Everyone here seems to be sticking on the specific example of smoking, but let me generalize a bit: people who experience persecution and shaming for an activity they can't help but take pleasure in, tend to be very friendly—at least to those with the same "problem", but often to people with other such "problems" that have put them through the same hardships. ("Problem" in quotes, because these traits are called that by others, but almost never by the person in question.)
Which is to say: a smoker, a frequent psilocybin user, a transgendered person, a furry, and an ABDL fetishist all walk into a bar... and hang out amicably, because they've all been through shit.
(One slightly annoying thing about this, though, is that this empathy-for-outré-groups-building effect stops happening as your own group becomes less outré. Homosexuality is accepted enough today that the newest generation of gay people are growing up just as intolerant of "deviance" as everyone else.)
Smokers have not experienced persecution. Please use this word more carefully or we dilute its meaning. The shaming of smokers has little in common with what Jews, homosexuals etc have had to endure. Smoking has not been made illegal, smokers are not imprisoned, smokers are not attacked and beaten up on streets. Smokers live in the same communities as non-smokers, are friends with non-smokers, study with no-smokers, work with non-smokers, date non-smokers, marry non-smokers.
The inconveniences and at times rudeness experienced by smokers doen't constitute anything that resembles persecution.
>Smokers have not experienced persecution. Please use this word more carefully or we dilute its meaning. The shaming of smokers has little in common with what Jews, homosexuals etc have had to endure.
And what Jews in the 40s had to endure has little to what a gay person in e.g. Idaho in the 80s and 90s had to endure, which was 100 times lighter. It's still persecution of sorts though.
We shouldn't trivialize a word, but we shouldn't leave some words just for the hardest of cases either.
I agree that there's higher level of empathy, especially when you are talking with people who are accepting of the "humans are not rational, nothing means anything" philosophy that is needed to handle things like mental disorders.
There does end up being a lot of suffering comparison when there's confrontation of biases though. "That might affect you sometimes, but my thing affects me all the time" or the like.
I bet a lot of us would not consider "discrimination through elitism" to be a real problem but have probably seen people be scoffed at for watching Big Bang Theory or something.
To generalise your point further generally with the experience of living away from one's home country (or, even more, one's home culture):
Aliens collect with aliens. Because of a shared experience. The shared experience is being alien.
Very specific but common example: A local telling a taxi driver a location "next to XYZ school that relocated a few years ago". That's pretty clear to a local.
However, "on the intersection of ABC and XYZ street" would be from a non-local.
Don't think of this example as in taking a taxi, or finding a place. Of the assumptions someone intimately familiar with something, assuming others are so too.
That's not true. You need to think and not, on un-thought assumption, not exclude.
this is brilliant but small nitpick it probably should be "transgender person" or "trans person" because "transgendered" has fallen out of favor for the most part
I'm old enough that I can remember smoking in movies, at the grocery store, at work (in an office and in elevators!), on buses and in planes. I lived through the systematic implementation of restrictions on where and when one could smoke. The gradual increase of shaming comments from random strangers was also unpleasant.
I quit smoking last winter right before an ambulance ride to the hospital and heart surgery. (Heart surgery is no fun, thanks for asking.) I smoked and quit and smoked again and quit again many times. The last time I quit (before this time), it lasted over nine years. Then I picked it up again during a very stressful time at work.
Frankly, I miss smoking. I don't miss the health effects, but I miss everything else about it. I can't say I won't smoke again. I've said that too many times to believe it.
And I miss smokers, mostly. They are a friendly bunch.
I remember times scrambling around airports looking for a place to smoke. Most are outside, and many are situated such that you end up having to go back through TSA screening again just to have a butt before getting on a flight. I wish I'd known about this site back then.
I quit about eight years ago now, I take care of my occasional urge by puffing on a Soex brand herbal beedie. A beedie is normally tobacco wrapped in a bay leaf, so technically it isn't a beedie.
You're still sucking down smoke, but at least there's no nicotine dragging you back, and unlike other herbal cigarettes they don't taste like ass. They have a campfire smell to them, so non-smokers don't mind them as much.
I do occasionally want to buy smoker seat in the plane, sometimes because I joke, sometimes because I genuinely forget there is no such thing any more.
Not going to have the downvotes driving my profile into oblivion. I think retirement sounds fantastic and it would be great to live to old age enjoying personal programming projects. THX.
Wonder if you might be saying the same thing when you're 65. Meaningfulness can come from places besides jobs, house plants, or Facebook I think. I could also be totally wrong, but I think it's worth attempting to find out.
Social inclusion is an essential part of life and it's completely closed off from people who are "old" in programming. I don't think I am the only person to note that.
