I immerse myself in everything, that helps reaffirm my beliefts everyday.

I can't say that I "avoid" TV, I just have no interest in it. I do however actively avoid any sort of music paraphernalia like concerts, tributes, themed nights, and any other music-centered events. The whole symbolism and fan base of almost any music is extremely annoying to me, even if I like the music in question.

There are days when it seems like a losing battle, but smartphones...

I'm sure it's been mentioned on these forums, but smartphones are the ultimate revenge of the nerds. They have everyone - including the fine looking women we all covet - staring at their phones 24/7. As someone who relishes alone time when you can't be reached, having a smart phone is like a pack of smokes and a lighter in your drawer when you're 36-hours smoke free. Smartphones have changed how we interact so much but nobody's paying attention because they're all looking at their damn phones.

Still, I'm in retreat. At a party on Saturday I:

1. Kept my old Samsung flipper in my pocket.

2. Told girls I didn't bring my phone.

3. During number exchanges I told them to, "Text something funny to XXX-XXX-XXXX and if it's good I'll respond..."

The only "acceptable" flip-phone person in today's society is the senior citizen and even that's changing/changed.

I'm not knocking the internet. Still, living sans smartphone allows me to compartmentalize my information-gathering and/or time-wasting. We only need to gather so much information before it becomes a crutch.

PS. Facebook and Instagram as well. Social media and smartphones are one hand washing the other, so to speak. Twitter, however, is dope and has turned me on to some different perspectives.

I've excised the following from my life completely:

Videogames
Watching sports
News
Porn
90% of TV (exceptions are Mad Men, House Of Cards, True Detective, a few others...you know, manly stuff ; )

My weakness is social media and surfing the net...it's a real time suck for me, and I need to learn to lower my intake, but it's a hard habit to break.

Gossip in all forms

I avoid many of the things mentioned already that constitute mainstream culture. Actually, it's not too difficult to avoid such things because I live in a non-Anglophone society. Whenever I go to Australia to visit my family though, I am surprised at just how fucking retarded people's lives are. It's like someone has suddenly turned the volume up. The inane conversations, the consumerism, the drinking culture, the obsession with sport are all stupid. Likewise, I can't get about three pages into any newspaper or ten minutes into a television programme before I want to call in a bomb threat to the main offices. The worst things are the letters to the editor or one of those political discussion shows where they have a stacked panel of smug cunts (usually the very same people who created or exacerbated the problem being discussed, yet who still want to have everyone believe that they're the experts) and a whack-a-mole audience of the living brain dead. They let those people vote, too!

I avoid most websites except the manopshere/reactosphere or links provided from within it.

(09-16-2014 10:57 AM)Baldwin81 Wrote:  There are days when it seems like a losing battle, but smartphones...

I'm sure it's been mentioned on these forums, but smartphones are the ultimate revenge of the nerds. They have everyone - including the fine looking women we all covet - staring at their phones 24/7. As someone who relishes alone time when you can't be reached, having a smart phone is like a pack of smokes and a lighter in your drawer when you're 36-hours smoke free. Smartphones have changed how we interact so much but nobody's paying attention because they're all looking at their damn phones.

Still, I'm in retreat. At a party on Saturday I:

1. Kept my old Samsung flipper in my pocket.

2. Told girls I didn't bring my phone.

3. During number exchanges I told them to, "Text something funny to XXX-XXX-XXXX and if it's good I'll respond..."

The only "acceptable" flip-phone person in today's society is the senior citizen and even that's changing/changed.

I'm not knocking the internet. Still, living sans smartphone allows me to compartmentalize my information-gathering and/or time-wasting. We only need to gather so much information before it becomes a crutch.

PS. Facebook and Instagram as well. Social media and smartphones are one hand washing the other, so to speak. Twitter, however, is dope and has turned me on to some different perspectives.

I'm even one step (or several) more extreme. I try to avoid telephones in general. I find them to be a rude, disruptive device. Yet people think that just because they've called you at that particular moment, you must drop everything you're doing just to talk to them. Obviously, they don't know that you're busy, but it's still annoying. I can't stand it when people casually answer a phone call in my presence and then proceed to have a conversation. I've walked away from such people before. I knew a guy once who used to get up and leave dates if a girl answered her phone, and that was pre-smart phones. I think I took a leaf out of his book.

