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Doing everything exactly opposite from "The Mainstream" is the same thing as doing everything exactly like "The Mainstream."  You're still using What Everyone Else is Doing as your primary point of reference.

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The Clothes Make the Monkey.

Started by The Good Reverend Roger, June 25, 2012, 07:33:44 PM

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AFK

Well, no, obviously when it is someone you know well IRL your view of the uniform is going to be a lot better, though, when it comes to humans, you could still be missing things the person has buried and hidden from EVERYONE.   But in the PD world, there could be a part of DP we are not able to see that might cause us to see his uniform differently.  Or maybe he truly IS stuck, andmaybe there is more to his IRL world that would tell us why.
Cynicism is a blank check for failure.

AFK

Quote from: Elder Iptuous on June 25, 2012, 08:33:18 PM
i caught a saturday night live skit some years ago with a lady that did Guy #4 that was pretty funny.
the people at the party started testing her by upping the claims until she was eventually claiming that her cat was an astronaut or some such.
at least these people could be amusing if you play their game back at them and they have to keep a straight face.
what happens if two of them come in proximity to each other? is it like scanners?


The rest of the party moves out onto the balcony.  That might be a bit much to take.
Cynicism is a blank check for failure.

tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: The Bad Reverend What's-His-Name! on June 25, 2012, 08:07:47 PM
Meh, some people wear shit on their sleeve, turn it into a big, shiny "look at me!" badge.  I have no need for that.  I'm different things for different people, because relationships aren't cookie-cutter.  My wife married me for reasons that have nothing to do with what I do for work.  My kids look up to me for another set of qualities.  People in my field look at me from other lenses....  But at the heart, I am me.  Certain people have the fortune to know me as an individual in more depth than others.


And that gets to the flip side of this coin.  People ascribing uniforms to people they don't truly know.  Trying to create order out of disorder.  To need to categorize.  I also have no need for that.

I don't think discussing uniforms is a way to "categorize." It's an observation of monkey behavior. It's analogous to the discussion about "masks" that has happened here, except there's less of a focus (if I'm getting it right) on how you portray yourself to others than on how you portray yourself to yourself. "I AM A DEMOCRAT" is a mantra millions of people repeat to themselves religiously, and when faced with a decision or an opportunity to voice their opinion, their first reference goes directly to their ideas about "what it means to be a Democrat," instead of to their own experiences and their actual identity.

This is a Pandora's Box I think, because this behavior opens a portal directly into someone's self-identity and is easily exploitable by media, advertisements, etc.

Maybe it's a loophole in our brain wiring that's been made more easily exploitable recently since it's a semi-religious pathway and most people aren't using actual "Religion" to program it.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Triple Zero

#18
[2.  The Damage Case]  All too familiar. I wouldn't flat-out dismiss the possibility that there is in fact actually something wrong or that they got some tough shit on their plate to deal with though. The big difference is that there's plenty other people dealing with the same tough shit without making a huge attention-whoring drama showcase out of it. I'm trying to think of anyone, but it seems I've successfully pruned all of these from my IRL life. Or they left on their own accord, a lot of my friends moved to the Utrecht and Amsterdam area after university cause there's more jobs there than up here in the North and because that's where all the age 25+ people go (which is a sad story for another thread). Now I'm talking about a friend who personifies the factory default setting dramaqueen archetype. Met him at a party a while back and within 10 minutes it became obvious he had not grown over it (which I really hoped for him), in his case it is not disease or disorder but perpetual drama in his relationships.

