Innocuous things that make you irrationally embarrassed

any time someone brings up a fact they learned from a recent cracked article/etc everyone's already read

How you refer to your grandparents is another minefield.

Yes. When my oldest nephew was a baby, and learning to talk, he couldn't say "grandma" or any of the more common variants properly, so what he said came out basically as "mimi." It stuck, and so he kept using it, and then when my other nephew and niece were born, that's they word they were taught. Those kids are 23, 17 and 15 now and it makes me cringe to hear people that age referring to my mother as "mimi."

I thought this was a New England thing (maybe also midwest).

― nickn, Friday, December 14, 2012 11:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nah, if you say "pop" in New England, they don't know what the fuck you're talking about, and/or will taunt you mercilessly.

I always feel about 2 years old when customer service people start being too friendly with me. All my answers become v quiet, shy, one word answers

As someone who does customer service, I always feel 2 years old when I have to make fake-ass friendly small talk with customer (we're strongly encouraged to do so). "So, the weather. You...um...r-rain?"

Typos. Whether online or in academic work or correspondence.

It's a combination of being able to type 90 wpm and years of ridicule by intimidating English teachers. Also my mom was an English major (drop out) and I have never been able to write perfect sentences like her!! I can barely read her grammar school English book. It has sentence diagramming in it!

-bloggers who respond to all the comments people leave them, especially if they're very polite and dutiful and non-controversial. it'll go something like...

blog entry: Here's a review of a book I read. I loved it!

commenter 1: I loved it too!

blogger: I know, huh? Thanks for reading my blog!

commenter 2: I hated it!

blogger: I actually hated it the first time I read it, but I went back to it recently and found that I loved it! Of course you're entitled to your own opinion :) Thanks for reading my blog!

commenter 3: I loved it too!

commenter 4: I loved it too!

blogger: I'm glad you feel that way, commenters 3 and 4! I'm so blown away by all these positive responses! Thanks for reading my blog!

What embarrasses me is the sense that they're grateful for getting any response at all — they feel so blessed and so *famous* for getting 200 hits and 5 comments that they have to express their gratitude publicly.

I'm also embarrassed by youtube users who respond gratefully to comments left on their own videos. It's even worse if the video isn't even their own creation (especially if it's a shaky home recording of a Family Guy clip) and the uploader still feels the need to go, "aw shucks, I never dreamed this would reach 80,000 views. Thanks for your support, guys!" Poor kid just figured out how to point a camera at a TV screen and upload the resulting clip to youtube, and suddenly they have aspirations of going viral, not realizing that thousands of youtube videos have 80,000 views and dozens of other people have uploaded that exact same Family Guy clip. I hate to find out that there's a real, earnest human presence behind what I thought was just a cynical grab for pageviews.

I mean like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZJC6x7iebU

Uploaded on Dec 24, 2009

Hi everyone :D I made this video 3 years ago not really expecting what to happen i would of never thought of having 340,000 views i have met alot of amazing people here on youtube and i would really like to thank everyone who has liked the video and supported me thanks i hope i made you laugh !

er, and for similar reasons I get kinda embarrassed for tteggaR deN when I see him responding to every single mention of his name on a certain message board :-/

https://twitter.com/TTEGGAR

I feel the opposite
I love that shit, it feels like a Farmer's Market.

"ooooh you grew that kale yourself? and you're making $2 a bunch? so like you have to sell how much to make a profit on your drive down here? oooooh and you made your own yogurt? and jarred it yourself? do you have any idea how easily available domestically produced yogurt is?" etc.

Ah customer service...I'm always flustered but a bit flattered when they ask me if the food I'm buying is "good". But it catches me off guard.

tense/embarassing tv is big for me. the office, curb your enthusiasm, and most reality shows are completely unwatchable. i've had to bury my head in chair cushions when people have started watching "my super sweet 16".

at work we had a going-away party for some executive who was returning to france with his wife and kids. the ceo got up and starting telling french jokes and giving them ~american~ gifts like cowboy hats and plastic toy rifles for the kids. the executive and the ceo probably worked together every day and i've never talked to either of them, but that didn't stop me from curling up in the fetal position for 5 minutes while this was happening.

Oh lord, my work had a presentation for the longest-serving secretary when she retired, the centrepiece of which was the CEO pulling her most carefully-kept files out of the drops behind her desk and ripping them up - "You won't be needing these!" - to her visible discomfort. I imagine he was the only person present who didn't want to die at that moment.

i'm currently watching "The 25 Most Heartwarming Holiday TV Moments" on the TV Guide network which apparently still exists, and the whole thing is one big cringefest. the talking head to actual footage ratio is about 95:5 and apparently everyone was just told to describe every single thing that happens in each show. and every time someone pauses, they do this fake fast zoom-in for the beat, except they're all being interviewed in front of a green screen so it's just their entire bodies getting thrown at you and tilting to one side for some reason. and they're currently jubilating bob geldof. the whole thing is like some fluffy so-inoffensive-it's-offensive SEO-driven listicle except you have to sit through real people alternating each sentence.

