April 9, 2021

Masks off

About a month ago I started wearing the mask loose so it didn't cover my nose. This was both to breathe more freely but also to start sending the signal to everyone else that the whole mask thing is over.

Then over the past two weeks, I've started to just not wear it at all while indoors -- to breathe even more freely, to de-dehumanize the social environment, and to signal even more unambiguously that we're not going to wear masks anymore.

Those of you who live in the Sun Belt, or in a rural area, may be familiar with this transition already. But if you're in the North, and in a city, this is still in the early adopter stage.

Since the face liberation movement is still inchoate, what follows are some impressions of who's simpatico and who's hostile, after the failure of the mask policy to end or even decelerate the growth of the coronavirus pandemic.

(I might write a separate post about the inability of grassroots individualism to solve collective problems at the top. This post is just about the changing climate right now.)

First, who else is doing it? It's men, ages 25 to 45, high testosterone, not necessarily counter-cultural, and not detectably Republican or Democrat. Yesterday I saw open faces on a 30-something MAGA dad with his daughter, a single Hispanic or Middle Eastern guy with a pony tail, and a punk / alt guy with his gf / wife (who was also not wearing a mask).

Basically, who's the most risk-taking, but also comfortable challenging authority legitimately -- e.g., if the policy does not work, we don't have to follow it anymore. If it were teenagers, that would stem more from a defiant impulse. If it's fully matured men, that's the go-ahead to treat it seriously and not as a bratty backlash.

Who is the most excited to see the mask come off? From my own experience, overwhelmingly girls from teenagers to 30-somethings. They suffer the most from facial coverings, because they have the cutest faces, unlike middle-aged and elderly women. Females are also more social / empathetic than males and need to see, and make, facial expressions in public. And at that age, they're more drawn to signs of risk-taking and bad-boy behavior in guys.

(NB: not "risk-taking" in terms of contracting the disease -- the masks have already proven ineffective at that. I mean in terms of risking someone hectoring them, threatening to kick them out of the store, and so on.)

This goes double when the bad-boy behavior is channeled in a pro-social direction, like getting rid of a failed and burdensome policy that the authorities are refusing to end themselves. Then it's not like stealing a car and going for a joyride, which would only attract a tiny minority of girls.

Fitness babes are pretty anti-mask. Two of the small number of women I've seen with no mask, or pulled down under their chin, were wearing their gym clothes, including the only woman I remember seeing without a mask several months ago when no one was going mask-free. I just so happened to see her again tonight at the thrift store, and in the same section (books), still without a mask.

But by far the most enthusiastic free-the-face girls are the MENA baddies -- no surprise if you read Aimee Terese or Leila Mechoui on Twitter. They will lock eyes for the longest, and get the most visibly horned up, at the sight of a bold decision-maker who's saving or protecting the group. We're providing cover for the rest of them to do likewise, at a cost to ourselves when we get hectored. It's not merely to preen as badasses while the chicks are looking.

One of the only girls I've seen without a mask -- and the only one who was under 30, and who was not potentially following the lead of her bf / husband -- was a MENA baddie with wild wavy hair who came strutting through the TJ Maxx doors with it pulled all the way down under her chin. Not even a pro forma full coverage while initially entering, and then stealthily removing it when there were no prying eyes. Just coming out guns-a-blazin'. She was a teenager, too, albeit accompanied by her mother and so perhaps feeling like someone else had her back if she got hectored.

Tonight at the supermarket "I Love It" came on over the sound system, and I started whistling along and hitting the side of my leg to the beat, when all of a sudden a mocha-licious southern Meddie turned the corner and stopped dead, gawking at me while I was browsing. She was wearing gym shorts and a hoodie in the local college colors, so in her early 20s living off-campus. I should have reciprocated the attention, strutted on over, and taken off her mask for her, unhooking it like a bra, and planted a kiss right on her lips.

However, that would have been a bit too far for social acceptability in a Midwestern supermarket, with lots of people around us. Maybe if no one else were watching...

It's possible that the guys in my vicinity are also excited to see masks coming off, but since 99% of them are not gay, they're not sending a signal back as eagerly as the girl spectators are. They'll keep it to themselves, talk to their friends about it afterward, and then go into a store with no mask themselves in a few days or weeks.

