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People, Please Get Your Act Together (now with 53% more clarification!)

Caperton

People today are self-absorbed. They don’t care what anyone thinks. There is less focus on discipline, integrity, boundaries, fairness, honesty, and respect. Living in society is not getting everything you want. It’s not about focusing exclusively on your own wants and needs. It is about being a useful and respectful person in society.

Based on my experience as a legal adult for the past 13 years, I’ve found that about a quarter of people are self-absorbed, self-centered assholes and feel entitled to do anything they want. And what sucks is that people don’t get to dictate policy regarding who gets to invade their personal space with disrespectful behavior. Man-sitters can take up the space of three people and create a hazard when they stick their feet out in high-traffic areas. Business travelers wrapped up so tightly in their own business don’t realize that lengthy speakerphone conversations and taking up all the outlets at the charging station ruin things for those around them who just want to juice up their phones enough to check their e-mail or call home.

Fruit Ninja at full volume shouldn’t be your only entertainment in restaurants, but some people act like it is. Dining companions, please try to corral your friends when they’re being obnoxious. I know you don’t want to, but I sure as hell don’t want to. It might make you uncomfortable to call out your friends, but it saves them from getting… spoken to by a far less forgiving restaurant patron. Like an off-duty bouncer who just came for a margarita. If you don’t correct your friends when they’re being assholes, someone else will.

Assholes change the dynamics for the adults trying to relax. Obnoxious, loud people who can’t keep their conversations to their own table and drunk, rowdy sports fans whose friends can’t be bothered to cut them off ruin people’s evenings. This sense of entitlement takes many forms. I’ve had assholes bring sandwiches piled high with raw onions onto a plane so they can eat them three hours into a six-hour flight, or spread out two laptops on their tray table to take up all the space in the row. That’s just not appropriate. It shows an utter lack of consideration for others; it’s as if these assholes live in a bubble, unaware of everyone around them.

Today’s sense of entitlement guarantees that you’ll hear people shouting at each other, talking loudly on the phone, watching loud YouTube videos, and making drunken passes at fellow patrons in an airplane, store, bar, restaurant, train, sidewalk, or any other public place. If you’re not going to act like an adult, and your friends aren’t going to make you act like an adult, then I don’t want you around me. Who would want your disruptive, bad-behaved ass in their immediate vicinity? Basically, you are being a person that only your friends can love–and tolerate. And for the record: They’re not loving you much right now either.

Assholes in a bar are a buzz kill; and God forbid you tell one to keep the volume down! Other patrons and even the friends of people who act like assholes wish restaurant and bar owners had a strict “no assholes” policy. If you just do anything you want, you’ll drive us crazy when you’re out on your own and people don’t cater to you. You can’t pay me enough to be your baby-sitter.

I’m not an asshole-hater. Wait, no, I totally am. I totally, totally hate assholes.

ETA clarification, because apparently clarification is needed: Now that we’ve established that ranting about the minor and even major unpleasantries of human interaction comes across as misanthropic and curmudgeonly, can we also agree that harassing mothers (and it’s always mothers who get the abuse) when their kids commit similar or even lesser offenses smells strongly of Get Off My Lawn And This Is My Frisbee Now? And can we agree that if Bar Drunk and Onions On A Plane are both so insignificant as to be unworthy of mention, it’s possible that the question of kids in public might not warrant 3,403,942 rounds of debate?

(With [limited] apologies to GloZell Green and Anthony Heidel.)

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73 thoughts on People, Please Get Your Act Together (now with 53% more clarification!)

    1. 😀 Yeah, I agreed with everything except for the implication that this is somehow new.

      Last summer I got woken up at 2am by a group of guys who decided it would be awesome to play some casual football outside of my apartment building, loud shouting included. Several people in my building yelled at them to stop and some of us even went out and confronted them, but they refused to leave. I eventually called the cops and they skedaddled, but the self-centeredness was mind-boggling. It happens a lot around my building though, with people coming back from bars talking really loudly – the noise seems to get caught between the buildings and gets amplified. In those cases, alcohol seems to be a huge factor – part of the “social inhibition” effect (which is partly self-induced) is also unlocking one’s inner douchebag, it seems. (Though I know plenty of people who get tipsy and still behave – it’s just that some people seem to take it as a license not to care.)

  3. Yeah, everyone else is a real jerk, but you and me, we’re perfectly well-behaved. When people complain about our behavior they’re being senselessly oppressive and rigidly demanding, and not understanding our real needs to flourish as individuals.

      1. No, I’m intentionally making fun of myself too – I think we all have a strong tendency to be self-centered and to only consider issues that directly affect us and our friends and family.

