Coffee with a side of patronizing
Feb. 23rd, 2020 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plonqI would probably get roasted for this in some circles (pun intended), but I lump coffee culture in with any other fandom. There is something slight off-putting about many of the lifetime die-hards inside the culture that makes it feel unwelcoming to newcomers.
Just so I can offend a broader swath of people, I have the same feelings at times toward the Linux crowd.
I like my coffee, and though I think I am dancing around in an area just shy of aficionado, I definitely have a more complicated routine my daily brew than most other folks I know. I even follow a couple of coffee-related forums, and some coffee-centric channels on YouTube.
It's from the purists in these places where I see the underlying disparagement. There is this subtle (and no-so-subtle) suggestion that only beginners or neophytes add cream to their coffee. The idea is that the only two reasons to add cream are to 1) mask the flavour of the coffee (especially sub-par coffee), or 2) cool the coffee enough to make it drinkable.
I get that many people don't like cream in their coffee, and will say as much in these places. "I drink my coffee black because I prefer not to mask any of the subtle flavours." That's fine, and that's not a patronizing attitude to take. On the other hand, I see more comments along the lines of, "I used to take cream in my coffee, but my tastes matured past that" or "The only reason people add cream to coffee is because they are too impatient to let it cool on its own".
What never enters the stratospheric heads of these elitists is that some of us actually like the flavour pairing of coffee and cream. I don't mind black coffee, but for most coffees I actually find that a bit of cream complements its taste. I'll even go as far as to add some sugar to it as well when I'm in the mood.
I do not recall hearing apple pie purists declare that people are trying to cool their pie, or mask its flavour by pairing it with ice cream, or a slice of cheddar cheese. People have cheese, or ice cream with their apple pie because they go well together. I don't know why it's such a lofty concept for some of the coffee purists to wrap their minds around when it comes to coffee and cream (or milk, or powdered whitener, or...)
I mentioned Linux as well earlier in this post, because I ran into some exclusionism in the Linux fandom back when I was thinking of giving it a try on my desktop. If the operating system's champions had not been such flaming douchbags, I might even be running Linux today instead of Windows.
My path into computers went from Mainframes (when I was taking CompSci in university) to an Apple, Amiga and finally Windows 95 when I moved into my current house. Windows 95 was okay, but I missed my Amiga, and I got it into my head that Linux might give me a closer experience to that. I bought a second hard drive and set it up as a Linux boot drive, using whatever was the favourite flavour of the day (Red Hat if I remember right).
I struggled with it a bit - especially when I tried to get its networking to talk to my DSL modem. I tried and failed a number of times before I resorted to searching online resources for help. I saw immediately that I was not the only person having the issue, so there were lots of others asking the same questions. I figured it would be a cinch to get help, since I was familiar with the evangelical nature of Linux fans, and I assumed they'd be happy to help others join the fold.
Instead, what I encountered were responses that varied from unhelpful tp patronizing and even insulting from cultists who seemed to consider themselves the guardians of the OS. My favourite response that crept up fairly regularly was, "If you can't figure out something as simple as setting up an Internet connection then maybe Linux isn't for you. Go back to Windows if you need your hand held." The forums seemed to be populated not by ambassadors helping people join the fold, but purists acting as a firewall against the unworthy.
All I could do was shake my head and think, "And yet these same people will later post laments about how their OS is not being more widely accepted."
Gee, I wonder why?
Anyway, here I am - a bad person who runs Windows and takes cream in his coffee.
I guess the moral of this story could be summed up as: If you are going to a fancy restaurant, leave your colicky baby at home.
Just so I can offend a broader swath of people, I have the same feelings at times toward the Linux crowd.
I like my coffee, and though I think I am dancing around in an area just shy of aficionado, I definitely have a more complicated routine my daily brew than most other folks I know. I even follow a couple of coffee-related forums, and some coffee-centric channels on YouTube.
It's from the purists in these places where I see the underlying disparagement. There is this subtle (and no-so-subtle) suggestion that only beginners or neophytes add cream to their coffee. The idea is that the only two reasons to add cream are to 1) mask the flavour of the coffee (especially sub-par coffee), or 2) cool the coffee enough to make it drinkable.
I get that many people don't like cream in their coffee, and will say as much in these places. "I drink my coffee black because I prefer not to mask any of the subtle flavours." That's fine, and that's not a patronizing attitude to take. On the other hand, I see more comments along the lines of, "I used to take cream in my coffee, but my tastes matured past that" or "The only reason people add cream to coffee is because they are too impatient to let it cool on its own".
What never enters the stratospheric heads of these elitists is that some of us actually like the flavour pairing of coffee and cream. I don't mind black coffee, but for most coffees I actually find that a bit of cream complements its taste. I'll even go as far as to add some sugar to it as well when I'm in the mood.
I do not recall hearing apple pie purists declare that people are trying to cool their pie, or mask its flavour by pairing it with ice cream, or a slice of cheddar cheese. People have cheese, or ice cream with their apple pie because they go well together. I don't know why it's such a lofty concept for some of the coffee purists to wrap their minds around when it comes to coffee and cream (or milk, or powdered whitener, or...)
I mentioned Linux as well earlier in this post, because I ran into some exclusionism in the Linux fandom back when I was thinking of giving it a try on my desktop. If the operating system's champions had not been such flaming douchbags, I might even be running Linux today instead of Windows.
My path into computers went from Mainframes (when I was taking CompSci in university) to an Apple, Amiga and finally Windows 95 when I moved into my current house. Windows 95 was okay, but I missed my Amiga, and I got it into my head that Linux might give me a closer experience to that. I bought a second hard drive and set it up as a Linux boot drive, using whatever was the favourite flavour of the day (Red Hat if I remember right).
I struggled with it a bit - especially when I tried to get its networking to talk to my DSL modem. I tried and failed a number of times before I resorted to searching online resources for help. I saw immediately that I was not the only person having the issue, so there were lots of others asking the same questions. I figured it would be a cinch to get help, since I was familiar with the evangelical nature of Linux fans, and I assumed they'd be happy to help others join the fold.
Instead, what I encountered were responses that varied from unhelpful tp patronizing and even insulting from cultists who seemed to consider themselves the guardians of the OS. My favourite response that crept up fairly regularly was, "If you can't figure out something as simple as setting up an Internet connection then maybe Linux isn't for you. Go back to Windows if you need your hand held." The forums seemed to be populated not by ambassadors helping people join the fold, but purists acting as a firewall against the unworthy.
All I could do was shake my head and think, "And yet these same people will later post laments about how their OS is not being more widely accepted."
Gee, I wonder why?
Anyway, here I am - a bad person who runs Windows and takes cream in his coffee.
I guess the moral of this story could be summed up as: If you are going to a fancy restaurant, leave your colicky baby at home.
The Meat of the Matter
Date: 2020-02-24 07:18 pm (UTC)I drink my coffee with much sugar and milk/creme, and I hate to get scalded by what I'm eating/drinking. ^_^