At my last job during orientation they had us all in a circle and went around and asked us to tell the group who our favorite Office character was. When it got to me I answered that i had never seen it. Just absolute gasps and “oh my god you can’t be serious” and then after that was over they had everyone say what Harry Potter house they’d be a part of and again when it got to me I said I had never watched/read it and by everyone’s reactions you would’ve thought I had just shit on the table or something.

I was getting a tattoo stylised in the art style of old soviet propaganda posters and had to listen one of the artists tell me how Stalin killed a bajillion gazillion people, communism = when gubment do thing, and just the same old shit, man. I had time because I couldn’t go anywhere so I started arguing with them. Same old talking points I’ve heard a hundred times and I’ve read enough to be able to thoroughly respond to any of these but it just doesn’t matter. Like, why even bother knowing anything lol. These people don’t care.

It’s like cool, I’ve read idk how many fucking books and consumed so much information on this, spent fucking years formulating a coherent world view, and they just come in with “nuh uh communism no food” and that’s just it. Goddamn it’s tiring.

Even after living in this goddamn country for 30 years I still couldn’t tell you what american culture actually is outside of rampant consumerism and pervasive poverty that’s been hyper normalized. This shit is a potemkin village with highways and traffic jams.

I wish I went to university with them so I could bully them.