Firstly, feel free to completely ignore our lengthly posts (after all, you probably have better things to do
). And feel free to keep airing pet peeves, so that we know what's bugging people and will try to avoid them in the future.
Musings on Dufferness (and a duffer's education)
Olorin the Wise, one of the lost duffers, once said
"Indeed, non-Duffers would feel burdened by all such knowledge about such obscure facts from the history of Dufferland - not realizing, you see, that we make most of it up on the spot."
Which is really true. Why did we decide butterflies are terrifying? Merely because it was the unexpected thing to do. Why did GG start eating things? She was bored on a "car trip," and to eat history textbooks was the random thing to do.
I assure you, you're not the only one who can't follow the way our mind works.
It's perfectly fine not to like duffering, and that in no way means that duffers would think any less of you. But if one does want to learn the inside jokes, feel free to ask any one of us, and we'd be overjoyed to initiate you in our irrational ways. I promise you I won't merely tell you "it's a duffer thing." If you have the patience, I'll trace the entire development from "whalesplat" to "cliffsplat," and throw in a video link too.
As for reading the past 5,000,000 posts, that is indeed the way most of us learned. I can't count the hours I spent reading long dormant threads from several years ago. I absolutely loved it. But that doesn't mean you have to. Unless you enjoy it, there could hardly be a worse way to spend time than to spend hours reading other people thrive on their own insanity. And even if you do enjoy it, there is indeed something we call "life" that tends to get in the way.
=> It's also perfectly fine to be a duffer and completely ignore all the old references. Feel free to come on a thread and completely ignore anything we've been talking about, and come up with something completely new, such as launching tomatoes from a potato launcher at a friend's dormroom. That can become our next duffer habbit. (In fact, I'll probably be trying that on Glen next chance I get.)
Be inventive, which is what duffering is largely about (that, and insanity).
Apologies
I do apologize if we give off a cliquey feel. I can completely understand how one would get that impression, but we really do not mean to exclude others.
I also apologize that I rarely venture out to the other parts of the forums, perhaps giving the impression that I do not wish to associate with the rest of the world, which is not true. I would love to be more active in the rest of the forum, especially the Socratic Club (which I read, but without posting). But my activities are severely hindered by my limited time and energy, since college takes up a lot of my life now. And formulating my thoughts in any reasonable manners really takes a lot of energy and time. (this post itself is taking forever, and I really ought to be studying.
)
I would also love to know more members. But again, I claim time as an excuse. I am only willing to invest so much time in this forum (wonderful as it is), which, sadly, means I can only come to know a handful of people intimately.
Conclusions
Like others have said, duffers are more than just duffers. We are serious, thoughtful, friendly people, who don't bite. (At least, I don't think I've ever come across a duffer who bites). And we definitely don't expect the rest of the world to be completely like us. (I, for one, would be extremely disappointed if the entire forums degraded into dufferness.) So why bother shaping yourself to what is perceived to be a duffer's expectations? If you would like to join our festivities, jump right in with no prior "knowledge," and we'd be overjoyed. But if you decide that duffering is despicable and an utter waste of time, we would argue the former but largely concede the latter.
Sorry for the lengthly post... I felt called to defend our noble profession, and to explain that duffers are not snobs.
Again, feel free to completely ignore our lengthly posts and to continue airing annoyances, so that we know what's bugging people and will try to avoid them in the future.