Who, then, are the most hostile? Not other men. Imagine how terminally cucked you would have to be to stop and wag your finger in another man's face about following a proven pointless policy. I'm sure a good amount of them do not approve, but they will never degrade themselves low enough to whine about it to my mask-free face. It's not only the fear that they are risking the start of a physical confrontation, for no tangible benefit to themselves or others. They would just feel like a pathetic little bitch, and that's bad enough.

Even the low-T "I FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE" soyboys will just silently stew in resentment IRL, and then bitch about it impotently on the internet afterward.

Instead, the finger-waggers are all women, roughly ages 30 to 50 or 60, nearly exclusively white founding stock, and in particular Germanic. (No surprise for a race addicted to following pointless rules for its own sake, even when there is no tradition or test of time to back it up). Fatter than average, including some who are downright obese. Mostly unattractive -- only one so far looked average, although hard to tell with the mask, and she was one of the most polite anyway.

It's split evenly whether they act confrontationally or politely, although if Midwestern niceness is not a phenomenon where you live, they could be more in-your-face about it.

I'm sure most of them are liberals, but some appeared conservative.

It seems like the same demographic who gets the most heavily propagandized by the media, because they see themselves as the stewards over the health of the nation. Foreigners, Ellis Islanders, kids of recent immigrants -- it's just not their society to dictate the terms over, and they know it. But women of founding stock feel it's their birthright to nag the citizenry into behaving according to the laws.

Don't interpret this as WASPy dominance, though. They're not upper class, but those with degrees from low-ranking colleges. They're strivers eager to prove to those with real wealth and power that they're good little teacher's pets and hall monitors, deserving of a promotion. For every maskless person I hector, can you pwetty pwease cancel $100 of my student loan debt?

So far it's split between workers and fellow customers. Three workers have told me to wear a mask on their own. Another one (and the only African-American) seemed like she might have been indulging a customer who had asked to speak to her manager or something.

As of now, I've been momentarily going along with the workers' requests, to get them off my case, and because I know it's coming from their boss or some irate customer, not them being a loser themselves. After a bit, I'll take the mask off again. But if a fellow customer barks anything at me, I shut them down and blow them off unambiguously, and as nonchalantly as possible, so they don't get the reward of getting a rise out of me.

The best is when they don't even bother arguing against "the masks are just a placebo," and instead go complain to the workers -- who then don't do shit to indulge the hysterical freak, and just let me be. I'm a regular at the places I frequent, and have been for years, so they know I'm good. They also don't want to have to add to their tasks on the job -- now they're supposed to follow me around the store and make sure I never once take off my mask? Bullshit, that's above my pay grade.

The best of all is when those workers are young women, the kind who are the most supportive of the face liberation movement, especially if it's regarding a random hot guy. Why would they possibly care, Karen? -- they're not a fat ugly menopausal psycho like you. I really have a heightened respect for those workers now, having stood up for me. I imagine them singing to themselves, "I'll keep you, my dirty little secret, dirty little secret, who has to know?" xD

Overall, the hostile types are rare, but that is irrelevant. All it takes is one to threaten your ability to free your face indoors. It is nice that there's not an entire army of them swarming at the same time, but they are frequent enough to present an obstacle during every visit to a store.

However, now that the trend is accelerating -- I didn't see anyone else without a mask last week, and this week I'm likely to see several others -- they have nowhere to go with their hectoring. They can already sense that this is the beginning of the end of the policy, and not because the government has lifted the mask mandate -- because people are sick of failed policies, and no one higher up is enforcing them.

Indeed, the whole point of masks was to devolve responsibility down to the individual. If the elites don't want to get involved, that includes enforcement of their own mandates. They would actually have to stick their neck out, put their foot down, threaten a confrontation with their underlings, and so on and so forth.

They would rather abdicate the chain of command altogether and live a degenerate life away from whatever troubles are going on in society. This is not the New Deal era of strong government, when the mayor, governor, or president might send in the police or the military to deal with even non-violent civil disobedience like sitting down at a whites-only lunch counter.

Today's leaders shirk the duties and costs of being a strong leader, and we're going to take advantage of that when they deliver pointless or harmful orders to the common people, unless we come at them specifically (like storming the Capitol building -- but not going mask-free into our local indoor public spaces).

29 comments:

  1. Interesting that you see the risk taking of not wearing a mask in hectoring. I guess it depends on where you are, but I know people who have been fined, have been fined myself and heard of people who face criminal porosecution for not-masking in public.

    In some places not masking is a misdemeanor, but some place in Europe even made it a felony. Enforcement varies widely, of course, but I'm surprised that it seems non-existent where you are. God bless you, it sounds like a nice place.

