And then there's what's "most emailed" and "most viewed":
That article at #3 for me, "Why It Seems Like Everyone Is Always Angry With You," is nowhere on those other 2 lists (even below the part I captured).
I've recovered from paranoia. I attribute the difference to the fact that something has to be around for awhile to rank as "most viewed" or "most emailed," but the "recommended" list is a place to promote the newest things. The "for you" business seems curated for me, but I don't know if that's based on invading my privacy or just some bullshit stab at niceness.
The "Why It Seems Like Everyone Is Always Angry With You" did just go up this morning, but I do — more than most? — suffer from the feeling that other people are angry at me. The article turns out to be about the skill in reading other people's faces. Last paragraph:
So what do you do if you’re an adult who often thinks friends and colleagues are upset with you? Dr. Schermerhorn advised trying to remember that just because a face is not brimming with positivity, it does not mean that it is conveying something negative. Also remember that what you’re picking up on might just be a person’s eyebrows. Low brows and brows that slope in like a V have a tendency to telegraph anger, researchers have found, even when none is present.And let me add that if you're an adult who actually is angry at friends and colleagues but don't what them to realize it, get your eyebrows lifted.
ADDED: Remember Uncle Leo's eyebrows on "Seinfeld"? They got singed off and Elaine drew them in but in the angry position:
Posts
40 comments:
The eyebrow lift pictures are amusing because they mostly seem to take people from looking angry and perceptive to angry and blankly stupid.
Or angry and mildly appalled.
Either you lack skill at reading certain kinds of faces or Meade is a very frustrated guy.
When it seems like everyone is angry at you, it's helpful to remember that most people don't actually think about or care about you all that much. I'm assuming we're referring to casual acquaintances, strangers, random coworkers; not family or close friends. Although perhaps sometimes that too. Others are almost always preoccupied with their own drama and project those attitudes onto those around them. The post office lady is surly not because of you, personally, but because her bunions are acting up or her son got arrested again. Etc.
"Dr. Schermerhorn advised trying to remember that just because a face is not brimming with positivity, it does not mean that it is conveying something negative."
It's always good to learn stuff from those smart experts.
"Also remember that what you’re picking up on might just be a person’s eyebrows. Low brows and brows that slope in like a V have a tendency to telegraph anger, researchers have found, even when none is present."
BRFS - Bitchy Resting Face Syndrome.
Nobody is angry at Althouse. How could anyone be angry with her? She is extremely pleasant.
We are not even angry at the NYTimes. We just mock the NYTimes, because it is fussy and leftist, with massive political blinders shielding it from good, coherent, political inquiries.
The Waffle House shooter and the Toronto van guy should get a sitcom together. They seem made for each other.
Was that in poor taste? I can't tell anymore since I've become to desensitized to media nonsense.
I do — more than most? — suffer from the feeling that other people are angry at me.
Better way to live — make people worry about whether you’re angry with them.
Besides, you live in Madison. My impression from afar is that most denizens of the Madison swamp aren’t happy unless they’re angry at something or another.
More than 40 years ago, American sociologist Caldell Titcomb III was concerned that "eyebrows" were being used as a facial explanation for what he understood to be hirsutical differences between different populations of people. He spoke out against the idea of an "eyebrow shape" as defining a discrete group. If eyebrows were "real" in the hirsutical sense, eyebrow classifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries.
I agree with Misplaced. Big difference between family and friends being angry and acquaintances/colleagues.
And then there are strangers/workers in coffee joints/restaurants/places of entertainment. They are usually nice to me because I am a pretty friendly, polite person.
I’m sure sometimes I step on people’s toes unconsciously (We all do) and try and reflect on my behavior/attitude.
But most of the people who don’t like me/are rude are people who are acquaintances who I don’t care for. I’m always polite and am not confrontational in the least with them. But I don’t pretend to give a shit about them and don’t care what they think at all.
I don’t look down on anyone. But I don’t look up either. Social Equality means I don’t think I’m better than anyone else. But it also means I don’t think anyone else is better than me either. This second part is what pisses petty people off. They have an exalted sense of self.