[3.  The Political Partisan]  I think I've been lucky in that both my parents were quite politically active quite far in the left part of the spectrum, but without becoming hippies. While I've always mostly agreed with that perspective, I'm not exactly sure what came first, the realization that the left-right dichotomy is a con, or when I noticed my father outright dismissing ideas if they came from the wrong rightwing political figure, no matter how reasonable[1]. Since then I've been happily picking on flaws in left-wing ideology. Naivety is their biggest sin. Second is a lack of cunning. (though there are always exceptions)

[4.  The Guy Who Did That AND a Bag of Chips]  I wondered what Sweden would need a Bikini Team for, so I looked it up. Thanks :) Anyway I may have known a guy that fit this stereotype in some sense, but the thing is, most of my friends are similarly critically allergic to bullshit as the general PD-er, and our favourite method of dealing with this is by letting them talk and interestedly asking for details until they start contradicting themselves.

Reading back what got posted while I was writing this: that's pretty much what Ippy described. He asks "what happens if two of them come in proximity to each other? is it like scanners?". In my experience there were no interesting special fx like in Scanners. Either they recognize and avoid eachother. Or one (temporarily) drops the uniform and joins the poking of the other, sometimes switching roles. On very rare occasions, an unstable equilibrium occurs, capping off the max level of "awesomer than thou" and they may actually start having a Good Time. Is very rare, I may have seen it just once.

[5.  The Convert]  Ugh. This one might in fact be the worst one to deal with. At least, when it's immediately apparent, you can start poking at them right away and neutralize or scare them away quite effectively. The absolute worst is when you don't realize it at first, and you develop a relationship with them, get to know them, and at some point you notice. And it all drops into place, all the little quirks that you let slip before. And now that you know, it is too late. They already firmly embedded their tendrils in your social circle. And from now on you know that everything this person says, you will consider in the light of their convictions, and it will disgust you because you cannot un-see the uniform.

[1] One funny moment was when Geert Wilders denounced Breivik and called him "a psychopath". In my dad's eyes, Wilders cannot say or do anything right, so even this (quite agreeable) statement had to be attacked, somehow. Needless to say, whatever my father's argument was (I forget), it didn't quite get off the ground. I told him that, a person that coldly spends 1.5 hour shooting 70 children on an island, is in fact quite probably a psychopath. As he should know, being a skilled neuro-psychologist. He reluctantly admitted :) My parents' partisanship is not so bad, in that sense :)

Quote from: RogerThis list, of course, is by no means exclusive.

Indeed. Let me see if I can add to it.

4b. A variation on 4, is the Guy That Knows All About Everything. They usually get their information from "a documentary they saw" or "this Internet discussion/blog/site by people that really know those things". You won't get more details than that, because they only remember the interesting bits, which does not include naming sources, references or grasping the actual theories and principles behind whatever. Lacking most critical faculties, engaging in discussion with these folks is usually futile. It'll go around in circles, they won't define what they actually mean, and even if you're lucky they'll only admit "I don't know, but I really saw it and it was like that" implying that what they saw has authority over what you know. It's even worse when it's on a topic you don't know too much about, you strongly suspect bullshit, but cannot argue it because they won't give details or explanations and all you can say is "I'm having a hard time believing that, and I'd really like to read about it if that'd prove me wrong".

* The One That Just Got Real. You know him well, he is outgoing but obviously insecure inside. At some point he'll apply for an Important Job, or maybe he gets into a Serious Relationship, or perhaps simply decides it's Time to Grow Up. Off with the long ponytail hair. Out goes the lip-piercing. Baggy pants and longsleeves make place for slacks, shirts and suits. A change of uniform? You notice that in fact, nothing has changed at all. He believes it makes a World of Difference. It's usually not so bad, except for feeling a bit stupid for not quite seeing his former uniform for being a uniform.

2b. The Eternal Bad Luck. Related to the Damage Case, but not quite as singular. These people just seem to never be able to catch a break. This is one of the things that I really believe RAW was right about. The "quarter experiment" may not always (or significantly) work for positive thinking, but I've seen so much evidence in my life that it's an absolute killer for negative thinking. They blow up all the bad luck and accidental environmental mishaps and every time you see them they'll let you know about their latest episode of crapitudes. Suggested solutions will be met with dismissal. They are reluctant to take chances, and when they do they enter the situation with the assumption of failure. Any incidental success will be silently accepted, yet on the predicted outcome of failure this will be loudly broadcast and "I told you so"-d.

