Stereotypical People I Find Uncanny

Interlude: The Uncanny Valley

The concept of ‘The Uncanny’ or the ‘Uncanny Valley’ as a sociological or psychological concept was recently introduced to me by my friend when we were talking about people that are stereotypes such as those in this text. I thought it was funny that there’s actually a theory for what I sometimes feel about people. I recently looked it up on Wikipedia – actually for the purpose of finding this article – and most of the discussion around the theory involves robotics.

To the right I have included a graph that depicts the ‘Uncanny Valley’ related to a theory roboticist Mashiro Mori postulated. What it seems to say is that ‘familiarity’ – a sense of being comfortable with something – is safe and even increasing along the range of robots (industrial ones like…cow milkers to maybe a pull-string doll) but quicky drops and becomes “revolting” when a robot (or other thing) get too human-like. “The theory holds that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers,” says the ‘Uncanny Valley’ Wikipedia article. “The ‘valley’ in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robot’s lifelikeness.”

It’s a departure from the stereotypical people in this piece, but reading about the Valley and the theory was interesting for me.

People who you are with on the sidewalk that see their friend who you don’t know approaching and stop and talk to that friend for five minutes and never introduce you and don’t include you in the conversation so you just sit there excluded from the conversation until the interaction ends, you never having said anything and leaving without any sort of acknowledgment to the person met on the sidewalk

The effort it takes to greet a friend and then introduce her to a person with you so that the person can be naturally included in the conversation (in the sense that social convention has now been proffered to include the person) is very small and at best a slight consideration. When I am in the position of seeing a friend on the sidewalk that I would like to talk to and I am with another person, one of the most pressing issues for me is to have the other person immediately included in the conversation so as to not create a situation where that person feels excluded or is like a ‘lame ghost.’

Concepts related to this situation are ‘feeling awkward,’ ‘feeling lame,’ ‘being inconsiderate’ and ‘being out-of-control.’

People that wear Ed Hardy

These people seem to be people that would really enjoy Las Vegas and strip clubs. Somehow they also think that Ed Hardy designs (mostly sparkly dragons and skulls) are attractive, so attractive that they will attract others of their sort. That so many people apparently exist that condone Ed Hardy such that Ed Hardy at one point in time went for a lot of money and some celebrities endorsed it is also uncanny to me. Ed Hardy seems like clothes designed by designers that also design clothes sold at Wal-Mart and Super Target.

Concepts related to people that wear Ed Hardy are Las Vegas, Wal-Mart, Super Target, Los Angeles, celebrities and maybe Tommy Lee.

People that are ‘anarchists’

I sincerely do not understand these people and perhaps it is only the result of me simply never reading anything about ‘anarchist theory’ or whatever but for me it would be very embarrassing or I would feel very unseemly if I were to advertise so loudly and blatantly that I was an anarchist, yet live and function in and be dependent on our capitalist, hierarchical society and try to excuse my reliance on “the system” with any excuse at all other than “I am using this system’s resources to prepare a revolution that will change the world into an anarchist society” or “there is a revolution that will change the world into an anarchist society happening right now and I am using this system’s resources to aid it.” I would feel stupid to justify my anti-system philosophy with concepts such as “dumpster diving” and “organic farming communes” because the existence of such concepts as a rule (unless somewhere in Central America, the jungles of Thailand, or [other peoples’ land]) rely on the hierarchical trade systems people have put into place. It would be embarrassing to me, if I were an anarchist, to even to embrace such concepts as gender and to not walk around in formless gender-skewing clothes that I made myself because even concepts such as gender seed natural hierarchies along which power will be distributed and to promote them even in the slightest would be to contribute to “the system.” Basically, the reason I find anarchists uncanny is because, like people that are devout, they seem to be abiding by a worldview that has very large and wide-reaching contradictions. But, I really don’t know all that much about anarchism and ‘anarchists,’ so the fact that I don’t understand these people may be only a result of my ignorance (as are, generally, many human-to-human misunderstandings).

Concepts related to the anarchist stereotype are patches, denim jackets, dumpster diving, organic farming communes, hippies, neo-hippies, zines, the color black, the color red, that “A” symbol in the color black and red, Soviet Russia and army caps.

People in this YouTube Video

I don’t know what this is or why it exists in any form that it has become a thing that if one does ‘right’ others respect them for it. Its subjective grotesqueness, to me, is so visceral that it is hard for me to imagine anyone finding this behavior ‘ok’ but nevertheless the video shows us that there is indeed a collective group of people that find this behavior valiant and appropriate. I do not come from such a place. I don’t understand that place.

Concepts related to the types of people found in the above YouTube video are Glen Beck, Fox News, McDonalds, Wal-Mart, “Rural America,” minivans circa mid-90s, religion, republicans and pigs.

People that have tribal tattoos

I don’t see how people continue to get tribal tattoos. I see how people got them in the 90s. When I was ten I actually thought they were kind of cool. Luckily I wasn’t old enough to get one.

Concepts related to tribal tattoos are Ed Hardy, ‘working out,’ sweatpants, Adidas trainers and orange t-shirts, shiny running shoes, caps with the bills so turned in they make a mostly formed “tube,” tank tops, ‘wife beaters’ and perhaps women in their mid thirties with long blonde hair that were cheerleaders in high school.

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