DON'T MAKE US COME UP TO MADISON & TURN THIS BLOG AROUND, YOUNG LADY!
There is a lot more frowning in the Upper Midwest than anywhere else in the continental United States, I think. Interesting cultural bit.
Hmmm.
Is there an impersonal paranoia?
I have no enemies and very rarely even have a face-to-face disagreement. Bad things do go down though, and those that go down are impersonal.
Don't let the bastards get you down.
Remember, anonymous nobodies on the internet don't matter. Oh, no, someone is pretending to be angry so they can shut me up. How terrible.
The proper response is to keep saying the same thing, but louder.
“Why it seems like everyone is angry with me”
I am betting the NYT sent this to all of it’s female customers.
You are smart enough to know why.
The last year had a landscape filled with very angry demonstrative people. And every award show presents us with yet another slice of angry people, lecturing us about their own faults. And every Democrat will occasionally deliver their standard super-angry speech otherfying and denouncing a (usually semi-fictional) target du jour.
But that’s not the richly appointed landscape of anger they choose to examine. How odd.
"Why it seems like everyone is always angry with you"
I thought it might be a chapter in Hillary's book.
I spent 40 years in a work environment where people are all masked. The operating room.
It's interesting how much non-verbal communication took place with a bunch of people wearing masks.
Man I sympathized with poor old uncle Leo, annoying as he is. You see, all my life I've had a face that telegraphs angry despite my periodic attempts to project a blank look. (It ain't easy if it doesn't come naturally. My main problem is I'm always thinking, thinking about songs, stories or other writing I'm working on or work or planning a menu; so I have a habit of walking quickly with long strides while deep in thought, and trying to keep situation awareness. Unfortunately my pensive face is received as angry. As far back as junior year of high school I was made aware of this when the outgoing editor of the school newspaper mocked me (part of a tradition in introducing the new executive editor) by stomping around the room with an angry scowl. Comedy does rely on exaggeration, but the room liked Gary's act and gave me my first clue to resting angry face.
"Are you mad about something?" is a question both wives would ask, especially if I was really into a task and not trying to actively relax my face (as I began attempting to do after the high school incident). And even though I think I'm the most easygoing guy, neither one seemed to accept my my face just does that explanation. Not just easygoing, happy. I'm a big believer in the maxim that happiness is a choice, and I choose to really experience each day and approach life with humor. Google "prager happiness hour" if you want to get insight on this kind of thinking from a wise and and pleasant presenter.
To this day, my wife will suddenly ask me "what's wrong?" I realize what's "wrong" immediately. She's interpreting my face. Incorrectly. We have had many discussions about this issue, with me firmly encouraging her to never ever try and interpret my face. My face is always saying things I'm not thinking. I've tried but can't control it. I don't even know what it is projecting most of the time. Maybe I could devote more than 50% of my active brain to it, but I'm selfish. I want my thoughts full powered and my look be damned. But try explaining "this look means I'm happy" and see how far you get. When I smile it looks like a grimace. I'm the opposite of every TV pitchman. The one thing I can't do is look super pleasant for no reason. A really wide smile just comes off as creepy. Maybe it's my partly German heritage.
So I'm resigned to being the happiest guy you know who looks like a miserable angry dude. It ain't fair but that's life.
See my photo? I AM smiling in that picture!
So I'm resigned to being the happiest guy you know who looks like a miserable angry dude.
Me too. Perky people at work would tell me to smile. "I am smiling, goddammit !"
My wife grew up with a violent, abusive father. She has a tendency to over-interpret people's facial expressions as being angry or threatening, and is generally suspicious of people's motives. Reading her father's facial expressions was a survival skill as a child.
She once became upset when I came up behind her while she was in the bathroom combing her hair and hugged her. She explained that her father used to force her into a corner so she couldn't get away while he beat the crap out of her. This also explains why she doesn't like to be in crowds where people bump up against her.
Maybe Chuck has been talking smack about you to the NYTimes.