        I’m 100% sure someone on the internet somewhere, after I called them on the phone at some point over the last two months while volunteering to defeat Minnesota’s upcoming anti-gay-marriage ballot amendment, wrote a big rant about how much of an asshole I was calling them and disrupting their evening at home in order to talk about politics.

  4. I’ve found that about a quarter of people are self-absorbed, self-centered assholes and feel entitled to do anything they want.

    Indeed, you speak the truth. And the above covers everyone from stroller-pushing parents to hipsters wearing silly hats.

    Hell, I myself am probably a self-absorbed and self-centered asshole at least a quarter of the time.

    1. Which leaves the reality that the remaining and overwhelmingly large majority of 75% of people are nice folk who really mean well and aren’t trying to ruin your day or be an overentitled jerk.

      Yet somehow we always seem to get into these skirmishes as though the 25% is actually the whole 100%.

      Easier to butt heads and keep the conflict and finger pointing going that way, I suppose.

  5. Seriously? Just wait until someone starts complaining about those mothers with strollers. Or that woman dressed up as a vagina. Or just even those parents with kids. Why should they be allowed in a public space when I’m trying to [insert excuse of choice]?

    I work in a library. A public library. That means I deal with asshole type behavior every day. And most of the time the person just didn’t think through their choice Y affect X for other patrons. (Most often conversation: Can you turn down your headphones?) 9 times out of 10, the person didn’t think that their behavior would or was affecting anyone else. But they’ll stop doing what they’re doing because they don’t want to be an asshole.

    Communication: Eradicating asshole behavior day after day.

  6. Look, I may be way over-reading this, but it feels a bit like a swipe at the comments to Jill’s previous post. In other words, Jill isn’t hating on kids and parents, people, she’s hating on assholes! Nothing to see here, everyone hates an asshole!

    Alternatively/also, it feels like you’re parodying the NYT pieces you cite, but in such a way as to make the point that it’s only *asshole* parents these people should hate, thus if you edit their comments to reflect that, whoo it’s all okay now.

    I guess the most charitable reading would be straight-up mockery of the two pieces you cite. So, maybe that’s it?

    If that isn’t the point of this, I’m sorry for over-reaching. If it is…bzuh?!

    1. No, I think you’re pretty much on the mark with this conclusion.

      But, what I do I know. I’m just one of those mouth-breathing, child having, stroller pushing, overentitled ladies who think they should still get an invite to the Feminist party.

    2. I actually got the impression that it was parodying the pieces by saying that the issue isn’t with parents or with asshole parents, but with asshole people.

      *shrug*

  7. Lev was in my lap just now, preparing for his bedtime, and when I looked away, he typed this inspiring message for everyone:

    ssdddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddctttttttttg

    I am an asshole parent who has just let her toddler run rampant on Feministe. And if he could invent a way to poop right in the middle of this discussion, he probably would too.

    2. My kid likes to sneak up behind me if I leave a partially completed comment on Feministe and erase it. He’s sort of passive aggressive that way.

      Which sometimes makes me sssssssaadddddddddddd.

    3. It’s good to see the next generation of feminists contributing to the discussion at such an early age!

  8. People today are self-absorbed. They don’t care what anyone thinks. There is less focus …

    I too was surprised by “today” and “less focus” — less than when? One behavior that has grown less-aborbed in the past few decades is littering. People used to discard trash (especially cigarette butts and bits of paper) on the sidewalk, out of car windows, and into the street. Picking up after one’s dog was almost unheard of. Littering still happens of course but it’s much improved, and there’s a consensus that it’s wrong.

  9. Actually, I was just kind of curious. When these two NYT columns were about kids in public spaces, the discussion was about how kids are just so annoying and parents are just so negligent and disrespectful and selfish, God. When the column is about assholish adult behavior, however, suddenly it’s “this is old news” and “there are assholes all over” and “but most people are nice and not assholes.” Because apparently there’s some reason that an adult with a noisy iPhone gets rolled eyes while a kid with a noisy V Smile should be bodily removed from public.

    2. Oh, I didn’t actually understand the context of this article then because I’ve kind of been avoiding those other threads. To be fair, I don’t personally advocate removing obnoxious kids any less than I would advocate removing obnoxious adults, which is sometimes but not necessarily always.

        1. I guess I fail the geographic requirement, then. Personally, I think I’d rather be the Canadian David Mitchell.

          Anyway, I freely admit to being a bit cranky about public rudeness, particularly in the form of very loud noise or violations of physical space (which is why I do not go to clubs or bars at all because it’s acceptable behaviour in those spaces and I don’t enjoy it but wouldn’t complain). I definitely don’t think that adults are more exempt than children (in fact, I’m much more inclined to be generous the other way around, especially for young kids who *aren’t* developmentally capable of the same level of social awareness and self-control). But, yes, I am the party-pooper who will knock on my neighbours’ doors and ask them to keep the noise down. I also endeavour not to be hypocritical about it and take my lumps and complaints if and when they come.

