Originally Posted by
Steely Dan
maybe it's because i live in the socially liberal bubble of a big city like chicago, but when i tell family, friends, acquaintances, etc. that i'm a daily bike commuter, the overwhelming response is "cool!", normally followed up with a "no way?" when i tell them how far i ride every day. now, perhaps in their own minds some of those people are thinking "loser" when they say "cool!", but that's not the socially acceptable attitude to have towards bike commuting where i live. maybe it's partly a generational thing too, as i'm still relatively young at age 34, and i most often have contact with people within my own age group.
That's pretty cool, and living in Minnesota for me it's about a 50/50 split - have the people say "cool!", the other half go the other way.
I have to admit, at some point I started to notice the kind of themes the article is talking about, even with other topics. Like, have you EVER seen a happy, successful, nice guy in a movie who's losing his hair? You start to notice when you start losing your hair, lol. If a character is likeable, happy, and/or successful, they have a full head of hair or their head is immaculately shaved (hey, at least there's a positive possibility if you're losing it!). Watch and see - if a character with thinning hair shows up, they never turn out to be a great, likeable character by the end of the show/movie. Just watch "The Office" sometime - it's almost a clear division. The boss is a shmuck - for most episodes he's got obviously thinning hair, visually relating the emptiness and transparency of his character. The older people in the office who have half lost their will to live? Hair thinning out. Jim, the clearly "you're supposed to like him" character? Great head of hair. Pam's fiance before Jim, who seems like a nice enough guy though they don't quite click? No hair problems. If he had had thinning hair, rather than the "serious competition" character to jim, he would have been the "guy Pam's dating but he's no real competition" guy.
There's an episode where (I haven't seen the first half) Jim has a bike and he has to bike home. The bike is deliberately awkwardly sitting in the office for all of the episode I've seen. It's in the way, it's set up to not look terrible, but look a little uncomfortable. It's just a prop to remind you have awkward the situation is. At the end of the episode he gets "saved" by someone who gives him a ride home - so he doesn't have to go through the "horror" of biking home (to be fair, he's also really drunk).
It's not like a "huge" deal, but after a while it's just a little annoying. You realize there really are a large number of people who have formed their opinion on biking and other stuff just from stuff like that on tv. For example, let's imagine you're going on a first date. Let's say you have a choice of two cars to drive - a Toyota Camry, or a White Windowless Cargo Van. Which do you think is most likely to result in your date refusing to go out and telling all her friends a pedophile tried to ask her out? lol It's just become so pop culture cliche that if it was your only vehicle because you delivered papers every day of the week, you'd rather rent a car than show up for a date in it, lol. These things do have an effect...it's just nicer when the effect of whatever your choice is is "Oh, cool" not "...did you get a dwi?". :-)