In one episode of the Sopranos Tony's son A.J. gets a magic-marker eyebrow job when he passes out on somebody's floor in NYC, and has to make it back to Jersey that way.
”"Are you mad about something?" is a question both wives would ask, especially if I was really into a task...”
My wife also regularly misinterprets my face or my silence as “something’s wrong”. 99 times out of 100, it doesn’t mean anything at all. She also likes to finish my sentences, and she’s almost always wrong.
We love each other, but we are just different people.
"but I do — more than most? — suffer from the feeling that other people are angry at me."
Social anxiety?
Some people over-interpret expressions or gestures. Most of the time it's not about you, but about the person being busy, or sick, or worried about something un-related.
If someone doesn't tell you straight up there is a problem, it's not worth worrying about. Over-sensitivity has caused a lotta misunderstandings.
Althouse places too much importance on pop psychology articles in the Times.
And that pisses me off.
When I was in school--grammar school to college--it was not unusual for a teacher to ask me something like, "Do you disagree with me?" or "Did something I say bother you?" I had to come to conclusion that, in repose, my facial features look angry even when I'm not. The canniest of them, in college, asked me (and without hostility) if I were a libertarian. I admired her perspicacity. I told her yea, and she said, "I thought so because you seem to be glowering at me all the time." That made me laugh, and I assured her that while I might disagree with her on some points, I had no animosity toward her. People still tell me I look like a scowler, but some have told me I just have the "intense" look of a lifelong New Yorker, which I look with me when I moved South. That, or--like Michelle Obama--I just have chronic Resting Bitchy Face.
I wouldn't read the NYT for free.
"I do — more than most? — suffer from the feeling that other people are angry at me."
Angry at or angry with? Inquiring minds want to know!
"I do — more than most? — suffer from the feeling that other people are angry at me."
I understand the "other people are angry at me" part. Where does the suffering come in?
I would have written not surprising for a president who knows they hate him. ~Althouse
How can that be the right answer when we know that Trump has become "Hater in Chief" through his out-of-control use of his Twitter account?
According to Javier Corrales, a professor of political science at Amherst College:
Bickering with people who are in the news has a political logic: It deepens the country’s polarization — and this can work to the president’s advantage. Spewing hate toward celebrities is part of his game plan.
The main objective of hating is to incense your critics so that they hate you back even more. Insults tend to provoke more extreme postures. A result is that Mr. Trump successfully transforms the targets of his hate, and those who come to their defense, into an even more extreme image of what the president’s base already despises.
Spewing hate toward celebrities is part of his game plan.
That's how he repays all the love they have lavished on him. The ingrate !
The main objective of hating is to incense your critics so that they hate you back even more
Gadfly has it wrong here. You tease them and they hate even more. That's how you get more Trump.
We'll see if it works for Congressman.
So what do you do if you’re an adult who often thinks friends and colleagues are upset with you?
Quit trying to read minds, dummy!
Accept your non-ESP limitations.
And also recognize the possibility that the world does not revolve around you and whatever is troubling them and causing a bad look on their face might have nothing to do with you whatsoever. Who knows what idle thought passed through their brain?
Lately I've been running into the opposite problem of pretty girls smiling at me, but it turns out they're not actually into me. Who knows what happy idle thought was flitting through their brain! Anyway, mean looks and happy smiles may be related to something I said or did. Or it may be disconnected.
Say "hi" and see what happens!
She once became upset when I came up behind her while she was in the bathroom combing her hair and hugged her. She explained that her father used to force her into a corner so she couldn't get away while he beat the crap out of her.
That's so sad. I'm glad she has you to be understanding.
A very close friend confided in me that she had been sexually abused during baths when she was a child; her husband, with whom she often takes showers, playfully tweaks her intimate bits when her eyes are closed because she's rinsing out shampoo. She hates it but doesn't tell him because she doesn't want to hurt his feelings or make him feel guilty (which he would because he's a caring and sensitive man) for evoking those sense memories of her abuse.
Ayn Rand — 'Have you noticed that the imbecile always smiles? Man's first frown is the first touch of God on his forehead. The touch of thought.'
Post a Comment