I like to believe that in some sense the Dutch may be culturally-memetically innoculated against the Eternal Bad Luck. We have three sayings, phrases, figures of speech that all mean the same thing: "'No' is what you have, 'Yes' is what you can get", "Not taking a shot is always a misser", and "Not to venture, not to win" (often translated as "No risk, no gain" but this phrasing, while not as snappy, IMO better conveys the slight difference in attitude between "taking a chance" and "taking a risk"--though I'm not a native speaker, but I hope you get the point). These synonymous phrases find a lot of day-to-day usage, and whether or not you agree that the way you place the emphasis affects your luck, at the very least having these phrases primes people to take chances more positively and not to "I told you so" (as much) on failure.

There are more. I might add them later, but I spent 2 hours typing the above, so that is enough for now :)

There are also some thoughts I have about
- "Be yourself, there's already enough others"
- how I used to wonder why people worry so much about being themselves, because really unless you got braindamage, how can you be anybody else? (stupid question I know, as I said I used to wonder about this)
- and what (I currently believe) it really means to be yourself
but that's also for later.
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Triple Zero

Quote from: v3x on June 25, 2012, 08:57:11 PMIt's analogous to the discussion about "masks" that has happened here, except there's less of a focus (if I'm getting it right) on how you portray yourself to others than on how you portray yourself to yourself.

Hey, nicely worded, I like that!

QuoteMaybe it's a loophole in our brain wiring that's been made more easily exploitable recently since it's a semi-religious pathway and most people aren't using actual "Religion" to program it.

Not exactly sure what you mean here but it sounds interesting, could you expand?
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Juana

If I may add:

- The Repeat:
It doesn't matter in the least what it is, this person will latch on to something (a cause, an event, whatever) and stick to it for years and years and years. It's boring. Everyone around them knows their position. They haven't updated their opinions since they made them. And still, they talk about it until you want to put your cleated foot to their junk.

- The High School Quarterback:
Similar to the Repeat. He's that guy who was the star quarterback. The kid who was a national champion in their forensics event their senior year in college. She's the gal who won whatever competitions it is highschool cheer has. Sure, that's cool, but it's been thirty years since and they haven't a) taken off the uniform and/or b) done anything worth while with their lives since.
And yet, they'll never let you forget their one and only accomplishment.
"I dispose of obsolete meat machines.  Not because I hate them (I do) and not because they deserve it (they do), but because they are in the way and those older ones don't meet emissions codes.  They emit too much.  You don't like them and I don't like them, so spare me the hysteria."

tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: Triple Zero on June 25, 2012, 10:19:28 PM
QuoteMaybe it's a loophole in our brain wiring that's been made more easily exploitable recently since it's a semi-religious pathway and most people aren't using actual "Religion" to program it.

Not exactly sure what you mean here but it sounds interesting, could you expand?

Yeah the idea is still a little clumsy in my own head so I'll see if I can get it nailed down a little better...

Everyone has a self-identity, the idea we go to when we're asked for an opinion or when we need to solve a problem that is personal to us. I'd guess the default behavior in that situation is to draw on experience, or, lacking experience, to go on either intuition or education. But some people have become so transfixed on their "uniform," or their stated purpose in life, that instead of drawing on anything as reliable as experience they go directly to an index of ideas they hold that define their uniform instead.

This method of self-identification is "religious," in that it defines your ideas about who you are by external definitions rather than by your own experience and expertise. For centuries people have thought this is natural, because it's exactly what Religion does. So social institutions and everything else grew around this reality, that people are told who they are and what they believe and how they should behave, rather than discovering it on their own. So our society already expects you to fill this definition of yourself using external sources - and Religion exists specifically to do this task. Recently, religion plays a diminishing and less important role in society but that doesn't mean that people aren't still expected to define themselves "religiously." So, people are still looking to be TOLD who they are and what they believe. I think this might play a part in our openness to suggestion.

