Who we are

For long periods of time (mostly on my walk to and from University) I ponder upon how we view each other. What is it in humanity that creates judgement from the smallest of characteristics?

If I meet somebody and tell them I play Star Trek online, they immediately have an impression of me in their head. If a month later they find out I participate in kickboxing, I become the geek who does a bit of training on the side. If, however, I lead with the kickboxing, and said about the shameful online gaming a month later, it's a completely different image. It's a more positive image - socially you're a few rungs further up the ladder despite doing the same thing.

For the record I don't play StarTrek online (though I hear it's fun) and technically I don't kickbox, but it was hypothetical. I do find it difficult to not judge people based on their activities, depending on the activities. Cosplay is one of those things. I don't have anything against it, I just find the motives behind dressing up as an anime character, pretending to be that character, slightly odd. It's probably very fun, I just can't help but judge people who professionally cosplay, or constantly cosplay, because to me it gives the message they're unhappy with their personalities and so must emulate the personality of their favourite anime character. Of course there will be people doing it for better reasons - vanity, carefree fun, but I always see the worst in it, as do most people, I assume.

But what is that? Why can't I just think "oh, that's nice, what else do you do?" What is it that attaches that stigma in the same way I consider people who don't use proper english to be of a lesser intelligence. It's pure elitism. Maybe it's ingrained in me, maybe I'm just a dick, it's irrelevant - I'm really trying to ignore the fact "u lyk 2 b on tym 4 skool", and sometimes it works. Other times I wonder if your dictionary was ran over by a Snowmobile and half of the vowels were obliterated. This is the weird thing though, I don't judge people based on sexuality, gender, race, height or weight, but if you can't spell, or you dress up as Yu-Gi-Oh on a regular basis, I can't help but harbour some prejudice, and I hate that I do so.