    Where I live, the risk is a fine of 100 EUR for a first offence, much more for a repeated offence.

    Hectoring by the type of females you mention certainly happens, but it also happens in my experience from males above 60 or so.

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  2. The most deranged woman was in her 50s or 60s, hideously ugly (so much so that the mask couldn't hide it), awful haircut, bitter nasty tone of voice that was slow and slurred like she was already dying. Clear MSNBC junkie.

    "Did you forget your fuckin' mask?"

    [No reaction, keep browsing t-shirts]

    "Did you forget your fuckin' mask?"

    Nope.

    "Asshole."

    Yeah, you're really cool.

    Like I said, the goal is not to give them the satisfaction of getting a rise out of you. Especially since they do not matter -- they're just powerless crazies who you do not have to obey or even respond to.

    They're not the police, you don't have to indulge their questions. Just brush them aside.

    Most importantly, though, signal to everyone around you that they are the losers, and the normal and cool people are not taking them seriously anymore.

    Since the government is not enforcing the mandate directly, it's entirely run by social cues and attempts at shaming the mask-free people. However, we only imitate social cues from those we respect, look up to, enjoy, etc.

    If the would-be enforcers are a bunch of whiny, hideous-looking tattletales who don't even bother engaging in an argument, then the spectators will start to devalue the norms that these freaks are struggling to enforce. Everybody has reflexive sympathy for a normal, even cool, person who is average, or even hot, getting hectored by a goblin over nothing.

    The goal is not to get into a shouting match or cursing match -- that will alienate the onlookers, and make it seem like too high of a price to pay to not wear a mask. Just demonstrate to them that you can coolly dismiss and blow off the hysterics, and it'll rob them of their imaginary power.

    It's more hilarious that way, too -- seeing them go from over-confident and making declarative statements about what you need to do, to impotently whining to the workers, then leaving because nobody gives a shit about indulging your psychosis lol.

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  3. I really thought there would be wine moms hectoring me, but that type -- especially the decent-looking ones -- have been totally silent, whether they agree or not.

    It really is the social dregs who feel like they have nothing to lose by starting a scene in public over a non-issue. But who also feel like they have something to win from their superiors, for sucking up and being a good little hall monitor.

    Lumpenproles have nothing to lose either, but they wouldn't get promoted or get online clout or whatever for snitching, so they don't get involved.

    Perhaps the lack of wine mom involvement is part of the elite abdication story. Let somebody else enforce the laws, I have better things to be doing. Plus what if the person disobeys me -- then I look publicly weak, lose face, and I might have to escalate or retaliate, and.... wow, that's way too much to risk, just to make someone wear a pointless mask.

    The lower-middle class striver who's so desperate to join the solid middle class, or upper-middle class, that she'd sell out and snitch on her own neighbors, family, and friends -- that's who's going to risk it, hoping to move up.

    Sorry, Karen, you're staying right where you are, only now you look publicly weak and pathetic.

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  4. It's crucial to de-partisanize the issue, too. I've made a concerted effort not to call someone a libtard if they hector. I've settled on "lamewad" if I need to call them a name.

    First, conservatives lost the polarization war, so that's a dead end now.

    But more importantly, there are plenty of libs, Dems, and Biden voters who are sick of this crap too. Calling the mask "a libtard placebo" instead of simply "a placebo" is going to halt any progress toward getting back to normal.

    Obviously that won't be kumbayah, but just not seeing a faceless hive of mask-wearers everywhere -- good enough for now!

    Toward that end, you have to plan who your audience will be, and dress, look, and act accordingly. It's worth more if you can be someone who isn't stereotypically a Republican, since that will send the message that everyone is doing away with masks, not just the conservatives.

    But if the place is full of country-club types, then looking that part is fitting too. However, the average store in a Northern city is going to be more liberal or counter-cultural than conservative or country-club.

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  5. The cool mom demo will be next to go lax on masks. Tonight in line at TJ Maxx, there was a cool mom in front of me, either in gym clothes or athleisure (I still don't know the diff). Probably gym clothes, since she looked pretty fit for her age.

    When she saw random hot guy behind her wearing no mask, she started to conspicuously bend over and crouch down to pretend to look at the items there in the checkout lane. Rather than hector or distance herself or something disapproving / shaming.

    Then her teenage daughter passes by to join her in line, and she briefly turns her head around to scope out the random hot guy she just passed -- and then does a double-take, spinning fully around to gawk at the fact that he's not wearing a mask! She looked back quite a few more times after that, too.