Or, I'm full of shit. Either way, really.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on June 25, 2012, 10:37:14 PM
If I may add:

- The Repeat:
It doesn't matter in the least what it is, this person will latch on to something (a cause, an event, whatever) and stick to it for years and years and years. It's boring. Everyone around them knows their position. They haven't updated their opinions since they made them. And still, they talk about it until you want to put your cleated foot to their junk.

- The High School Quarterback:
Similar to the Repeat. He's that guy who was the star quarterback. The kid who was a national champion in their forensics event their senior year in college. She's the gal who won whatever competitions it is highschool cheer has. Sure, that's cool, but it's been thirty years since and they haven't a) taken off the uniform and/or b) done anything worth while with their lives since.
And yet, they'll never let you forget their one and only accomplishment.

I have a friend like that.  He's still eager to let you know he was a champion wrestler in high school.  30 years ago.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on June 25, 2012, 10:37:14 PM
If I may add:

- The Repeat:
It doesn't matter in the least what it is, this person will latch on to something (a cause, an event, whatever) and stick to it for years and years and years. It's boring. Everyone around them knows their position. They haven't updated their opinions since they made them. And still, they talk about it until you want to put your cleated foot to their junk.



This also includes The Conspiracy Theorist, who is also half convert.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Junkenstein

#24
As far as the OP -

A particular annoying uniform was identified by Nigel a while ago. One of the most horrible uniforms in the history of man - The Smartest Guy in the room.

It's such an obnoxious uniform partly for the ubiquity, and partly for the host of reasons mentioned in that thread. I would suggest that these ideological straight jackets are possibly only cured by death or a radical mindset shift. This seems to be recognised in society. I can think of many phrases along the idea of "Idiot/immature child/teen/person has wised up". "Maturity" in general tends to vary in meaning to each individual. The concept looks like it may be cross culture and we have many ways of expressing a change of clothes in an individual and possibly to a greater extent movements and nations. An "Occupy" protester has a lot more in common with the people they are occupying than they often do not wish to examine or consider.

On another note some uniforms seem to leave a very heavy imprint. A police officer is " A Police Officer" all the time even when no longer in the job, regardless of circumstance. This set of clothes also shares similarities with many other Power holding officials that tend to interact with a variety of the public. To me Military officials, any civil or government representative, Bailiffs and the like, all have a way of thinking that seems to extend to the home life. Habits and behaviour can be influenced purely by the nature of your occupation. Not many accountants go bankrupt, rather few ex-police officers get robbed.


Posting without reading a bunch of new replies. If this is repetitive then that just shows the creativity of monkey thinking. And how many browser tabs I have open at once.

(And editing to alter some shit)
Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Junkenstein

Quote from: Triple Zero on June 25, 2012, 10:17:40 PM
(Post that you should read right now.)

Picking up on the point at the end regarding Memetic Inoculation, this idea intrigues me. Planting a phrase to engender a certain mindset that slowly alters the shape of a culture could be an interesting excessive. There are multiple parallel phrases in English, one of the ones you named is almost literally the motto of the SAS or somesuch I believe. I know there's a few non-native english speakers on the boards, and I'd be interested to see how many similar phrases (Positive and negative) we commonly share.

From there I guess it would just be a matter of introducing a species altering phrase worldwide in multiple languages through several generations. No problem right?
Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Triple Zero

Yes, it's interesting but don't get all overexcited :) First, it's just a theory I have, or not even that, it's just an idea.

It's also an idea that I like to tell, because I enjoy encouraging other people and conversely, constant negative attitudes get me down after a while.

I also really never considered if Dutch maybe also has a bunch of really pessimistic phrases. Maybe we do. Additionally, how's to say we use one kind more over the other? Well, you could do a phrase count on a large sampling of modern media, maybe ...

