So there I was at I-Con 27 as a guest (for a change). And while it turned out that I showed up, all the guys from Dumbrella didn’t. Could I go sit in on a few panels in their place? Sure, I said.
"Great! There’s a panel at 5 on Saturday, called ‘Why People Suck’. Can you be on that?" No problem, says I.
I get there a bit early, and there’s a crowd outside the lecture room waiting to get in. Crowd? Okay, the panel’s running long. I go into the room, and it’s already packed with 250+ people. And it turns out that none of the original panelists were there. In fact, there was only one other panelist there, and he was a bit unclear as to why he was even asked to be there.
Yipes. Nothing like doing a panel in front of a large crowd who think that people suck, and the folks who were going to be there couldn’t make it.
Nevertheless, it was actually a dang good panel, and people were coming up to me for the rest of the con saying how much they enjoyed it, with lots of folks bringing me books to autograph. I was pretty dang proud of the panel, because not only was it entertaining, it was educational… we actually figured out why people suck.
Entitlement.
To wit: if a person things that someone else is falsely entitled to something, you think that person sucks. And conversely, if you do something that you think you’re entitled to do and someone else things you’re not, that person thinks you suck.
The person who makes a left from the right lane? Sucks.
The yo-yo who drives the gas guzzler? Sucks.
The gabber in the movie theater who thinks that it’s his living room? Sucks.
Someone who puts her bag on the seat next to her on the crowded bus, taking up an extra seat? Sucks.
The guy on the subway who blocks the door so people can’t get in or out? Sucks.
The parent who uses his child as a cudgel to get into a subway car? Sucks.
The politician who thinks he gets a pass on laws the rest of us have to obey? Really sucks.
Oddly enough, I came across this quote attributed to Bill Clinton:
The great divide in this country is not by race or even income, it’s by those who think they are better than everyone else and think they should play by a different set of rules.
…which is ironic, because Hillary Clinton was a topic of discussion on the panel, because of her acting like she’s entitled to the Democratic nomination for President. Which is why more and more people think that she… aw, you know.
Give me your examples of people who suck in the comments, and let’s see if we can figure out what they think they’re entitled to.