My question, googled. Results:
1. "Creepiness: Do creeps know they're creeps?" — Quora. Excerpt from the top-rated response, by Michael Catanzaro, "Conceived under the Eiffel Tower, born under a bad sign" (Jan 28, 2013): "[A] lot of creeps do know that they are creeps, some of them just think its [sic] funny so they continue to act that way. Others know that they are creepy but aren't really creeps and don't want to be but knowing it makes them anxious about acting creepy and so when they worry about it, it can make them seem even creepier, it's a vicious cycle."
2. "10 Things Extremely Creepy People Do (Usually Without Realizing)/If you can't think of anyone you know who needs to read this article, then I hate to say it: It's probably you" (Inc.). Excerpt: "2. Smiling oddly or insincerely.... 3. Having greasy or unkempt hair, or wearing dirty or odd clothes... 4. Licking their lips too frequently. This is also just one of those nonverbal signals--maybe leftover from caveman times--that sends an unsettling message. Perhaps it telegraphs that 'you're attempting to comfort or soothe yourself,' according to psychologist Carol Kinsey Goman's 2008 book, The Nonverbal Advantage.... 9. Showing too much or too little emotion. For some people, witnessing almost any emotion weirds them out. But it's especially difficult when the degree of emotion seems incongruous with the circumstances or occasion...."
3. "How We Decide Who's Creepy/New research into our 'creepiness detector' explains a lot" (Psychology Today). Excerpt: "Creepiness may be related to the 'agency-detection' mechanisms proposed by evolutionary psychologists. These mechanisms evolved to protect us from harm at the hands of predators and enemies.... Only when we are confronted with uncertainty about threat do we get 'creeped out.' Our uncertainty paralyzes us about how to respond. For example, it would be considered rude, and strange, to run away in the middle of a conversation with someone is sending out a creepy vibe but is actually harmless; it could be perilous to ignore your intuition and engage with that individual if he is dangerous...."
4. "Do most creepy people know they're creepy? Probably not, study says" (The Oregonian). "Researchers also asked survey participants if 'most creepy people know that they are creepy.' Nearly 60 percent of people answered no, 32 percent said they were unsure, and about 9 percent answered yes." Bonus information: "At the top of the creepy hobbies list were collectors (especially of dolls, insects or body parts like teeth), people-watchers and birdwatchers."
November 27, 2018
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
52 comments:
Look around and you will see, the world is full of creeps like me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCu6eB37c88
They're probably torn between thinking themselves creeps and thinking themselves weirdos.
"At the top of the creepy hobbies list were collectors (especially of dolls, insects or body parts like teeth), people-watchers and birdwatchers."
People-watchers.
Bird-watchers.
Doll collectors.
Oh, yeah: and people who collect teeth.
Three groups who probably share pictures on Flickr, and a guy who is probably a serial murderer.
That last group is really throwing off the curve.
I am Laslo.
People who like olives on their pizza.
People who like pineapple on their pizza.
People who like anchovies on their pizza.
People who have the pizza-delivery guy chained up in the basement and keep anchovies in their underwear.
Like that.
I am Laslo.
Right from Franken to creepy.
Okay.
I like both kinds of bird watching, so I guess that I am a double creep.
LOL, Laslo.
@tank I saw that too.
On the internet, nobody knows you’re a creep.
Old question: Who creeps out Michael Jackson?
I wonder at what point Charley Rose went from disnguished older man to creepy old man. The process must have been lengthy and subtle. It's no wonder that there was a time lag between his perception of himself and how younger office workers perceived him. If you're powerful and famous, no one--at least not in that pond in which you're powerful and famous--will tell tell you that you're creepy.........My big problem is that I'm banal and dull. I'm thinking of getting a death skull tattoo on my neck to add visual interest to my appearance. It's pe haps better to be creepy rather than invisible.
This was my least preferred topic posted today.
But the comments are first rate.
So, well done everybody!
"This was my least preferred topic posted today."
Every day every post is competing in a popularity contest. I should keep score.
But really, why announce that this post bothers you? And more importantly, are you keeping your hair washed, your tongue in your mouth, and your tooth collection well hidden?
