Stuff you hate (aka: the new f. you thread)

[Barry Egan]

I hate working in post production.  Could anything go right ever? 

Shit, try working in a rental house.  I'm basically expected to know absolutely everything about 15 different kinds of of cameras and every conceivable piece of production gear, but I get paid dogshit and am treated like a PA on a Klaus Kinski set. 

[Steve of Bloomington]

Being a prisoner of my karaoke success. C'mon, I want to do a song besides 'Staying Alive' already. I'm so much more than the 'Staying Alive' guy.

[dnk]

I don't listen to too much rap, but when I do, I definitely don't want to hear some DJ trying to make a name for himself by vandalizing the track by shouting over it.

Aziz Ansari did a hilarious parody of this really weird phenomenon.

[Bryan]

Use of the term "button-down" to refer generically to a shirt that is buttoned rather than a shirt with a button-down collar.

The first time I heard this, it caused a fight between me and my girlfriend at the time. Since then, I've heard it so often that I'd  come to assume that I was wrong. I feel so vindicated!

[yesno]

Use of the term "button-down" to refer generically to a shirt that is buttoned rather than a shirt with a button-down collar.

The first time I heard this, it caused a fight between me and my girlfriend at the time. Since then, I've heard it so often that I'd  come to assume that I was wrong. I feel so vindicated!

It's also odd to me that "button-down" is a synonym for (to quote the New Oxford American) "conservative or unimaginative." As seen on the wonderful series of Bob Newhart albums. But how did that come to be?  Button-down collars originate in sports and are still considered somewhat informal.  I mean, you wouldn't wear one to a coronation or your daughter's wedding.

[Sarah]

They originated in sports?  I didn't know that.  Neither did I know that they're still considered more informal than their non-button-down brethren.  

It's not for nothing that I posted "Fuck fashion.  Fuck trends" on the original FOTchan.

[fonpr]

They originated in sports?  I didn't know that.  Neither did I know that they're still considered more informal than their non-button-down brethren.  

It's not for nothing that I posted "Fuck fashion.  Fuck trends" on the original FOTchan.

Fashion is fascism.  Lester Bangs

[yesno]

Well, even the normal business suit arose as an informal alternative to morning dress and frock coats. And the tailcoat arose as a better horse-riding technology. The history of clothes is generally something starting out as casual/country/sporting/informal wear and gradually becoming seen as more and more formal. Sweatpants and basketball shorts are the endgame.

But yes, the canned story is that polo (or rugby) players were seen in England with custom shirts with button-down collars to prevent flapping.  These were then brought to the US by Brooks Brothers as "polo shirts" (which term is now used to refer to what were once called "tennis shirts"). The Brooks Brothers association made it a WASPy kind of thing, which is I guess where the metaphorical sense comes from.

I think that a button-down collar is fine for most job interviews or day-to-day wear in an office, especially today, but that kind of collar would be out of place in some formal situations.  I'd say it's the shirt equivalent of wearing a blazer instead of a matched suit jacket.  Men's shoes are also of varying levels of "formality" with wingtips with a lot of brogueing and loafers on the informal end, for instance.

Meanwhile as I write this I'm wearing a fluorescent blue t shirt I bought at a craft store, ill-fitting khakis and flithy checkered slip-on Vans. But I like to be informed.  

[yesno]

They originated in sports?  I didn't know that.  Neither did I know that they're still considered more informal than their non-button-down brethren.  

It's not for nothing that I posted "Fuck fashion.  Fuck trends" on the original FOTchan.

Fashion is fascism.  Lester Bangs

I don't like "fashion" but I do like "style," which I define as looking generically 20th century.  More Duke of Windsor than Helmut Lang.

I would like to arrange things such that I live in the world of Brideshead Revisited, but with less gay Catholic drunk sadness.

[Andy]

It's not for nothing that I posted "Fuck fashion.  Fuck trends" on the original FOTchan.

I can't believe that you admit to being involved with those animals.