      2. Yeah, that’s how I felt Jadey. I saw that the child thread had 200 replies and just went, “Well, other stuff to read…”

        So this post really confused me until I read the clarification.

  10. This article is a perfect example of this new sense of entitlement these days. Assholes think they have a right to go out in public and treat it like their own home – that is not hear or see other members of the public. Too bad, the sound of a sport game or the smell of onions or some man sitting in an undignified position are just hazards you have to overcome. Everybody isn’t an ass-hole because they don’t consider your feelings all the time, if you get annoyed by stupid things like that I don’t know how you cope with life!

    Seriously, this article represents the breakdown of community in modern America, which isn’t new I’ve read about it a lot. I live in a *community*, other people are constantly in ‘my space’. I always hear noises and smell food that is part of living on a planet with other people.

    1. +1. The trick to being in public spaces is being able to politely respond and compromise when somebody asks you to “tone it down” or “move over a bit please” not automatically detecting when somebody wants something from you then immediately bending to their will.

      also, wait, it’s rude to bring a sandwich on a plane with onions? Is there an appropriate amount of onions or are onions just like, a not OK plane food? What about garlic? or Curry?

      1. also, wait, it’s rude to bring a sandwich on a plane with onions? Is there an appropriate amount of onions or are onions just like, a not OK plane food? What about garlic? or Curry?

        Those are all just fine. Durian, however…

    2. And other assholes go out in public and treat it like their own home, regardless of who else is there and is trying to enjoy that space.

  12. Ass whole behavior by adults is worse because the person should know better. Also, only adults have the opportunity to be ass wholes to the people they have authority over.

  14. Seems like the only asshole around here is the judgemental one writing this article. If you can’t accept people for who they are in public, how will they ever change? You’re not gonna be their friend, so how will they know they’re doing something wrong? People that call out your ‘assholes’ only incite them to be more assolish. Face it, assholes are just naive people looking for attention, and here you are telling people to give them more of it. So you see, you inciting this ‘corrective behaviour’ from their friends is only making the behaviour you detest worse. Your like a mother who hears her child swearing and washes her kids mouth with soap. It will only make the kid hate the taste of fucking soap. You can only correct unwanted behaviour by using yourself as an example with support and encouragement. Not complaining about it on a feminist website or letting something as petty as a loudmouth ruin your evening.

    1. So, wait… the only way to combat bad behavior is… ignoring the bad behavior and being super nice and encouraging?

      That’s… not my personal experience.

      Also, I promise you, it’s not with hugs and kind words that I maintain order in my library.

    2. Your like a mother who hears her child swearing and washes her kids mouth with soap.

      Yuck, lifebuoy!

      (Props if you get the reference.)

      1. Love the reference. And for the record, washing your kid’s mouth out with soap is actually a quite effective way to stop them from swearing. That stuff is nasty.

        1. Stop swearing around you. Certainly not stop swearing about you. Also it can make you sick, and even harm your mouth. Since, you know, washing a child’s mouth out with soap is child abuse.

        3. Why is swearing supposed to be so bad that it merits that kind of thing, anyway?

          it could annoy fat steve.

    3. If you can’t accept people for who they are in public, how will they ever change?

      Accepting someone for who they are doesn’t involve accepting all of their bad behavior, unless you assume that they can never fix any of their bad behavior because it’s a part of who they are. And if you assume that, you might as well not care about correcting anyone’s behavior.

      Face it, assholes are just naive people looking for attention

      There are bad generalizations, and then there are abysmally inaccurate and terrible generalizations – your generalization falls into the latter category.

      You can only correct unwanted behaviour by using yourself as an example with support and encouragement.

      I personally prefer that method. However, there are times when it’s absolutely necessary to be harsh and firm. In fact, most of the time, people do need strong criticism because encouragement and support aren’t enough. And you’re living on some utopian planet if you think that your method is always sufficient.

      letting something as petty as a loudmouth ruin your evening.

      There’s nothing “petty” about wanting people to be more considerate. That’s a perfectly reasonable demand.

  15. Am I the only one who finds much of this article to be misanthropic? I can understand why people say the world is full of assholes, people are self-absorbed, lack integrity, etc. but the examples of who the “assholes are” is pretty alarming to me.

    I would be really interested in reading peer-reviewed studies on the intersection between how people view personal space and their class position. I think some of the virulence in this article and the other piece on children in public space, offer some interesting insights on the Professional Class.

    1. I think some of the virulence in this article and the other piece on children in public space, offer some interesting insights on the Professional Class.

      Well that’s an easy one. With increased wealth and social status comes an increased sense of personal entitlement. The interesting side effect of that is the quick decrease in acceptance of anyone below them on the foodchain seeming to have an entitlement complex.

