Comment by jtbayly
5 hours ago
Either way, that’s not feigning surprise. Odd to call it that. What they are saying is when you are surprised somebody didn’t know something, don’t let it show.
So “feign unsurprise.”
5 hours ago
Either way, that’s not feigning surprise. Odd to call it that. What they are saying is when you are surprised somebody didn’t know something, don’t let it show.
So “feign unsurprise.”
The reason we call it "feigning surprise", is that the surprise is pretty rarely genuine. It's an interaction people have more-or-less-unthinkingly practiced throughout their lives to keep the out-group separated from the in-group
This is a sharply negative interpretation of behavior of people who may be acting genuinely, if without social grace. I think few people shocked that you don't know bash are displaying that surprise as a way to keep you in the out-group - I think they are surprised.
I would argue that the real in-group/out-group behavior is excluding people who aren't naturally adept at being social.
Wow, you didn't know this kind of behavior is insulting? Crazy!
1 reply →
The whole point of making it a rule is so those people can learn it and avoid accidentally putting other people down.
4 replies →
People doing that are doing it intentionally, and they aren't going to follow your rule.
People who are open to listening are not pretending to be surprised in order to put somebody down. They are actually surprised and (perhaps) unintentionally hurting somebody. If that somebody is hurt, they need to ask themselves which hurts more, having somebody surprised you didn't know something (aka they think you are smart), or being unsurprised you are ignorant of something (aka they think you don't know stuff).
> People doing that are doing it intentionally
Not usually, no. They haven't (for the most part) adopted gatekeeping behaviour just to be dicks, they've adopted it as a method of signalling to other members of the in-group that they too belong to the in-group.
From their perspective, the effect on the person in the out-group is merely collateral damage.
If somebody says something rude to me, why would my reaction be to try to decide if I’m glad they were rude unintentionally?
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> What they are saying is when you are surprised somebody didn’t know something, don’t let it show.
Thats about 50% of what they’re saying. The name comes from the other half.