I'm the same way about sitcoms. Classic post around here somewhere about squirming while watching Frasier deal with two dates at a dinner party.

I can't watch those confrontational IRL videos, even a really good reporter confronting a horrible white-collar criminal on camera. Basically any time there's a security guy covering a lens and a cameraman yelling, hands off the equipment!, I turn away.

Really hate it when people "on my side" do stupid shit i.e. Michael Moore or somebody pretending to lie down dead in front of a Walmart to protest poor health benefits.

I LOVE CONFRONTATIONAL VIDEOS, especially the ones where the pedos go to the house and ooops...it's a seventeen year old male or something. Comedy gold!!!

I miss Candid Camera.

The pedo ones are much more laid-back though. "Have a seat here. Let's talk. Want some cookies?"

lol i did "die-ins" in college, they're embarrassing and awkward for everyone

I get embarrassed when I hear someone sing the phrases "ring-ting-tingling" or "pah-rum-pum-pum-pum"

ting ting tingling tooooooooooo
outside i look normal but inside i'm dying for yooooooooou

(who will feel irrationally embarrassed on my behalf for that terrible joke?! anyone? because i feel nothing.)

Not me. I liked it.

I could make a long list of things I remember saying in the past that are innocuous by virtue of me saying them so long ago and everything turning out all right but so so embarrassing that I can't even think of them much less publicly expose them.

"This episode of TNG where Q gives Riker Q powers and Riker grants everyone their dreams is killing meeeeeeeee"
it is totally totally rational to be embarrassed by season 1 of TNG. I think the collective shame was responsible for the uptick in quality in later seasons.

We got the season one Blu-Rays for Christmas from my parents so we are re watching them all. The only way I could get through Code of Honor was to point out how racist it was, which means I never stopped talking through the whole episode.

A few months ago my cashier at CVS told me it was her "privilege" to ring me up.

the middle aged woman at the lights today who was listening to gangnam style so loud that her car was shaking

when large crowds of ppl start clapping along in time with music

yes, oh my god, I wish they wouldn't, seriously

large crowds of ppl doing anything in unison

except for when crowds are just being crowds like at a concert or football match or whatever

towards the nocuous end of the rational embarrassment spectrum

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/9748511/SantaCon-2012-thousands-invade-London-hot-spots-to-mark-Christmas.html

Requiring a poo just after bathing
Grr

Wrong thread

Requiring a bath just after pooing

requiring a poo bath

when people in the movie theater applaud at the end of the movie.

also, this train conductor on BART who, at every station, says, "this is a richmond train, richmond, richmond train, richmond train, richmond, richmond train, this is a richmond train, richmond, richmond train." or, more accurately, "this is a richmond train? richmond? richmond train. richmond train. richmond? richmond train. this is a richmond train? richmond? richmond train."

lol

Those kids are 23, 17 and 15 now and it makes me cringe to hear people that age referring to my mother as "mimi."

Haha when I was a kid we had the same thing with the next door neighbours. For reasons I dont recall anymore, when we were too little to wrap our head round peoples full names (I guess), I'd referred to Mrs X as Morning because she's always chip "morning!' over the fence to my mum. I'd apparently also named Mr X as Trousers, and I dont know why.

Both names stuck fast and right up til our teens me and my brothers referred to Morning and Trousers next door and thought nothing of it. Until I'd have to explain it to a random visitng friend who'd hear us refer to them that way and smirk bemusedly and say "WHAT did you just call them?"

I feel weird now relaying this story because it occurs to me it was completely utterly normal to me at the time, and only now I realise how not normal it was.

This thread is making me realize how often I must do innocuous things that (for some reason unknown to me) make other people feel irrationally embarrassed. Every time I walk out the door I'm probably making someone quietly weep with shame on my behalf.

posting that ^^^ was probably humiliating, for instance

didn't even have to leave home!

their prob imo

i hope they enjoy those salty droplets of barely concealed disgust

anyone calling their SO "babe" or "baby" ever

dudes standing behind their girlfriends and rubbing them during rock concerts.

Patting their heads and rubbing their stomachs?

I would have put that on the angry thread tbh /bitteroldman

i'll rub my babe anywhere i like, deal

"ironic" "racism" : yes I understand you are probably mocking attitudes you do not hold yourself whilst also enjoying the trangressive naughtiness but STOP NOW.