    That surprise tipped off the woman's youngest daughter, around 7 or 8, that something was up, and she also kept spinning around to look up at the guy wearing no mask indoors. She must've been the most confused, since her mind is the most plastic, and absorbing competing messages. Hopefully it made a lasting impression, and she'll at least ask her mother why that man wasn't wearing a mask like they all were.

    I can actually see them having a cool-mom family meeting, and sooner than later dropping the masks themselves. I just did not pick up bad vibes from any of them. All it takes is someone to give them a little guidance and push in the right direction.

    I don't mind being that guy. :) Making those impressions is totally worth the hectoring from the deranged freaks. It's hard to meaningfully and positively influence someone, and easy to blow off a hysterical loser.

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  6. Sir Yourmask4/10/21, 7:49 PM

    Early in the pandemic, my local supermarket chain placed lines and stickers on the floor, forcing people to navigate in designated spots like docile little pawn pieces. A fat, late middle-aged, and extremely unattractive lady was standing by the registers yelling at people to stay behind the line (including me). Given that most finger waggers are that type, I seriously doubt the boss made her do this, and also I only saw an employee do this ONCE (also, she had the regular cashier uniform, she was not even a manager).
    Older-millenial, wine-loving, IFL-Science fans are also extremely preachy about masks; these are the same types that share woke, anti-racists, BLM memes.
    With looks faded, waning fertility, and no kids (or kids they can no longer control), these aging women jump at opportunities to chastise and boss people around to find some type of importance in life.

    Virtually every mask-free/anti-mask individual I've seen is male with high T traits or a hot, younger female. The gym I frequent is mask-free, and a good half to three-quarters of the patrons think this is all BS. It also helps that I live in a no-mask-mandate state also. Even though there's no mask mandate, most businesses demand customers wear them, but I rip mine off the second I leave the supermarket.
    Immigrants and people that look like they have a rap sheet are also the biggest mask compliers --- the former want to avoid attention from authorities, the latter see it as an opportunity to commit crimes with relatively hidden faces.
    I have never seen a Black person finger wag at someone for not wearing a mask --- they have all been white, and majority female.

    "Imagine how terminally cucked you would have to be to stop and wag your finger in another man's face about following a proven pointless policy"

    Well, I encountered one of those terminally cucked men at work (mandatory mask policy in all premises), sarcastically telling "masks stop the spread, right?", as he passed by my office and saw me without a mask (I take it off when I'm alone).
    A security guard doing his rounds caught me twice, and the second time he threatened with removing me off the premises.
    I'm low on the totem pole and too early in my career to gain that kind of notoriety in my workplace.

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  7. For a while now I have been proselytizing the face shield (linked below). And while I was thrown out of one (chain) store, all the local businesses are cool.

    Whenever someone comments they get a sunny smile that this stops sneezes and coughs better than "just paper" and it is so much cleaner than those filthy damp fabric rags with all the bacteria and mold. "When I'm done here I just wipe it down with hand sanitizer and it's ready to go!"

    Outside I never mask.

    And while I am fit, I'm a white-haired old (lady) coot.

    Good on you all. Cotton kills. Those rags have been giving people secondary bacterial infections.

    https://www.amazon.com/Pack-Breathable-Transparent-Microfiber-Beautician/dp/B08P54LVYH/ref=mp_s_a_1_23?dchild=1&keywords=clear+plastic+face+mask&qid=1618121666&sr=8-23

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  8. OT: I was reading your old posts about the crime cycle and trust and decided to check the World Values Survey to see if it holds true for other countries. Mexico and Peru both entered high crime periods in the late 2000s in both countries trust was low to begin with and has dropped further since crime took off. Brazil entered a rising crime period sometime around 1990; Brazil wasn't included in the WVS prior to 1990 but trust has declined during while crime has increased.

    So the link between crime and social trust seems weak to right now. It doesn't seem like inequality is the driver for trust levels either since Latin America entered a falling inequality period around 2000.

    I'm also not sure if social trust is linked to outgoingnes; on a cross national basis they seem to be negatively correlated, Greeks are more outgoing and less trusting than Swedes ect.

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  9. Could just be the West, as I've heard the same story of how the social climate changed from the '60s-'80s into the '90s-today, for a variety of Western Euro countries.

    E.g., did people used to leave their cars or homes unlocked, did people feel comfortable flirting with strangers, did people used to ask for or give hitchhiking rides, and so on.

