Cause and Affectation

When you work retail, you start to notice people's odd quirks. Standing at the front counter of Laser Blazer every day's like mandatory, enforced people-watching. You have to pay attention because they're customers, and they might at any moment have some dumb or annoying request to make of you, so you can't help but notice what weirdos and assholes they all are.

When I worked at an Orange County Barnes & Noble store a few years ago, I was taken aback by how many people have obvious, strange affectations. Little things they do to set themselves apart, to make people notice them or think they're interesting or special, or even just for their own personal edification. There are, of course, the oft-discussed bird people, who would come in with an exotic pet on his/her arm so that someone might actually be inspired to talk to them. Maybe they'd be more popular if one shoulder wasn't littered with tiny parrot turds, but I'm certainly not going to suggest this to them.

My point is, there have always been these sorts of people walking around. But I think the problem's getting worse. I think corporate marketing and constant media influence has convinced people that they're naked without certain expensive accessories, and now we're starting to see the horrifying result.

For example, there's a ton of people milling about the store all day now with iPods or other MP3 players hooked up, listening to their music and zoning the world out. I guess even the relatively interesting, engaging activity of shopping for movies has become a grim, mundane exercize for these folks.

Really think about that. We live in a society where the mere act of going out, walking around, and shopping now requires constant musical accompaniment. Can't someone just exist for a few minutes without a steady stream of new stimuli. Can't the new Nickelback single wait a few minutes until we've conducted a business transaction in a civilized manner?

And that's not even getting into the non-mp3 headphone people. Ugh, I hate this. The people with cell phones strapped to their head 24 hours a day. I hope the theory is correct, and cell phones cause massive brain tumors, but only in people who keep their phones turned on all the time and walk around using those idiotic Time-Life operator style headsets.

And then they start talking and you think they're talking to you, but really they're talking to some guy at their office about some crap they could easily catch up on the next day, so you're left there having a non-existent conversation with some douchebag you didn't even want to talk to in the first place. And all the cell phone people have the same mannerisms as well. When they walk up and they're on the phone, they do that little one-finger-raised "Just gimme a second" look...then when the conversation continues, they do the half-shrug "oh, I just can't get out of this conversation now" thing...Then, when you're finally finished the transaction, made more difficult becuase one half of the thing is being completed by some guy who's thoroughly engrossed in some dumbass phone chit-chat, they give you the mouthed (but silent) "thank you" and go on their merry way.

But the worst affectation I've seen at the store belongs to one customer in particular. He walks around all day with a freaking camera hanging around his neck.

I'm serious. A whole camera. As if he's going to have to urgently take a picture of something inside our video store. What a maroon. It's not like he's a photojournalist, and any moment a war's going to break out on Pico that he'll simply need to capture for posterity. He watches movies for a living. That's it! So what's the camera for? In case someone doesn't believe he really rented movies, and he needs evidence?

Not to mention, there's nothing in our store but DVD boxes and other asshole customers wearing iPods and cameras. You could find more interesting photo subjects just about anywhere. He could give himself a colonoscopy and come up with a more appealing photograph.

Wearing a camera around your neck all the time is about the most ludicrous thing you could do. It speaks to an intense, heated self-loathing. He obviously thinks he's a completely uninteresting individual, and the only reason anyone would take even a passing notice of him is if he seems artistic and mysterious.

But a true artist, someone really creative, doesn't need to let everyone know about their outlet, their art. They don't have that insecurity. You don't see great sculptors walking around all day molding clay, or the great chefs of the world driving down Melrose while whipping up a nice saffron risotto. But you see [unnamed film critic] doing this every day.