There's been a lot of research on the topic in what sense language and language-use actually influences thought. However, I am not at all sure what the conclusions of this research were. A lot of it is/was quite controversial, IIRC. Controversial in the sense that "it sounds reasonable but there is in fact no Scientific evidence at all". But there are also parts that do work. So you might start checking out what all that research turned up. I believe it had something to do with Chomsky and "General Semantics" (?)

Maybe the effect mostly works one way, and not the other. Correlation/causation thing. In fact, it makes a lot more sense that a culture that has a more positive attitude (for whatever reason) would tend to have more positive-sounding phrases and figures of speech. The reverse, what you are after, already sounds less likely, phrases in public consciousness affecting the cultural attitude. That doesn't mean it's not "innoculation" of some sort, I can totally see having such phrases would tend to reinforce and cement such an attitude.

I just think it'd be hard to do on purpose.

Finally, even assuming it would work to some extent, in order to actually DO what you suggest, you are going to need to work within a larger whole. Of course you weren't entirely serious saying purposefully introducing a new phrase that sticks around for several generations, but let's consider for a moment what it would roughly take to accomplish such a feat. Most importantly, it needs to stick around and because generations tend to take a while, you won't be around forever to reinforce that meme. In other words, you need to make it self-sustaining.
On a simple level, you can try and personally convince people to carry on your task (offspring are a good target people for this, since you have a whole childhood to convince them). Or maybe you manage to become rather wealthy and set aside a fund and write in your will that it is to be used to hire people to write the phrase on walls and internet forums, or whatever. Problem with these approaches is that, if that's the whole mechanism you put in place for continuity, it's going to run out after a while. And then you're back to square one, with the added disadvantage of no longer being alive to try again. The advantage of this approach is that it operates independently of what the phrase is. It could even be nonsense words.
A more solid way to do it (which still takes quite some resources and effort and cleverness, you are trying to change the whole world for future generations, no small feat), is to somehow manage to wrap the phrase into an idea that people *want* to propagate. How to do it is quite tricky, especially because you don't want the tasty idea to accidentally come loose from the important world-saving phrase idea. Part of the solution is to create all sorts of side ideas and rules and laws and environmental factors and you-name-it that are all conducive to the usefulness and the propagation of the phrase and the ideas and everything, so it forms a nice self-sustaining system, that hopefully doesn't warp and mutate too much over time (fat chance, also see: Christianity).

However, now take a step back and see what we have actually got. You (hypothetically) built this whole system, in order to sustain a positive phrase that somehow would affect the cultural mind, for several generations to come.

Newsflash: You don't actually need the phrase, or rather what you have now is the whole system that affects the culture. If the phrase supposedly does what we discussed above, and the system is a feedback loop that perpetuates this phrase and thus cause the desired effect, then you're not just working with a phrase and just language anymore, you've set up a culture or a society or a community or some sort of whatnot that causes the effect you desired, and this phrase that we started out is just a small cogwheel inside the whole system, not particularly more central than any other part.

And if you want to know more about how to build and affect cultural and social systems like that, read http://artofmemetics.com/ is a free PDF download and I can highly recommend. I believe one of the writers actually made a few posts on PD at some point (possibly at Cramulus' invitation)
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Anna Mae Bollocks

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 25, 2012, 10:59:39 PM
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on June 25, 2012, 10:37:14 PM
If I may add:

- The Repeat:
It doesn't matter in the least what it is, this person will latch on to something (a cause, an event, whatever) and stick to it for years and years and years. It's boring. Everyone around them knows their position. They haven't updated their opinions since they made them. And still, they talk about it until you want to put your cleated foot to their junk.



This also includes The Conspiracy Theorist, who is also half convert.

Repeats would be more tolerable if they expanded their repertoire. Then you could bump into them at the store every couple of months and not hear the same thing but once a year or so.

They only ever talk about one or two things IME, though.

