Thursday 26 June 2014

Double X

This post came up in my Facebook feed today:

I felt really compelled to point out that it was Jean-Luc Picard in the image, not Charles Xavier, though both are portrayed by Patrick Stewart, so the confusion is understandable. I guess that's the same as calling Daniel Radcliffe Harry Potter, or Arnold Schwarzenegger the Terminator, since they're very well known for those roles. Note that she didn't tag anyone when she said Charles, so it's unlikely that she's referring to a friend of hers called Charles who is also bad at maths.

I was a bit reluctant to say anything, because it seemed really mean to make fun of someone in a public place like Facebook. Plus, I don't know this person well enough to be able to judge whether she'd take it badly or not. I couldn't think of a nice yet funny way of phrasing it without sounding like a bitch. I asked MrMan5.5 whether it would be mean to point it out, and he said no, but I think he was trolling because he wanted me to say something and start a flame war. Since we are both friends with this person, I told him that he could post it instead, to which he replied that it would not be OK for him to post it, as it would look like girl-bashing (as the OP is female), but it would be OK for me to post it, as I'm also female.

To that point, I completely disagree. There seems to be even harsher scrutiny towards females criticising other females. The general response seems to be, "You're a girl, too, you're supposed to support me against this world which oppresses women!" or some kind of rubbish like that. I do not agree that you should side with someone, just because you share some kind of minority characteristic with them, in order to support them. If you believe they are wrong, then you should say so. The only exception to this rule is when the other person happens to be your significant other, and not doing so would result in you sleeping on the couch. Oh, another exception is if the person is family and they are going to make your life hell. OK, the exception is, you shouldn't need to side with them, unless not doing so would result in severe repercussions towards yourself.

Anyway, for that reason, I decided that it would also be bad for me to post on her wall, as I imagine she'd see it as the start of some cat-fight over who is the bigger nerd. I consulted with the only person I know who is an expert on both X-Men and Star Trek, and who would also reply relatively quickly, and his response was to reply with the Picard facepalm meme to see if she got it. An alternative to that was to post this image:


As funny as I thought it would be, again, I was hesitant as this would also fall into I'm-a-bigger-nerd-than-you cat-fight territory. Note: I don't think I'm a bigger nerd, I didn't even know he was Captain Jean-Luc Picard until I looked it up in IMDB - I just knew it was Star Trek and not X-Men. So in that sense, I'm also a fail nerd.

Still, it felt wrong not to say anything at all, as she would continue life thinking that it was Charles Xavier in that picture, and perhaps someone who was not as nice as I am (hahahaha) would make fun of her for it. So I decided to privately message her to let her know.


Was it a joke? I don't know. But at least now I shall rest in peace knowing that she knows the difference between Charles Xavier and Jean-Luc Picard. I avoided a cat-fight, and am now taking the opportunity to explanabrag about it in my blog.