    That last one would be a good "revealed preference" behavior, apart from what surveys say (surveys perhaps being less accurate in the 2nd and 3rd world). Or something similar, if car ownership is not widespread or people mainly use public transit.

    Likewise the cocooning mood being widespread in Western Europe during the Midcentury. Not sure what were the local variations of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, or Nighthawks, but they may have been consuming our stuff in translation (or directly, in Britain).

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  10. To generalize, I'd look at guest-host relations as a proxy for interpersonal trust. You're at your most vulnerable around strangers when you're either taking someone in, or letting someone else take you in.

    If those kinds of relations are not strengthening at the same time as homicide rates are rising, I expect the latter are not interpersonal, opportunistic crime -- which the model never claimed to cover.

    More likely the result of drug wars, gang activity, and the like, which are forms of collective violence, not person-to-person violence.

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  11. A level above this, even, is telling the guardian at the front of the business that you have a "medical exemption", which usually results in them communicating your appearance to the other employees in the store over their walkie-talkie, so not only can you walk around unmolested, but other patrons can clearly see you walking around unmolested.

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  12. I heard that hitchhiking is very common and easy in Mexico and most of Latin America except for Colombia, the one country in Latin America where crime is clearly falling.

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  13. A guy told me to mask up today, and I had to shut him down. He was a worker, though clearly a hysterical psycho and wannabe petty tyrant himself. He was not responding to pressure from his boss, others customers, etc., as he zoomed right over when he saw I wasn't wearing the mask.

    Pudgy, greasy-haired Millennial pop culture junkie, surely with multiple Reddit accounts -- so "guy" in quote marks.

    At first I humored him, after making a bit of a stand about how they failed to stop the spread, who is pressuring you to do this, and so on.

    Then as usual the mask slipped down over my nose, and nearly over my mouth. The little bitch zooms over to this different section of the store and tries to make a scene again, about how I have to lift it up over my nose.

    Sorry, dork, I humored you once out of basic respect for you working here. I'm not going to let some loser boss me around over nothing.

    He said bla bla bla, "And if you don't, I'm going to have to ask you to leave the store."

    "You're not going to do that," I bluntly responded with a dismissive chuckle. After a pause when he realized his impotent bluff had been called, I added, "I'm a paying customer" and held up the stuff I was buying.

    That was that. He talked to another worker nearby, while I stood exactly where I was, browsing what I was, and a few moments later he left, while my mask was still down over my nose.

    I don't go out looking to get into confrontations, but if you're going to start it, I'm going to finish it. And I don't care if I have to cuck you in front of your friends and co-workers.

    Over nothing! What a pathetic little bitch.

    For context, this was a smaller store, in a sector where most employees are going to be Redditards or similar, and where most people (workers and customers) are standing still rather than walking around. All of that makes it easier to be spotted, to be approached, and for the worker to feel motivated to approach.

    Still, just blow them off and accept that some places are going to put up more of an obstacle than others. Doesn't mean you just let this ridiculous dehumanizing placebo charade go on with no end in sight.

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  14. These dweebs don't understand that IRL is not online. Wannabe jannies can't report my content to the mods for violating the TOS, and the would-be mods are not god-like and can't drop a permaban on me.

    The informational realm is defined by the cost-free nature of most interactions. IRL is totally different -- tasks are labor-intensive, there are no algorithms that do a whole lot of the work, and the enforcers are taking a risk in trying to enforce the TOS.

    Everything changes when interactions take place in physical space, face-to-face.

    IRL, it's the easiest thing in the world to call the jannies' bluff, or ignore the mods, and there's nothing they can do about it.

    If the stakes were really high, then maybe the rules get enforced by those with true power. Like if you tried to storm the Capitol building.

    But if it's just upholding an impotent charade ritual, no one higher up on the chain of command actually gives that much of a shit, and the pointless rules go broken with impunity.

    For the love of God, you internet people need to spend more of your time in the world of "bodies in spaces", not the world of "accounts in platforms". So much more human, fulfilling, and authentic.

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  15. Rather than being 'placebo' for most people, I think it was more like it was being enforced(through shaming) by the media, for their own reasons.

    When everything first shut down in March of last year, there were hordes of people pouring out into public spaces, before a media frenzy about how dangerous it was. They had to shut down a public park near where I live(which had been packed with dogwalkers the days before). So apparently, most people weren't afraid, but had to be dragged back into their houses by police mandates.