"Hi, how are you? Me I'm not doing that good. Look how much this cereal cost. It's getting BAD. Guess how much my light bill was - "

Yeah, I know. But every time you see them? For TEN YEARS? I CAN'T FIX IT, CAN WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE?

Scantily-Clad Inspector of Gigantic and Unnecessary Cashews, Texas Division

tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: TEXAS FAIRIES FOR ALL YOU SPAGS on June 26, 2012, 12:40:00 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 25, 2012, 10:59:39 PM
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on June 25, 2012, 10:37:14 PM
If I may add:

- The Repeat:
It doesn't matter in the least what it is, this person will latch on to something (a cause, an event, whatever) and stick to it for years and years and years. It's boring. Everyone around them knows their position. They haven't updated their opinions since they made them. And still, they talk about it until you want to put your cleated foot to their junk.



This also includes The Conspiracy Theorist, who is also half convert.

Repeats would be more tolerable if they expanded their repertoire. Then you could bump into them at the store every couple of months and not hear the same thing but once a year or so.

They only ever talk about one or two things IME, though.

"Hi, how are you? Me I'm not doing that good. Look how much this cereal cost. It's getting BAD. Guess how much my light bill was - "

Yeah, I know. But every time you see them? For TEN YEARS? I CAN'T FIX IT, CAN WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE?



I think "Perpetual Complainer" is another uniform in its own right. The kind of person who always has a problem but Don't you dare offer a solution, God dammit. These people always need something to bitch and moan about, and they are not looking for a way out of their problems -- they're looking for someone to share them with. If you solve a Complainer's problem, they will never forgive you.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Juana

Quote from: TEXAS FAIRIES FOR ALL YOU SPAGS on June 26, 2012, 12:40:00 AM
Repeats would be more tolerable if they expanded their repertoire. Then you could bump into them at the store every couple of months and not hear the same thing but once a year or so.

They only ever talk about one or two things IME, though.

"Hi, how are you? Me I'm not doing that good. Look how much this cereal cost. It's getting BAD. Guess how much my light bill was - "

Yeah, I know. But every time you see them? For TEN YEARS? I CAN'T FIX IT, CAN WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE?


Oh, same experience here, and I'll add that even when you openly ask them not to talk about their broken record, they do it anyway. My mother's that way. Her current and most annoying to date broken record is Sasquatches. Nothing I do makes her shut the fuck up about it.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 25, 2012, 10:59:39 PM
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on June 25, 2012, 10:37:14 PM
If I may add:

- The Repeat:
It doesn't matter in the least what it is, this person will latch on to something (a cause, an event, whatever) and stick to it for years and years and years. It's boring. Everyone around them knows their position. They haven't updated their opinions since they made them. And still, they talk about it until you want to put your cleated foot to their junk.



This also includes The Conspiracy Theorist, who is also half convert.
Yep. I have noticed this as well.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on June 25, 2012, 10:52:01 PM
Quote from: Secret Agent GARBO on June 25, 2012, 10:37:14 PM
If I may add:

- The Repeat:
It doesn't matter in the least what it is, this person will latch on to something (a cause, an event, whatever) and stick to it for years and years and years. It's boring. Everyone around them knows their position. They haven't updated their opinions since they made them. And still, they talk about it until you want to put your cleated foot to their junk.

- The High School Quarterback:
Similar to the Repeat. He's that guy who was the star quarterback. The kid who was a national champion in their forensics event their senior year in college. She's the gal who won whatever competitions it is highschool cheer has. Sure, that's cool, but it's been thirty years since and they haven't a) taken off the uniform and/or b) done anything worth while with their lives since.
And yet, they'll never let you forget their one and only accomplishment.

I have a friend like that.  He's still eager to let you know he was a champion wrestler in high school.  30 years ago.
I hope he talks about other things sometimes.
"I dispose of obsolete meat machines.  Not because I hate them (I do) and not because they deserve it (they do), but because they are in the way and those older ones don't meet emissions codes.  They emit too much.  You don't like them and I don't like them, so spare me the hysteria."