<p>It’s so easy to call something “pretentious.”</p>
<p>If I like foreign films, am I pretentious?</p>
<p>If I like indie bands that only 100 people know, am I pretentious?</p>
<p>If I’m into a Brazilian artist who studied in Japan, am I pretentious?</p>
<p>Or do I just like those things?</p>
<p>So many things are called pretentious, but only some deserve that label. </p>
<p>Discuss.</p>
<p>Is that a bad thing. It just shows that you want to be unique (although I’d recommend going for high quality things rather than just unusual things)</p>
<p>Um…I don’t ACTUALLY like those things…haha just examples. Well, I have seen some foreign films</p>
<p>People who act like they’ve got a chip on their shoulders, just because they’ve discovered their philosophy or the meaninglessness of life, and haven’t paused to consider that thousands of people have gone through the same exact experience…that annoys me. Slightly pretentious.</p>
<p>Also, liking any of these things doesn’t make you pretentious. You like what you like. </p>
<p>You’re pretentious only if you like them because other people forced them on you, or that you think it sets you apart from the rest of the crowd. </p>
<p>Like the “popular” girls in my school are going through a Hello Kitty phase (also seen at H&M), because right now, anti-cool is the new cool. Pretentious.</p>
<p>A lot of people in my English class are pretentious in the way they write, with a bunch of unnecessarily big words, like pusillanimous. How about just saying cowardly, so we actually get what you mean and we don’t have to whip out our dictionaries?</p>
<p>In terms of when to use “big” words, I think of this quote</p>
<p>“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter it’s the difference between a lightning bug and the lightning.” (Mark Twain)</p>
<p>^^And I agree—if you like them for yourself, then fine…but to impress people, just NO.</p>
<p>I like all of those things, but I’ve met enough pretentious people to know that I am not pretentious XD</p>
<p>For me, pretentiousness comes from people becoming overconfident about their world views, to the point that they look down on others’ point of view as “pointless” or 'inferior" because they are oh-so-cultured. It’s fine when it’s someone that has a world view, happens to be wise and has truly meditated on their purpose in life, but it does make a person pretentious if they look at it really shallowly. </p>
<p>It also has to do with when they like something half-heartedly (or I like to call it, half-assedly), because they think “Oh, oh my god, it totally gets me.” But then they don’t even think about it more deeply on a personal level. Those two things irk me to deeeath!</p>