Post 177: QD: "What do most people like, but won't admit to liking?"

I get daily email updates from Quora Digest. I don’t really know why. It isn’t all that different than Yahoo! Answers. There are a lot of people who ask questions they could easily look up themselves, but don’t. There are people asking dumb questions or giving stories about their life that sort of relate but don’t actually answer the question. But sometimes, you get some thought provoking questions or some educated answers. The question that I was thinking about today is: “what do you think most people secretly like, but won’t admit?”

The top answer was something about sex and how all people are perverts. But, that doesn’t seem like much of a secret. I don’t know anyone is like “I hate sex” or will deny liking it, if they are in a situation where they are asked and it is an appropriate situation to ask. I mean, if a stranger asked me if I liked strawberries, I might say no because I’m weirded out by the random question. I mean, it isn’t saying something that people like/enjoy but don’t tell strangers they like/enjoy. This is something they hide, something that probably even their friends wouldn’t necessarily know. Plus, it is talking on a wide scale. It is “most people” not some. I know people who have declared that they like the smell of their own farts or that they like cutting the dead skin off their feet. So compared to those kinds of things, that maybe they shouldn’t be telling others, sex just doesn’t seem like an answer that fits the question.

So, I thought about it and I think I got it. I think I have an answer that fits, but is actually really quite the opposite to the top answer. Kid’s stuff. I know a lot of people who like kid stuff but don’t want to admit it. There are adults that have closets full of stuffed animals, that like kid’s movies like Barbie, that like Build-A-Bear, etc.

Do you know the stigma around walking into a Build-A-Bear as an adult? I read this woman who wrote an article telling adults not to go into Build-A-Bear as an adult because it was a horrible experience for her, do you know why it was a horrible experience for her? Because they treated her like a customer. They were friendly, they encouraged her to do the things they ask kids to do when getting a bear, they asked her to name the bear. She was basically traumatized by the fact that they thought she wanted to buy a bear for herself. When I was 17, my friend and I both went in and she got a bear. I didn’t that day because it is expensive and I didn’t really have cash. She wouldn’t go by herself, despite wanting the bear, because she was scared of going alone. When we went, I think we both giggled as we tried to nonchalantly enter the store because we felt awkward and judged, despite the fact that no one probably cared that much. It was weird how awkward it was. We were still teenagers, we were not far off from being kids, but we still felt somehow too old to be in the store. It felt like we didn’t really belong, like being underage in a liquor store. But we were overage in a toy store.

“Aren’t you a little old to have stuffed animals?”

“Aren’t you a little old to be watching that?”

“Aren’t you a little old to be playing that?”

People roll their eyes at Barbie movies and won’t say out in the open that they like them, but if you find them on YouTube there is inevitably a comment saying they are an adult that still likes Barbie movies and they will have hundreds of likes. Through the anonymity of a screen name, they can admit that they still like “kid’s movies”.

Even with Disney, they have worked hard to market themselves as a “for all ages” kind of brand and yet a lot of people won’t watch the movies or admit to watching them after a certain age. And you certainly don’t see as many people dressed up as Dinsey characters after the age of 16. Those who do, are often in more sexualized versions of the costume to make it more “adult appropriate”.

I think this is something that is getting better as more people come to the attitude of “why should I stop doing what I enjoy, just because I am older?” And with the prevalence of the extreme cases of people doing this (i.e. Bronies, who are adult men obsessed with My Little Ponies sometimes to the extreme of sexualizing the animated ponies), being an adult that just enjoys watching cartoons isn’t quite as shocking.

I sort of like Spongebob Squarepants. Now, I’m not clamoring over myself to keep up with new episodes or buying the merchandise. Mostly I like it because it is mindless, but not annoyingly so. It is like Family Guy/American Dad for kids. Saying I like American Dad or Family Guy seems more normal than saying I like Spongebob. Both with American Dad/Family Guy and Spongebob, they are more like white noise. I put them on while doing something else because I enjoy it enough that it provides a nice sort of background thing, but doesn’t demand so much attention that it distracts from whatever else I’m doing. And yet, one seems more acceptable than the other.

There are a lot of shows, games, and other things that have come out for kids now that seem so cool. I mean, sometimes I’m jealous that I was born twenty years earlier than their release. I mean, they different kinds of Monopoly alone these days is crazy. Apples to Apples was a game I really enjoyed too, (it is basically like Cards Against Against Humanity for kids). And now it seems like a kid game.

There are so many people that talk about how they like babysitting because it is an excuse to have tea parties, watch Disney movies, etc. So, I think that in the end, more than sex, people secretly like but won’t admit that they like kid’s stuff.