In the entire time I lived in Australia, I never had a mobile phone. The first one I ever got was in England because the house I lived in didn't have a land line and I initially worked as a substitute teacher and the agency needed to be able to contact me, often on the road. Still, I hated the bloody thing.

Currently, I do own a smart phone (it came with the contract). It's usually turned off/out of power. Most of the time, I don't even know where it is. I use it a couple of times a year if I go away and still need to be able to contact my wife. I'm not sure it's really worth having it, to be honest. People tell me I'm notoriously hard to get in contact with. Good. That's the whole point. My life, my rules. I tell them they can ring my wife instead (I usually don't even answer the land line we have for our business). Even then, when many people call my wife, I usually tell her to tell them I'll call them back and to arrange a set time for that.

I am officially a grumpy old man.

Quite a few actually, I'm talking strictly about Japan and Vietnamese cultures only since I am only familiar with them:

- TV, it's just a brainwashing machine, the amount of propaganda is unbelievable
- Newspaper: The news on the newspapers here can give the dailymail a run for its money
- Idols: I still don't get the point, fantasy about girls who are probably get fucked frequently by their producers and pretend they are innocent, what's the fucking point?
- gossiping, badmouth others behind their backs, have no thing better to do?
-feng sui, what the fucking fuck is this shit?
-Smartphone I try to leave smartphone at home everytime I go out now

Sports is something I have completely lost interest in and can give a shit about which is strange because growing up sports was my life, more playing than spectating but definately went to a lot of games, watched on tv, followed stats and stuff.

I think around the time I stopped playing sports interest started to decline. Did fantasy sports and stuff with friends probably more for the social aspect than anthing else but these days I can't stand sports in my opinion what a waste of time and energy, don't wanna go out with a bunch of dudes and pay a bunch of money to sit in a sports bar drinking miller lite and eating wings, rather spend my money elsewhere.

SOmething that sticks out in my mind is the line in Bronx tale where Sonny tells the kid you think Mickey Mantle cares about you, why you care about Mickey Mantle lol.

Video games is something else I've cut out of my life, not that I don't enjoy them but more a time and money issue. I don't have the time, plus if you wanna get every new game that comes out your looking at $60 a game. I have buddies who spend 3-4 hours a night all sitting on xbox with tehir headsets on just does nothing for me. I sorta get it now guys have jobs, live spread apart its kinda a way for everyone to "get together" and do something hangout without having the time to but just doesn't appeal to me.

Facebook is osmething else I am not and have not been involved in aside from having some fake accounts for business promotion stuff.

Smartphones - My phone has buttons and I like it that way. Same with tablets. It really depresses me when I see hordes of idiots going around with their faces glued to these fucking things. Sure, I go around with my headphones in when I'm alone, but that's just me soundtracking the mundane to make it a more interesting experience. Getting a bus for example. They can keep those fucking things.

Game of Thrones - fuck off. Its like Eastenders for neckbeards with added superflous nudity, one dimensional characters for morons, and entry level political intrigue. That Danaerys character is such a fucking bitch. Last year I was talking to this smoking hot girl at a bar and the topic turned to GOT. I usually pretend that I actually give a micron of a shit about the show, because being sat around a bunch of wankers talking about something I don't care about (therefore alienating me from the discussion) does my bloody head in, and people apparently love to just not shut the fuck up about this damn show. Anyway, the hottie goes on about how much she loves that character and says "I want to BE herrrrr"....my opinion fell through the floor like a concrete elephant through a table made of MDF.

Memes, internet/social media humour, etc - the majority of the time anyway. So much of it is derivative and entirely un-amusing.

Hollywood movies and mainstream music, drugs, most television, news.

Some I'm working on: eating out (worked in the restaurant industry before, never met a phonier, ruder bunch in my life than restaurant staff), politics, fads (selfies, memes, certain clothes).

Some I absolutely can't kick: beer, sports, Facebook, smartphone. I use the last two a lot only because I don't watch much TV so I find out the majority of my news through the internet.

Clash of Clans.

That game is taking over.