  16. Any number of screaming babies > new york hipsters complaining about that one time a baby screamed.
    though, neither are really feminist issues?

    1. Actually, negotiating children is an especially feminist issue. For many reasons, but I’ll stick to one: they represent society’s future.

      1. I only see it as a feminist issue when we’re addressing the criticisms of children or mothers. the actual criticisms? yeah, not really.

        1. Yeah, agreed. It is rightfully a feminist issue, but that doesn’t mean it always gets treated as such.

  17. You know, I get that this was a satirical post that I personally did not get because I missed the links at the end and have also decided to sit out this particular round of “people hating children on Feministe” in the other thread (there are only so many of those I can take), but I’m kind of bemused that, when I decided to give Caperton, an author I trust and respect a lot, the benefit of the doubt on what seemed to be a weird and unconventional post from her (I figured she just really needed to let off some steam), suddenly that makes me a curmudgeon who is too uptight. Weren’t we all just asked to play nicely, assume good faith, and not jump down posters’ throats?

    Okay, so by “bemused”, maybe I meant “somewhat annoyed”. I don’t particularly appreciate the feeling that I have been misled to make someone’s point, given that I don’t actually agree with the whole “children in public are awful” argument and was trying to avoid being drawn into that argument again altogether.

    1. I’m with you there, and I apologize for misleading you. And, for the record, I seriously am curmudgeonly (or whatever) and really do get teeth-grindingly pissed off at man-sitters, outlet-hoggers, the guy at the dentist’s office who was watching XTREEEEME whitewater rafting videos on his phone without headphones, and, yes, the woman one cube over from me who eats raw onions at her desk at least twice a week. I also got pissed off when I was at a restaurant a couple of weeks ago when two toddlers were tearing the shrubs in the courtyard to pieces while none of the adults in the party paid any attention. Appropriate behavior is appropriate behavior.

      I have been more successful at expressing myself than I was with this post.

  19. I got this pretty much immediately.

    I do think it’s funny that responses to “kids are assholes” is “yeah! word! amirite?” and responses to “many grownups are assholes” (not even “all grownups”, but “one quarter of grownups”) is either “you sound like you’re an asshole too” or “who the hell cares?”

  20. It seems the amount of comments in the children thread has to do with the amount of, erm, enthusiasm on both sides of that debate. Also, aren’t the commenters casting aspersions on the situation still calling adults assholes – just particular types of adults (parents who let their children misbehave in public)?

  21. One of my friends told me she didn’t want kids cuz NYC was like an Disney Land for adults.

    I think that sets the stage why some New Yorkers get so huffy towards kids.

    1. One of my friends told me she didn’t want kids cuz NYC was like an Disney Land for adults.

      I thought Las Vegas was supposed to be the adult Disney Land?

      I think that sets the stage why some New Yorkers get so huffy towards kids.

      Well, if they think they’re in the world’s biggest adult’s only playground, I can see where the confusion and resulting exasperation comes in.

      Besides, Disney Land is the smaller of the two U.S. side Disney theme parks. Wouldn’t he want to analogize NYC to Disney World instead? Or perhaps just the LES/Tribeca/East Village is Disney Land and the rest of NYC is just NYC (especially that pesky Harlem and boroughs like Queens and the Bronx ruining the vibe for him.)

      Perhaps if your friend had his geography and analogies correct then he wouldn’t be so confused and misguided. Tell him some random stranger on the internet told him he needs to stop kidding himself and move to Vegas already so he can stop ruining it for the rest of the NYers.

      1. Oops, got my objects wrong there. You specified she, and here I was expounding as though your friend was a he.

        My apologies.

      2. Brooklyn! Do not forget Brooklyn! LOL

        Yeah, Disney World is awesome–she may have said Disney World–but, it’s the sentiment all the same. 🙁

        1. Now that a certain segment of the young UMC/UC crowd (don’t want to use the H word, that’s like the Bat Signal for some folks to get all HDU on any resulting mockery) has gentrified Brooklyn to within an inch of its existence I don’t think it’s considered by them to be a Borough any longer. That way, they can still talk derisively about the “Bridge and Tunnel” crowd without including themselves in with those people.

      2. I never really thought about the meaning of shows like Friends, SATC and King of Queens, or the absence of shows about certain types of New Yorkers until I lived in NYC. Gives a whoooooole different perspective!

        1. Remember when Steve wanted Miranda to move to Brooklyn and she was all, no way!, and the cabbie was all, get outta my cab I don’t go there!, and Samantha, was all, but that’s like moving to the moon!

          And then they moved to Brooklyn it wasn’t so bad after all.

  22. OK, so the next bad behavior in public rant you to be posted should be; all the bad drivers, why don’t they know how to drive, where did they get their license, Walmart?

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