

While I do consider mayo vile as well, I can tolerate it in moderation (i.e. if you scrape off practically the entire absurd amount that is normally provided) and I can even appreciate what it can add to certain sandwiches, though I wouldn’t choose to use it myself.

There’s an important question we haven’t considered - relish and pickles. I have to admit that I came to appreciate the pickle when I was too lazy pick it out of a white castle burger in las vegas a year or two ago. Relish, never, and pickles outside of fast food burgers, definitely not, just to be clear.

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American mustard or english mustard?

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We’re jokingly arguing about condiments (though my convictions are real) but actually the reason I chimed in about ketchup is exactly this (and what gadgetgirl covered in greater detail), which makes the condiment conversation relevant to the thread - unfortunately if one doesn’t like a common condiment, they are not allowed to live and let live. They get questioned constantly (well, not out of context) and regularly end up with the condiment on their food despite explicitly requesting otherwise. Kids get force-fed and traumatized.

It sounds crazy and, to put it mildly, not important. But precisely because it doesn’t actually matter it’s a perfect example of the broader problems in society of lack of empathy and understanding in communication, as we can perform the argument as an example and nobody’s hurt.

But it hints at the insidiousness of people projecting their own views on others as if they’re fact. “Everybody loves ketchup, you’re crazy” is (paraphrased) a statement I’ve heard many times in my life. If condiments can traumatize, the danger of this kind of thing more broadly is very clear.

(I don’t mean to sound as preachy and condescending as that sounded, but I’m writing on mobile at work and don’t have time to rewrite several times like I normally do - I meant this comment to be friendly!)

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And it wouldn’t even have the awesome texture that a well-made grilled cheese sandwich would have! Pizza dough is too tough and floury for grilled cheese!

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You made me realize explicitly something I already knew at heart - grilled cheese is vastly superior to a calzone, which is a pizza sandwich, because of the textures. Now if only someone could come up with a way combine the two. The pepperoni will have to go on the outside because the other reason calzones are inferior is that the pepperonis don’t get crisped.

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For future reference, we can cut tall images into pieces and upload the pieces.

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I used to think I was over-sensitive because I got hints, if not actual statements to that effect. Now I wonder if many folks aren’t just under-sensitive.

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That’s an interesting challenge. I think you’d have to bake it open-faced to get crispy pepperoni, and finish it off by smooshing the two halves together and grilling them.

The bright side of that technique is that you can use actual cheddar cheese instead of processed cheese product.

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