Before I moved to e-cigarettes (and when I still didn't hate travelling), I had a memorable experience desperately trying to find a smoking lounge in an airport in Prague with a friend before our connecting flight took off. Got lost, stumbled into some desolate employee-only areas and barely made our flight, but damn did that cigarette feel good.
Nowadays, even though I consume nicotine via e-cigarettes (mostly indoors), the smoking break is still a lovely social habit, where a great many useful ideas are habitually exchanged with co-workers. I don't particularly miss cigarettes myself, but I will greatly miss smoking breaks when the last holdouts finally quit smoking.
A little off topic but hey it's the weekend so here is a little story about smoking -
I worked with a guy who used to go out for a "smoke break" every few hours with the others but never smoked. He used to grab a coffee and put the little white plastic stirrer in his mouth so he felt more a part of the group.
Anyway he got to retirement age and at his leaving gathering management presented him with a beautiful silver cigarette case. Turns out the only people who knew he didn't smoke were the smokers. He had never actually ever put a cigarette in his mouth.
I'm not sure why but I really love this memory. He was a great guy, full of funny stories and great life advice.
I quit cold turkey about a year ago after many years of a pack a day.
I remember when I first set foot in China, I smoked a cigarette inside the customs building while waiting for my visa to be processed. Over half the men are smokers in China, it is the norm.
Fast forward a few years and I move to San Francisco. One of my strongest impression was how I was perceived and treated as a smoker. It probably contributed to my decision to quit, so I'm selfishly grateful for it. But man, it is a harsh thing to experience.
I'm not sure it's a good thing overall. There are a lot of smokers who do not want to quit despite the risks. I personally try to be tolerant with them, live and let live.
Cool concept - finding a positive/supportive community online centered around an activity that has been marginalized in real life.
I thought the article would be about internet addiction and taking "draws" by hitting social media or forums a few times a day, which seems like an apt analogy from my perspective.
The ending was kind of abrupt...no moralizing or drawing of conclusions really from the author. Kind of odd but also refreshing.
I was a pack a day smoker - I quit a couple years ago.. well quit isn't the right word - I transferred my addiction to another form of nicotine (snus/dipping tobacco, as well as lozenges) - I think the part I miss most of all is the social aspects of smoking, the enjoying instant comradere with some people - it made me a better storyteller, a better and more eloquent speaker - basically helped me to a great extent shave all the rough edges off I had as a kid - it also gave me an instant social group to hang out with at work too.
I dip now, which is a slightly more exclusive club (there just seems to be fewer of us) but there is subreddit for it - that is just as supportive and friendly as r/cigarettes though - r/DippingTobacco posts are a bit weirder.
I switched to vaping about 4 years ago. Even on nights that I forget to charge and thus end up with a dead battery, I still go outside and hang with the smokers every so often.
I still appreciate the reset from the conversation at whatever social place / gathering I'm at, as well as the switch in context and opportunity to meet others. And generally, smokers don't care whether you're also smoking.
I also take the equivalent of smoking breaks while I'm working. I can vape at my desk for hours, but I like to go outside for a bit to spend 5 minutes away every so often.
It's one of the few positive (and free) habits I got from being a smoker for 22 years, and I'm not giving it up.
The hypocrisy of non-smokers still annoys me - the people who complain about cigarette smoke, but bury themselves in cologne, perfume or aftershave for example. As it turns out, I have an astoundingly strong sense of smell, or so I discovered when I quit smoking.
Great, so you can understand where non-smokers are coming from. All my neighbors smoke and I can't open my windows in nice weather because then my house just smells awful and it triggers migraines for my wife. I don't think they'd appreciate it if I left a bucket of rotting fish on my porch.
I don't like the smell of smokers or perfumes (of any sort), personally. No migraines or allergies or hypocrisy; I just think they all stink. I don't even like scented shampoo. My favorite deodorant now has an "Invisible" version that's completely unscented. I gladly overpay for it - and very much need it due to my own rotten scent after, say, 12 hours.
I smoked in my tiny 1 bedroom apartment for quite a few years. I Never smoked in the bedroom, but the rest of the apartment was open-season. I'd quit smoking in that apartment about a year before I moved to a new city. Two years later, as I was packing to move to yet another city, I realized there was a box beneath my bed I'd forgotten about. After opening it, I realized it was a forever-unopened box, full of [washed/folded] clothes that I hadn't seen in nearly a decade.
The whole apartment suddenly stunk like a bar at 10am in the nineties. It was awful. The smoke had seeped into the closed bedroom, into the closed closet, into the taped-up box and had completely saturated the clothes. It took 3 days to air out the place, and I was terrified that my landlord would show up and think that I'd smoked in the apartment, which I absolutely never would have.
My [now] wife and I looked at each other completely grossed out, with the realization that we smelled like that at all times for 22 years before we'd quit (much less than that for her).