    Now, you could say it was a media conspiracy; or that it was more like the public themselves got upset after everybody went outside the house, and inevitably started having conflicts with each other. They weren't quite ready to interact yet.

    Either way, though, I think that this has always had to do with the cocooning trend - the bottoming out of the cocooning trend, enforcing social isolation, even for those who don't want to isolate.

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  16. This guy was an over-produced elite aspirant, not working class, BTW. The proverbial "barista with student loan debt".

    Actual working-class people don't behave like wannabe petty tyrants toward the customers. Not just out of fear of losing their job if the customer complains about being treated rudely, but because their job means they don't have much leverage to deliver on a threat.

    So even if they would like to bitch out a customer, they mostly grumble under their breath, talk shit about them with the other workers, etc.

    This guy was someone who wanted to own and manage a small business, albeit in an informational / libtard / pop culture junkie sector of society. Back in the '90s, it would've been dreams of owning an indie movie rental store. As a Millennial, he's probably dreaming of owning an indie used video game store. Pathetic.

    This aspect of elite over-production has gone undiscussed -- it's obvious that they're over-flowing into jobs formerly done by the working class, but they're bringing all of their awful, self-absorbed, status-striving social pollution with them.

    All of the petty tyrant behavior of a nouveau riche low-tier elite, with none of the social, political, or economic capital to back it up. Over-produced emperors wearing no clothes, who are instantly undone by a single person who doesn't give a shit, willing to point it out for the rest of the onlookers, who breathe a sigh of relief that the conformity effect has been shattered.

    That's why I love thrift stores so much -- so far, the failed elite aspirants have not piled into those jobs, and the workers are chill, cool, normie or counter-cultural, but rarely the petty tyrant wannabes that can be found in coffee shops, (upscale) supermarkets, used media stores, etc.

    Not that everyone who works in the latter stores are that way, but that those places are where the petty tyrant wannabes are to be found.

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  17. Massive NARC day, Jesus. First, the Af-Am woman who I mentioned in the OP is a busybody cop, not being pressured by others. She came up again today and bothered me about the mask. So far, still the only black person.

    Black people in general expect a promotion or double the pay if they're expected to act as bouncers, in addition to all the other shit they have to do on the job. "Not my problem" if some guy isn't wearing his placebo.

    Then there was the so far only 20-something girl to insist on masks, a worker at a thrift store. Not cute, but not hideous either. And someone I'd gotten along with and smalltalked with before. As per yoozh, she didn't even contest the claim that these masks didn't slow or stop the explosion of the disease last year. Nope, just "you have to do it".

    My radar was really off when I thought she was a basically cool, normal person. Think of it -- being a dour, sourpussed voluntary NARC when you're 23. I humored her today (though still with the protest position of the mask hanging under my nose), but will ignore next time.

    Finally, the manager at Wendy's insisted on wearing a mask "while standing up" at the cash register -- like the air is any fucking different when I'll be sitting down to eat in a few minutes!

    I'll just boycott that shithole rather than go back and defy their ludicrous rules. I dined in today and yesterday, and there wasn't anybody else in the dining room or on the outdoor patio area. Hence, nobody to spread the message to, no possible chance the shatter the conformity effect.

    These places are dying for customers to leave their home and eventually dine in -- and they're doing everything possible to keep us out.

    The high school guy taking my order was cool about it, of course. I'd just held the doors open for him as he was wheeling in a trash can or something. No good deed goes unpunished with the management, though.

    I hope Wendy's and the rest of them go out of business. Mask while standing, no mask while sitting -- madness. And by this point, humiliation. Sorry, I usually make my own meals, don't need to pay extra to be bossed around like a retard, and not get paid a wage for it either.

    On the bright side, the young girl at the gas station was smiling and joked at the end, i like your mask ;). We had a good little laugh.

    Again, young people (under 40 or 50) are overwhelmingly favorable. There are only a handful of petty tyrant wannabes -- but they're enough to ruin a trip to a store, if they work there.

    I've had just about enough of humoring anyone at this point, and I'm going to tell them straight-up, you're going to have to hire a bouncer to remove me, or call the real cops, and to feel ashamed for being such a loser NARC over a proven pointless policy.

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  18. Further proof of the MENA baddie support today, too. Two women, a mother around 30 and her sister -- so, not even the usual horned-up teenagers -- saw me in the supermarket, and swerved hard to pass right next to me, giggling the whole time. The mother herself was wearing the mask under her nose.

