Impressionable, Meet Contrarian.
Do your two sides fight if you're an impressionable contrarian? What do you do?
Confession
I avoided reading Harry Potter for 13 years, and then devoured the whole series in under 3 weeks. In fact, I spent the majority of my babymoon curled up with my nose buried in books 5 and 6. My poor, sweet husband had taken me to the Eastern Townships, an hour and a half from Montreal, so we could enjoy the lavender meadows and the countryside before our son was born. And we did enjoy them, for a few hours each day, before I would rush us back to the hotel so I could find out who on earth the Half Blood Prince was.
So, why did I wait so long to read Harry Potter? It was the hype. The hype made me suspicious, ticked me off. Any initial curiosity I’d had died a sudden death when the world lost its collective mind about the books. Vibes off. It took me 13 years to crack a single cover-page open.
In fairness to me, my rebellious approach to media consumption had never let me down before. While it had backfired with Harry Potter, it had worked for so many other media phenomena over the years.
Exhibit A: Leonardo DiCaprio
Romeo and Juliet came out when I was in high school. Followed shortly by Titanic. I am proud to claim that until this day, I haven’t seen either movie. This, despite being bombarded by nonstop commercials of a young Leo aimed directly at teenage girls, either brushing his golden locks off his face, or smoking a cigarette as dashingly as possible. (Sidebar: why, 90’s, whyyyyyy??? Stop throwing cigarettes at children!!)
When I finally started watching Leo movies, like Catch Me If You Can, and The Departed, I thought, huh! I guess this guy can act! But I never regretted opting out of his teeny-bopper days. I find myself offended when I’m told I should like something. Like, how dare you tell me I’ll find this enjoyable?! I’ll make my own mind up, thank you very much!!
I had the same reaction to Anya Taylor-Joy after watching the Queens Gambit. Suddenly she was everywhere, and it bothered me.
While many contrarians take oppositional positions on important topics, like medicine, politics, or social mores, I prefer a more low-stakes version of rebelling. I express my individualism by complaining about pop culture. Why are the studios shoving Henry Cavill down our throats? Is it because he’s traditionally handsome? So what? I have literally never managed to stay conscious for an entire Henry Cavill movie, however hard I’ve tried. Man from Uncle? Asleep within 30 minutes. Man of Steel? Didn’t make it past the opening credits. Also, why do all his movies start with the word Man? Is there subliminal messaging here? We get it, he’s big and strong and so uninteresting. Please cast him as the supporting character he’s meant to be and give all the leading roles to Jesse Plemons and Sam Richardson.
FOMO vs. Individualism
My insistence on liking different things is in direct contradiction to my severe FOMO. I’m that person at a restaurant. I can’t choose what to eat because whatever I get, there’ll be something else a friend just ordered that could be better. I once ordered the salmon at a work dinner, watched a colleague get oysters, and then got fixated on oysters for the next 5 months.