I have never smoked, but I had a similar revelation once.
Up until I was about 35 or so, I went through a 12-pack of 12-ounce cokes in a week. I reached that inevitable point in life where my metabolism was slowing down, and I was gaining weight. I decided to go cold turkey on the cokes, as that was pretty much all of the empty calories I consumed at that time. I figured it would be tough to quit such an ingrained habit, developed over the course of 20 years or so, but it wasn't. I switched to water without incident. My weight gain stopped.
About six months later, I was eating at a restaurant, and decided to order a coke, for old time's sake. I can have one every now and then as a treat, I thought.
Good god. It tasted awful. The most sickly-sweet disgusting thing I'd ever had in my mouth. I couldn't even finish that sip, let alone the entire drink.
That was over ten years ago, and I haven't touched a single drop of any carbonated sickly-sweet beverage since then. I can't believe I ever wanted to drink something so disgusting, for so many years, in such great quantities.
I have no doubt smokers don't know how they smell, I think either they can't smell it or their brain filters it out. That has to be the case because sometimes I'm in an elevator with someone who was just smoking and I'm standing there trying not to gag while obviously they're fine. For some reason they smell worse in cold weather.
I knew I smelled, but I didn't know what I smelled like or how strong it was. If I hadn't smoked in a day or so, I could smell other smokers, but only to trigger a craving and nowhere near as strongly as now. Almost all the adults I knew were smokers when I was growing up, so I probably didn't know the absence of the smell for most of my life until I, myself, quit.
I assume my sense of smell was worse as a smoker, but I don't know that for sure. It feels more like it was a filter. This was what I smelled like, so I couldn't tell when others smelled that way. Much like dog-owners can't smell a dog in the house, but as a non dog-owner, I know the previous owners of my house kept their dogs in the basement. I'll be removing the carpet next spring because of it. Oddly, my wife can't smell it, but it's pungent to me.
I can - both smell awful to me now - but one is quite socially acceptable (cologne/perfume) - the other makes you a social pariah (smoking) most perfume gives me an instant headache that lasts somewhere between 30 min and an a couple hours. Cigarettes don't bother me in that way - but its the smokers that are the awful people - thats the hypocrisy thing.
Wew this article made me want to smoke. When they talk about cigarette reviews it reminded me of a youtube vid I saw a while back where the guy is reviewing an mre (from korean war maybe?) and smokes an old unfiltered cig and it almost lays him out.
And I'd say the writer is correct about the shared persecution or shame. There are subs on reddit devoted to drug-addiction and alcoholism which aren't about recovery, just a place to post and lounge and they're similarly nice.
> When they talk about cigarette reviews it reminded me of a youtube vid I saw a while back where the guy is reviewing an mre (from korean war maybe?) and smokes an old unfiltered cig and it almost lays him out.
This is without a doubt one of Steve1989MREInfo's videos. Probably one of the strangest channels I've ever subscribed to, I guess you'd describe him as a connoisseur of the most heavily processed and packaged form of food that humanity has ever created. And of course back your ration would come with a pack of smokes, so he tries them out too.
It's weird how mundane and yet hypnotic his videos are, and judging by his subscriber numbers I'm not the only one who feels that way. Probably something to do with his voice, he'd make a killing doing ASMR or something.
I used to smoke half a pack a day throughout college, quit cold turkey and it was a good decision. However, a few times a year I'll have a nice cocktail and bum a cigarette. Something about them is just so nice with alcohol. Then my wife complains about my smell, and I cough the next day, and I feel guilty, and I remember why I quit. But every so often I fall off the wagon
2 weeks in atm, no intention of smoking again. But this anecdote resonates with me. I think I've finally come to accept that that "Something about them is just so nice with alcohol" is just your lizard brain screaming for more of whatever you're on, it's all the same mechanism. It has a certain romanticism that goes along with it. Sitting down with a beer, having a dart, chilling out.
Yeah I think I've gotta give myself some time away from darts first before trying cigars, I reckon I'm still stuck in "inhale mode". And yeah too right, I get the same feeling, I've cut down my drinking substantially since quitting. Not a bad thing.
I frequently inhale my cigar smoke, to the chagrin of cigar smokers everywhere. Cigars are one of the few areas in life where I pamper myself. I am not really a cigar snob, but I do buy some pretty expensive cigars and then smoke a half-dozen per day.
Don't get me wrong, I'll smoke a White Owl, if offered, but I much prefer better cigars. I'm not brand-specific, and I'll even try different styles and sizes. I don't always buy very expensive cigars but I do splurge sometimes. (I am trying to avoid recommending specifics, I probably shouldn't be suggesting people smoke.)
Dart is an Aussie term, you probably wouldn't hear your standard upper class snob say it. We have a variety of words for cigarettes. I would very rarely use the term cigarette, too many syllables.