    I think it's a culture of honor thing with them -- and therefore a shared interest with us white people who come from pastoralist backgrounds as well.

    When the policy doesn't even work, and has been experimentally proven not to at the greatest level, then forcing the continued mandate is just a slap in the face. And pastoralist folks don't take such flagrant disrespect lying down. We'll call your bluff, or make you incur the costs of enforcing it. We'll impose more costs on you, than you have on us.

    Spite is an evolutionary winner because in relative fitness terms the spiteful person wins (loses less). And Lord knows the MENA baddies come from a culture that knows all about the value of spite.

    Plus, in their case, one of the major selling points of coming to America was not having to cover their faces, and not getting harassed by deputized hall monitors if they chose not to.

    We're getting into real Tehran territory here, where the women keep sliding the hair scarf further and further toward the back of their head, and dare the penguin ladies to do anything about it.

    Except we did not import this from a sharia-governed foreign country -- our own elites are responsible!

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  19. Spite implies you want to maintain a relationship with the other person, though, just that the other person is forced into more of a subdominant position, where they have to do what you want, put your needs first.

    I think, as you pointed out, the farming cultures are more ruthless - because they just eliminate the disruptive elements altogether - due to being more k-selected and constantly trying to free up more resources.

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  20. Experimented with the class variable today and went to a thrift store in a more lower-middle class area. I thought they'd leave me alone more, not being the domineering PMC types -- but it was far worse.

    Almost right away, a Muslim immigrant man (worker) says "you need the mask". I put it on, waited a few minutes, took it right back off, he either didn't see me again or didn't bother a second time.

    Later, though, a Hispanic immigrant woman (worker) comes over and says "you need the mask" again. Put it on, then pulled it down below my mouth after a minute.

    Usually immigrants are the least likely to confront you, since they know they're guests here, and "the customer is always right," etc.

    Perhaps this was just one bad store in an otherwise chill area, I didn't bother trying other stores nearby.

    On the plus side, I did see a fellow customer there waltz in without a mask and browse around unworried. Black guy -- like, super-dark black guy -- meaning possibly an immigrant from Africa, not an Af-Am. I wonder if they're chafing more at the restrictions than the paper-bag test passers in the Talented Tenth.

    If you want to be accepted within the elites, you can't buck their ridiculous rules. But if you're a recent immigrant and working class, you might not give a shit what they think. Just like the MENA baddies -- you came to America for a better life, not a prison in disguise.

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  21. That Muslim guy may have been a PMC before immigrating, the proverbial "immigrant cab driver who used to be a doctor in his home country".

    He just gave off such petty tyrant vibes for a group that is otherwise checked out of American social-cultural and political-economic life (immigrants, and retail workers).

    They are similar to our own downwardly mobile failsons -- wannabe managers in search of underlings to boss around. But, not having jobs with true wealth and power, they try to boss around customers or their fellow workers whenever a pretext can be found for it, e.g. the pandemic protocols.

    We're producing enough of these types domestically, and do not need to be importing any more of them.

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  22. Heartwarming moment today when a mother and her two little girls were all mask-free browsing around a thrift store. As I approached, one girl smiled wide, tugged on her mother's arm, and whispered excitedly, no mask!

    Mommy was cute, too. I told you about the cool moms being at the vanguard of the mask liberation movement.

    And for them, it's not only about masks but the other draconian restrictions on schools -- whether they're providing their services while getting tax dollars, isolating the kids, and all the rest of it.

    Glad to see that the first signs of revolt are under way. :)

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  23. https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1383582923689906177

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  24. Ran into another guy w/o a mask in a supermarket the other day, a Boomer dad who was shopping with his Millennial daughter of about 30 who had clearly moved back in with the 'rents.

    It's odd that we don't signal to each other, even a little grin like "we're leading the charge back to normality". It's just what a normal person ought to be doing now, not something worth high-fiving each other about, I guess.

    At a retail store, a middle-aged hag came right up to me and handed me a mask, which I began to bend the nosepiece of, pretending I was going to wear it and get it to fit just right.

    I never did put it on, and about a minute later she'd tracked me down again and began the nagging about how it's the company policy and the governor's mandate. I said I don't care, the policy failed, they failed to slow the spread, so that's that.

    She frantically paged her manager and said loudly, "There's a customer who doesn't want to wear a mask," to which her boss said curtly, "There's nothing I can do about that." As in, get a grip and get a life, you freak.