[fonpr]

Well, even the normal business suit arose as an informal alternative to morning dress and frock coats. And the tailcoat arose as a better horse-riding technology. The history of clothes is generally something starting out as casual/country/sporting/informal wear and gradually becoming seen as more and more formal. Sweatpants and basketball shorts are the endgame.

But yes, the canned story is that polo (or rugby) players were seen in England with custom shirts with button-down collars to prevent flapping.  These were then brought to the US by Brooks Brothers as "polo shirts" (which term is now used to refer to what were once called "tennis shirts"). The Brooks Brothers association made it a WASPy kind of thing, which is I guess where the metaphorical sense comes from.

I think that a button-down collar is fine for most job interviews or day-to-day wear in an office, especially today, but that kind of collar would be out of place in some formal situations.  I'd say it's the shirt equivalent of wearing a blazer instead of a matched suit jacket.  Men's shoes are also of varying levels of "formality" with wingtips with a lot of brogueing and loafers on the informal end, for instance.

Meanwhile as I write this I'm wearing a fluorescent blue t shirt I bought at a craft store, ill-fitting khakis and flithy checkered slip-on Vans. But I like to be informed.  

Fashion IS fascism.

[Steve of Bloomington]

Why isn't it spelled Fascion, then?

Well, even the normal business suit arose as an informal alternative to morning dress and frock coats. And the tailcoat arose as a better horse-riding technology. The history of clothes is generally something starting out as casual/country/sporting/informal wear and gradually becoming seen as more and more formal. Sweatpants and basketball shorts are the endgame.

But yes, the canned story is that polo (or rugby) players were seen in England with custom shirts with button-down collars to prevent flapping.  These were then brought to the US by Brooks Brothers as "polo shirts" (which term is now used to refer to what were once called "tennis shirts"). The Brooks Brothers association made it a WASPy kind of thing, which is I guess where the metaphorical sense comes from.

I think that a button-down collar is fine for most job interviews or day-to-day wear in an office, especially today, but that kind of collar would be out of place in some formal situations.  I'd say it's the shirt equivalent of wearing a blazer instead of a matched suit jacket.  Men's shoes are also of varying levels of "formality" with wingtips with a lot of brogueing and loafers on the informal end, for instance.

Meanwhile as I write this I'm wearing a fluorescent blue t shirt I bought at a craft store, ill-fitting khakis and flithy checkered slip-on Vans. But I like to be informed.  

Fashion IS fascism.

[erika]

I hate people who sign up to receive emails from my company and then report us as Spam. If you don't like it then unsubscribe! We make it so easy for you. Just click the linky link and press the confirm button. And then don't RE-subscribe just to do it all over again! Fucking moron customers.

[yesno]

I hate people who sign up to receive emails from my company and then report us as Spam. If you don't like it then unsubscribe! We make it so easy for you. Just click the linky link and press the confirm button. And then don't RE-subscribe just to do it all over again! Fucking moron customers.

I'll fight you on this, because so many companies make it too easy to "sign up" for email without realizing it.  You didn't uncheck the little button on the button of page three?  Your fault, then.  Fuck that.  I've never reported anything other than to my own spam filters, which are my business, or sometimes I just bounce the email back.

Plus, there are some companies that seem unable to honor unsubscribe requests (SURELY he'll want to know about something of THIS importance), and actual spammers who use "unsubscribe" links only as a way to verify that an email address is real so that they can send it more spam.

I'm not saying you guys do that.  I'm sure you make people actively and intelligently opt in to stuff. And when there is something I have signed up for, or at least a company I'm somewhat friendly about, I'll do the unsubscribe link. But this is the perspective of people who are bombarded with nonstop bullshit email.

And hey, how about companies that say "click here to unsubscribe" and then make you log in with your "account"?

[erika]

Those aren't companies that do that, those are spammers. They're doing something illegal. We are not. It's part of my job to make sure that we're not, and I do that. When you subscribe, you know you're subscribing. It's clear. So no need to fight me on it, really.