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Netflix and Social Alienation

February 08, 2004

I recently signed up for a service called Netflix. Its a great service where you only pay $20 a month, and they send you whatever movies they have available in their catalog of movies in an envelope which turns into the a return envelope with postage already paid. They allow you to keep 3 movies out at a time, and you only have to mail back a movie before they’ll let you order another one. There are no late fees…you can keep a movie for as long as you want…You just can’t order another one until you’ve sent one back.

I did this recently because I rented something from Blockbuster, and it was a two day rental. It slipped my mind and now I’ve got major late fees on it a week later. Sure I was irresponsible, but I think this Netflix thing is a great deal reguardless and its more convienent.

In addition to this, I received my Linux+ Certification book in the mail yesterday. I’ll make sure to mention how I’m doing with it in future blog entries.

On another note I went to a party at a friends house, Chris Ondo. He has a room mate named Josh who was going to college up in Minnesota or some place up North, and he played football. He hurt his ankle, and so I assume he’s going to some college down here now. Chris Ondo and his room mates hold major parties at his house down near the Winter Springs area off of 17/92. They had a keg, loud music, invited lots of attractive girls over. To me there seemed to be two groups of people at this party. There were the ones that were Chris’s friends, and then there were Josh’s friends. It might have been just me and some complex I have, but it seemed as if Chris’s friends were easier to talk to, more open and comfortable around a stranger such as myself than Josh’s friends.

I went to the convienent store down the street from their place and Josh happened to be there too. This was after to me about how hot they are, and which ones he’s interested in. Now, I don’t identify with the whole “treating women like objects is disgusting” mentallity because I don’t understand it completely. I don’t know how to judge the contexts which are presented to me and apply them to this principle, because I do not yet understand it yet. I have a vague idea of it. What I do think is that its stupid to talk like that with other guys. What the heck do I care that you think someone is attractive? I guess I’d be less disgusted if someone were to talk about something more than a girls appearance, like in the situation where a guy is crazy about a girl and how much fun they have together, or how much chemistry there is between them. Perhaps I do understand how objectivifying women is wrong.

But this just triggers the wall between me and the nicely dressed jock who has interests totally incompatible with my interests, along with interests which c! lash with mine as I just mentioned.

I’m going off the topic I wanted to present though. The wall between me and the social types I went to high school with. One of Josh’s friends I recognized from high school, and I don’t remember ever liking him. Another person, Ryan Tidwell I believe her name is, I went to high school with as well. I didn’t even say a word to her. I had nothing to say. I felt during this party as if I didn’t exist to them. I didn’t feel worthy, and it might just be my problem completely. I might be reading into their inability to communicate with me as their social exclusion, or they might avoid me because of the look on my face or attitude I present as hostile or not interested in them.

This is a great opportunity though because I think it might help me figure out whats really going on in the battle between neurotic nerds such as myself and the “jocks and cheerleaders”. That we might hate them because of the delusions our insecurities create, along with the comple ..or that they’re really just a bunch of people who base their self esteem on how many hot girls they can fuck, football because its a requirement of that social inclusion, or perhaps a mix of all of the above. I will find this out, and I will present it to the world…codename: Arcadia.

I plan on going to these parties more, every weekend. It will be my little flashback to high school that I wanted. It will be my social experiment.


Written by Jason Miller who lives and works in Denver, CO developing websites and focusing on personal development. He is also on Twitter

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