    The frazzled behavior, and constant following around, reminded me of a substitute teacher who's lost all control of the classroom.

    Next time, I'm going to tell someone like that point-black, "Listen lady, you have less authority than a substitute teacher -- now quit bothering people".

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  25. White girl w/ dreds not wearing a mask in the thrift store today. Browsing the boys' section, so presumably a mom too, looked like a 20-something.

    I called it -- cool moms are leading the charge back to normality. Probably because they know more about the austerity effects of the pandemic response than other people do.

    Their kids are stuck at home, when they're in basically no danger, and when other people have no way of protecting themselves from kids with the virus anyway (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, etc., did nothing to stop the explosion last year). Even with adults getting vaxxed, they still want kids sealed up in bubble wrap -- madness.

    Also, both black guys working at the gas station were maskless. One without it at all, the other guy with it pulled fully down like a chin strap. Another customer (or worker who was leaving her shift) on the way out, not wearing a mask either. Same station I mentioned where the young woman cashier joked about how nice my non-existent mask was.

    Why would I gas up at any other station now? :)

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  26. Got to defy a worthless bootlicker today. Unusually, it was a male Zoomer employee (thrift store). Asked if I have a mask. Told him I do but I'm not wearing it because the usual reasons.

    Tattletale little bitch went and told the manager, who just got on the PA system and said, several times, that it's the policy to wear masks even if you don't want to. She sounded weary, like "I'm getting too old for dis shit". Obviously was not going to enforce it -- and sure enough, she didn't!

    Saw the wannabe hall monitor later on and he didn't bother saying shit then. Lesson learned, you pathetic snitch.

    Next thrift store, me and another guy both maskless. Love when there's some backup. It also makes people recognize that it's over. One guy w/o a mask -- could be a fluke. Two people in the same place at the same time -- trend developing.

    Last thrift store, some Boomer said "I think you forgot your mask there" like a typical Midwestern nice, passive-aggressive cuck. Obviously Germanic, not Celtic -- slaves to pointless rules, the more pointless the better the signal of their devotion to the rules.

    Must've told the manager, who asked me to put one on or leave, but I was already on my way out, so I continued to leave. I never get trouble there, so I figured humoring her that way wasn't a big deal, and I will not be humoring her in the future.

    Just a reminder that sometimes these battles go 90% your way, and that's fine.

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  27. We need to re-conquer the krauts to get it through their heads that the rules were meant for man, not man for the rules. Re-Christianizing them, in a way.

    They require periodic reminders not to get too carried away with their psychotic adherence to just-following-the-rules. And it's been nearly a century since the Nazis were defeated. Time for a revisit.

    Start in the obvious place, with the Protestants, and in Germany itself in the north and east, not the relatively more normal and fun-loving south and west (Catholic).

    I'm not Catholic, was raised Methodist. But it's a handy rule-of-thumb for which Germans are krauts, and which are not.

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  28. Went maskless in a Whole Foods yesterday -- zero pushback. Not from the PMC customers or the downwardly mobile over-produced elite wannabe workers either.

    Quite a few quarantine sex-starved 20 and 30-somethings giving me some hungry looks -- not just seeing random hot guy, but not hiding behind a mask, and one with enough boldness and confidence to lead the way in public at risk to himself like that... if I do say so myself.

    This was the first time I've been to a Whole Foods in months, though, so I don't know how representative this trip was. Still, remarkably harassment-free.

    There may be a horseshoe thing going on, where the lowest common denominator places like gas stations, as well as the upscale places like Whole Foods, are lax about the protocols, and it's only in the lower-middle places (Wendy's franchise, local grocery chain) where they're being Nazis about TAKING THE PANDEMIC SERIOUSLY BIGOT.

    We saw that last year w/ Pelosi, Newsom, et al gathering indoors mask-free in large groups. And the hoi polloi doing so as well, out of sight of PMC hall monitors with their phone cameras. But in between, it's packed with elite aspirants looking to prove their worth to their superiors. SAD.

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  29. First black girl I've seen maskless, today in a thrift store. Early 20s, badass chick attitude. Perhaps blacks overall are more likely to adhere to the rules b/c in their minds they don't want to give the authorities any pretext for hassling them?

    Same place where I saw the white girl w/ dreds, and the cute young mom w/ her kids.

    Seems like the closer you get to the dense urban core, the more willing people are to go maskless, compared to the periphery of a city where it's almost suburban. Younger, less conformist group of people.

    Main enemy here is the suburban wine aunt / AWFL.

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