This is a little off the main point of the article, but if you want to see airports that are quite pleasant, check out Tokyo. Haneda and Narita rate 9/10 and 8/10 respectively. They have a smoking places all over the place: by ground transportation, inside before security, inside after security, and in some bars. My favorite place to go when I still smoked was to this one bar in Narita where there would inevitably be some US military people to chat with.
There's a bar at Narita past security but just before all of the high-end duty-free stores that I love to sit in because the smokers section, enclosed in a glass cube, is usually empty and they serve 1 litre steins of Kirin for not much more than the price at a Lawsons convenience store. Good way to chill and fill the veins with nicotine before getting on a flight.
Speaking of Kirin, I'd say the Kirin pubs/bars are the nicest places for smokers out there. Some of my favourite times were just sitting there eating various plates of meats (partner is vegetarian so I enjoy it when I can), sipping their excellent ichiban shibori stout and smoking while reading the newspaper, hiding from the stinking hot summer weather. I'd say I like the one in Namba, Osaka the best because it's dank like an old English pub and has cool L-shaped tables fixed to the wall so you can stand around smoking, talking and drinking in small groups. Cozy.
I kinda understand what it must feel like to have the urge to just smoke a cigarette. And also the social circle which together takes a 10 minute break can be creative.
But for me as a non smoker it is so often annoying. Going to University and often is somebody walking in front of me smoking and I walking directly into it, with no way to avoid it. Waiting for the train and the smoke blows into my direction. I am glad that vaping is getting more and more established. No annoying smell for me. And yes I may be downvoted into Oblivion. But for non smokers the smell is just disgusting.
So I am still greatful for smoking areas. Because it contains the smoke to certain parts of the building which I can avoid.
It is simply not true that the smell is disgusting for nonsmokers in general. I know too many nonsmokers who like the smell of a cigarette outdoors, and will try to get closer if they see someone smoking as they walk by to enjoy the smell. And I'm not a smoker, so it's not selection bias.
Some people are genuinely sensitive to the smell, and will be inevitably replused by it. This isn't that different from people who are especially sensitive to fragrances and get a headache when someone wearing perfume walks by. But I suspect that many more people have simply been conditioned to find the smell disgusting.
It's like beer. Most people don't like beer the first time they try it. Some don't find it disgusting, even at first, but no one likes beer at first taste in the way that people who like beer like beer. But imagine if you were told that beer is disgusting, that it will kill you, and imagine if you were constantly shown pictures of the organs of people dying from beer drinking. Imagine if the people you saw drinking beer were largely delinquents. It would be entirely different, and you would be much less likely to come to appreciate the flavor of beer.
In Japan they still allow smoking in restaurants, and it's really common to complain about the smoke stench that ends up on clothes or your bag afterwards.
I can admit to mostly liking cigarette smell, but I'm not a fan of carrying around the smoke on my body afterwards. Especially in smaller restaurants where there's just no escape.
It's like people listening to music without headphones. I might like the beats, but other people might not. The easiest thing to do is ask people to think of others
Yes, agreed, indoor smoking is annoying. It also may have health consequences for people who are constantly excited to it, like restaurant staff. It's reasonable and in my opinion desirable for indoor venues to prohibit smoking. I like the shell of fresh smoke, not stale.
An interesting assumption I've noticed is that someone smoking a cigarette must be "a smoker", meaning, they are addicted and always buy cigs when they run out. As if drinking a beer implies you're an alcoholic.
Most of the smokers I've met are generally clever, creative folks. It seems there are more software developer smokers than the general population. Does the work beget it?
obvious filter bias
It's because a smoker, you can be pretty sure, is someone who knows how to say "Fuck it." Oh I'm shortening my precious, precious life on this wondrous planet? Fuck it! They are adherents to not-caring or at least to not-caring-overmuch. Disciples of doing what you want, not what you're supposed to.
They're also practiced at sharing and sharing alike, and the social rituals that go with it. And they know man is powerless - the addiction teaches them that. They become Zen masters by accident (the best way).
The ones who insist on a measure of control, eventually quit.
I think the angle about how they don't get trolled is super interesting. It's like they have more troll antibodies than the hardest core 4chan user because they're one group (at least in San Francisco) that is openly reviled and people actually have the guts to troll in real life.
Which is to say: a smoker, a frequent psilocybin user, a transgendered person, a furry, and an ABDL fetishist all walk into a bar... and hang out amicably, because they've all been through shit.
(One slightly annoying thing about this, though, is that this empathy-for-outré-groups-building effect stops happening as your own group becomes less outré. Homosexuality is accepted enough today that the newest generation of gay people are growing up just as intolerant of "deviance" as everyone else.)