I was in college when I first noticed my parents start saying this. I can't imagine that my mom came up with it, so I'm assigning the genesis to my dad. Basically whenever they are concerned about some social issue like not dressing appropriately for an occasion, they end the discussion by saying "You know what we say."And what they say is, "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke."
I learned that in their hotel room in Waco as they were getting dressed for my Phi Beta Kappa induction. A little yin for that yang as it were.
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Love that story. I tell it to every girl I go out with. Sums up the positive aspects of mom and dad's relationship perfectly.
I actually have always hated this phrase of theirs. It's one thing to be a nonconformist or to genuinely not care what other people think. But this is just a device to deflect shame rightfully earned. It's never a joke; not intentionally anyway.
I don't think it's deflecting shame at all. It's more an expression of the idea that they may not know the correct fork to use with the shrimp course, but the reason for that is they don't care which fork you use with the shrimp course and fuck people who do care because that's stupid. I tend to agree with them. I don't think people should jump to assumptions about you based on your appearance, so on days I don't feel like shaving I show up to work looking vaguely homeless, or at least hungover, and just think "Fuck these people who think it matters if I shaved or not."
I agree with the llogg on this one.
Oh, I agree that things like which fork to use or being unshaven shouldn't matter - in a perfect world. But in the world we live in, where people have to make snap judgments because the truth is too hard or too time consuming to obtain, shit like that does matter. For myself, I won't judge a motherfucker because he doesn't know the right fork to use or because he looks hungover, but I know too well others won't follow that lead. You can't go around correcting everyone's false assumptions either; it's too big. For me, better to understand it, accept it and use it to my advantage if I can. Mom and Dad's deal was to say "fuck them," when they probably didn't really understand why these snap judgments about them have to be made in the first place. Either that, or they were too lazy to think about whether it would be better to educate themselves and decide based on a full understanding whether to conform or not. It's the easy way out, basically.
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