@althouse I saw that too.
I would collect Laslos, if I could.
SJWs are creepy.
Are there creepy women or only creepy guys?
I was hoping for at least a small, creepy snarl after basal cell surgery on my upper lip in April, but they did too good a job. Better pull out the trench coat.
FDR was a notorious philatelist. He had a small study off his office where he would go to practice his "hobby". To add another whole dimension to this creepiness, he would invite his guest, the Queen of Norway, to this small study to watch him practice his "hobby" and lick his fetish objects. If you're a celebrity--and no one is a bigger celebrity than the President, they let you get away with anything, even if they themselves are a crowned head of state.
"Do creepy people know they're creepy?"
Where's chillblaine when you could really use his input?
Until 1938, the Queen of Norway was the brother of George V, another notorious philatelist, so she may have been used to being used like that. As she was Queen Maud, married to King Haakon, who was creepiest?
“5. Laughing at odd or inappropriate times.
It's all about ambiguity. If you're laughing and there doesn't seem to be anything truly amusing, you're sending mixed signals. That creeps people out.”
There’s been a few times where I’ve been the only person in a theater to laugh at something clever said on the screen. Or laughing during a conversation where you assume someone is being subtly humorous when that was never their intention. Naturally, I assumed I was the smartest guy in a room full of dullards (other than myself, natch).
Accurate self-awareness is rare.
5. Laughing at odd or inappropriate times.
Chinese people have a way of laughing when nothing's funny. More likely, they have different ideas about what's laughable.
Louis C.K. is a creep, and he knows it.
Chinese people have a way of laughing when nothing's funny.
It's because they're all Benny Hill fans.
Beaver was convinced Judy Hensler was creepy. Larry Mondello agreed.
I hate having to put Nabokov and Lena Dunham in the same league
but maybe butterflies escape the creepy insect-collecting category by being so pretty.
Dunham’s obsession with sharing her body parts with an audience seems deliberately creepy it’s a similar strategy to provoke as that used by her parents. The old epater le bourgeois runs in the family.
AHA!!! Creepiness detection, just like bullshit detection is a survival tool.
Both keep us from making stupid mistakes or association with creepy people who have something awry in their fundamental make up.
Some of the creepiest people are also good shovelers of bullshit. Con artists, serial killers, your ex wife :-P Hone up on those skills people.
Avoid bullshit. Avoid creeps. Life will be better. And you might live long enough to pass this ability to your children.
Well It appears that I am a creep. Bummer!
I have a small collection of teeth. I have my son's baby teeth that I just didn't have the heart to throw away. Then when I ended up with my mother's jewelry box my collection grew to include my sister's and my baby teeth.
I have heard that baby teeth should be kept for potential stem cells, but I have to be honest and say that isn't why I kept them. It might be time for me to clean out my jewelry box.
Those researchers must have come off pretty creepy themselves, asking people about the creeps in their lives. Wonder who they have chained up in their basements...
Althouse, for somebody so concerned with precision of language, I'm not sure how you got from "least preferred" to "bothered". I am unaware that least preferred means "do not like" or "bothered" at all.
Rather, it means that others were preferred more. And if all of those were exceedingly attractive, and this one only mildly or even very attractive, then bothered might be precisely the opposite of what I meant.
But it's your blog and your rules, so assume a negative meaning as you please.
I'm guessing that many creeps consider themselves innovators and everyone else is just woefully "square."
Yes. We do.
THEOLDMAN
Reminds me of a relative who justified being nasty to people as "telling the truth."
Fortunately, I can avoid that person.
Sherrod Brown.
We all have our place on the autism spectrum....
Sure, there are definitely real creeps, but "creepy" is most often simply a designation used by women tactically to socially control men they don't like, usually for superficial reasons.
Bill Clinton was an obvious creep, but since socially important women liked him, he got pretty much a lifetime pass from the designation.
Mike Pence, who acts like an old fashioned Christian gentleman, was designated as "creepy" for his quite ordinary comment about not being alone in a room with a woman not his wife.
