Peer pressure

Today's blog entry is in regards to pressure. If you're one of those people who easily gets insulted, don't read this, because this is not one of those warm and fuzzy entries. (Then again, which one of my blog entries fit that description?) I'm likely to offend most of you, but... well, deal with it on your own blog. That's why I live in this country - for the freedom of offending people and being offended. :-D

My primary example? The whole Harry Potter phenomenon. I have never read any of the Harry Potter books and have never seen any of the movies. And you know what? I'm fine with that for a number of reasons:

1. You really think I have time to read? Yeah. Walk a day in my life.
2. On the rare occasions when I do have time to read, I always read non-fiction. Usually it'll be an autobiography or something to do with history. I don't do that fantasy or fiction stuff. Frankly, I find it immature - I stopped reading fiction back in 8th grade.
3. Books I read have to be short - or at least straight-forward. (This is why I read magazine articles if I have a choice between that and a book.) You will absolutely lose my attention if you introduce a whole bunch of characters or do anything to force me to sit there and figure something out. I do a lot of thinking in real life ALREADY - why would I want to do that while reading? Thinking while reading actually makes it less enjoyable for me.

What I'm NOT fine with is the dozens of people who discover the fact that I've never read Harry Potter and tell me, "Oh my gosh, you HAVE to read them!! They're the best books ever!" First of all, no, I don't HAVE to read them. And they may be the best books ever for you, but they may not be the best for me. I've never even been remotely TEMPTED to the read them (you should be able to understand why if you know me well or if you read the reasons I listed above). Get my drift?

Don't get me wrong. I am not knocking you for liking Harry Potter. If you like him, great. If you find those books enjoyable and you read them to escape from stress or whatever, fantastic. What I am talking about is the fact that you knock me for NOT reading them. So what if I don't read them? Does it make me less of a person? I understand that you like them sooooo much to the point that you want to share this with everyone, but if you can step outside of yourself for one moment during this conversation and realize that I really don't care, DROP IT. Quit trying to force the issue. And the "but everybody reads them" or the "everybody who tries them likes them" argument is not going to work, kids. (That is so... junior high, for lack of a better term!) And you know what? There ARE people who tried reading those books and couldn't get past the first two chapters. (The morning radio show I listen to had a whole bunch of people phone in who stated that very fact.)

I've been like this since I was little. When I was a little under two years old, we went to my grandparents' friends' home out in California. The adults had cooked up some delicious chicken drumsticks and went to find us kids to see if we wanted any. The biggest kid said no, and everyone followed suit... except for a hungry little Hoosier. Turn down a chicken drumstick? No way.

And then there was 4th grade ENDOW, when everyone was against animal testing for drugs... I was like, hello? How else are you going to know if the drug works? You wanna test humans instead? Oh yeah, that makes you so much MORE ethical. And then one of the more dominant members of that class decided that she wanted to sound smart and came up with the brilliant idea of creating a robot to test the drugs in. To my disbelief, everyone agreed with this classmate simply because they were afraid to disagree with this dominant member and because they thought animal testing sounded inhumane. (You know what else sounds inhumane? Human testing!) So naturally, I called the idea out as a failure, arguing that a piece of metal could not possibly mimic the many functions of the human body. My exact words (and I remember saying them, to this day): "if you did drug testing on a robot, you'd basically be pouring water in a soup can." My classmates' response? Shocked silence. And they finally stopped harassing me for my views. My ENDOW teacher told my mother at parent-teacher conferences that she kept waiting for the ax to fall, kept waiting for me to cave in just because my peers were intent on persuading me to join their "side"... but I never did. And she found that impressive. I didn't - I just thought it was the right thing to do.

For the record, I do believe animal testing is necessary, and that it needs to be done correctly (i.e., without abuse to the animals). However, that is not the point of me telling this story. The point is that while you might love Harry Potter, be against animal testing, or hate chicken drumsticks, it's stupid - yes, STUPID - to use peer pressure to get me to do the things you do or like the things you like or follow any sort of fad. Stupid - not to mention fruitless.