The Salem Witch accusations and subsequent trials were a striking case of people being designated by women as "creepy" in order to use social authority against them.
There are other examples that confirm this, if one cares to look.
People watchers aren't creepy when they are attractive.
Reminds me of a relative who justified being nasty to people as "telling the truth."
We had one of those in our family. He did it for our own good. He's dead now. He will not be missed, and that's the truth.
SGT Ted has nailed it, in general.
Once I was tenting in a campground Washington state and by myself for that night. I visited a fellow camper in his camper which, it turned out, had pictures of women, some half naked, plastered on the ceiling and walls around the head of his bed area. I instantly thought he was creepy but he was sitting between me and the door. And maybe ...? So I decided to chat awhile and then slide out. As we chatted, he fiddled with a piece of string - forming, I noticed, a tiny little hangman's noose at the end. I looked at it and he said something like "Interesting? Want to see it?" and he sort of snapped it into a straight line at throat level, my throat level, and leaned forward. I put my hand right up and took hold of the string and commented on how interesting it was. Then I stood up and walked right at him and he let me by. Perhaps I creeped him out - just long enough. Or perhaps he was only weird-weird, not wierd serial killer. Uncertainty is definitely a part of creepy.
I used to work with a guy whose behind-his-back office nickname was "Creepy." He was clearly unaware that he creeped out a lot of people (mostly women). Looking over that list of Things Creepy People Do, I see some of his traits. One thing he did was forced-sounding laughter: more of a chortle than a laugh. He would say depressing, negative things and then try softening the impact by adding a kind of heh-heh-heh chortle. It reminds me, in retrospect, of something Seinfeld said about the otherwise loathesome Newman: "Well, he IS merry, I'll grant you that." And yet we know Newman was a deeply unhappy character.
Interestingly, "Creepy" never had a clue that he was making so many women in the office uncomfortable. He would refer to various women as "good friends" of his, yet in private these "good friends" would tell me they were uncomfortable being around him. The fact that he would, from time to time, announce, "If I don't get laid soon, someone's gonna get hurt" (a slogan from a t-shirt that he thought hi-larious) didn't help him with the ladies, either.
Laslo Spatula said...
"At the top of the creepy hobbies list were collectors (especially of dolls, insects or body parts like teeth), people-watchers and birdwatchers."
People-watchers.
Bird-watchers.
Doll collectors.
Oh, yeah: and people who collect teeth.
Three groups who probably share pictures on Flickr, and a guy who is probably a serial murderer.
That last group is really throwing off the curve.
I am Laslo.
I was thinking the same thing. Collecting body parts is definitely creepy! What does this even mean? I have never known a person who collects body parts.
On the other hand, while bird-watching and doll collecting may be old fashioned, I don’t think they are particularly creepy.
And as far as people-watching goes: sitting in a sidewalk cafe and drinking a glass of wine while observing the parade of humanity strolling by doesn’t sound creepy to me; standing outside someone’s bedroom window at night and peeping in—definitely creepy.
Look around the room. If you can't identify the creepy person, then it's probably you.
Collecting eyeballs would be creepier than collecting teeth. Collecting a semen-stained dress would be creepier than collecting private phone calls.
But it doesn't get much creepier than President Bill Clinton in 1995. Seeking congressional authorization for sending American troops into the war zone of Bosnia, Clinton, the Big Creep, as he was being sexually serviced by an intern, lobbied by phone an Alabama congressman.
My mother would save the whiskers from our family cat--after they'd fallen off--and kept them in a sandalwood box in a living room cabinet.
Somewhere, I have some of my baby teeth, but I think I let my wisdom teeth go. Idiot.
SGT Ted is dead right: "Sure, there are definitely real creeps, but "creepy" is most often simply a designation used by women tactically to socially control men they don't like, usually for superficial reasons."
Once I was tenting in a campground Washington state and by myself for that night.
And you thought the other guy was the creep?
Hahaha Birkel, you even creep out Althouse.
More that one bumper sticker of any kind = creepy.
Speaking of creepy, I recommend checking out The Creepy Line documentary on Amazon. Prime members watch for "free".
Post a Comment