8 Annoying Stereotypes That Don’t Exist, But Should
Top photo by Fredrick Kearney Jr on Unsplash

Adult-In-Denial

Image Credit: Jackie Weatherbee/Medium
There are many ways to stay young at heart, but only one way to annoy the fuck out of everybody whilst doing so – by Adult-ing.For the chronic adult-erer, every facet of adult life can be used to remind the world of their eternal adolescence. Paying your phone bill is not a responsibility, but an Insta-worthy instance of ‘adulting’. Working 9-to-5 is not a job, but a lovable attempt to ‘adult’ because look how young and adorably out-of-place thou art.

We get it – Adult Life is hard. You don’t need to remind the world of how hard it is every 15 bloody seconds because we are adults too, in case you didn’t realise. Everybody needs a pat on the head now and then, but demanding attention for waking up on time is just sad.

The Once and Future Migrant
Image credit: Sound-of-music.com
She told everyone ‘I’m moving to Melbourne!’ in 2013, but five years later, she’s still here. Still stuck in the same dead-end job and still telling everyone that she is definitely going to emigrate soon. Very soon.

New Zealand was her destination in February and December was New York’s month, but over lunch yesterday, she suddenly and inexplicably fell in love with the idea of Canada.

Deep down inside, she knows that she will never leave. Whatever its faults, life here is as comfortable as emigration is daunting. There are too many friends to abandon and she’s no good at burning bridges or answering hard questions.

Where would one even begin? Does my family need me?

And so life goes on, leaving her table resolutely unflipped. The studio apartment in Melbourne will never be more than a pleasant dream, a life-giving mirage that is forever receding into the distance.

Old AF
Image credit: Coub.com
At 23 years old, his clubbing days are behind him because he is too old to drink or meet people.

You kids go ahead, he says, affecting a weary sigh to the group of 29 year olds who sincerely want to strangle him for this shitty performance of King Lear.

And it’s not just alcohol. Invite him to do something sporty and he will grumble about ‘being too old for this shit’. Talk about your poor life decisions and he’ll relate an anecdote with the preamble ‘When I was younger … ’, as if eons have passed between now and his graduation about 7 months ago.

Nobody can really knows the cause of this premature decrepitude, but I suspect malingering. Elderly folks get a free pass for many things, and this millennial probably thinks that his anti-social behaviour will be excused if he impersonates a senior citizen.

Wanderlust Ultra
Namaste
Some people travel to relax. Others wander out in search of new experiences or cultures.

Fuck all of em’, says the Wanderlust Ultra, for whom travel is first and foremost a dick-measuring contest, where he can impress upon the world how long and hard his journey is.

When you encounter the Wanderlust Ultra at a party/dinner, back away slowly and steer clear of provocative words like ‘Airbnb’, ‘Bangkok’ or ‘Staycation’. Remember that this man travels for one-upsmanship. Any mention of Hokkaido or Seoul will trigger an hour-long, blow-by-blow recount of his motorcycle journey across the mountains of Northwestern Azerbaijan, where locals feasted him on lion kebab and a delicious goat semen soup.

Mention that you were mugged in London and he will tell you about the time he beat a man to death with his bare hands in the backstreets of Estonia. Muse about Tokyo’s sushi and he’ll make you feel small with a story about diving for radioactive scallops off the coast of Wakanda.

Don’t worry, there’s a way to fight back. Just say something like “I think Penang is more fun than Madagascar”, then stand clear and watch as the fireworks explode.

Single 4 Lyf/4ever Alone
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man with a good fortune, must be in want of validation for being single.

The validation usually comes from friends, who comfort him with meaningless platitudes like ‘The right one is out there!’ and ‘There’s plenty of fish in the sea!’. It can also come in the shape of Thoughtcatalog articles, which tell him exactly the same thing, but with thrice the amount of tears and melodrama.

Before long, he is hooked on the crystal meth of broken heart bloggers and 4eva alone shitposts. He makes a fetish out of staying single and builds a permanent shrine to ‘letting go’. On Facebook, every post is either a poorly-written manifesto on ‘moving on’ or a list of reasons for being alone. His friends don’t know what to do, so they look at each other, shrug, and leave awkward encouragements to try Tinder.

Honestly speaking, Singapore does put a lot of normative stock on long-term relationships that sail towards the port of BTO, but nobody really gives a shit so long as you don’t give a shit.

Advertising Hypebeast
"Client wants changes by EOD" Image credit: Overblog
Monday is for Supreme and Tuesday is Off-White Day. On Wednesdays, she wakes up early to iron her Anti Social Social Club, which must be worn with untied Nike Dunks.

Her office (read: home) is somewhere in Tanjong Pagar, and contains lots of quirky shit to underline how unorthodox her thinking can be. We don’t know where she bought all the useless junk, but we do know that you can find the following: An ironic fortune cat, stationery emblazoned with Singlish phrases and a copy of Vice magazine from 2003. (Before it went mainstream)

It all seems very glamorous, but all the Supreme in the world cannot disguise the fact that she is nothing more than a glorified galley slave for the good ship Havas/Ogilvy/DDB. The cool gear is all that remains of a once vibrant personality, reduced to a pile of ashes by her agency’s Stalinist working hours.

Don’t you dare use the word ‘pitch’ in her hearing. He/she will dive under her desk and sob while sucking her thumb.

Intellectual Thirst Trap
Confused boner
Her Instagram feed is a thirst trap baited with boob and butt, but her captions try to sound like Emily Dickinson. It lands closer to Rupi Kaur, of course, but still you wonder why?

Why are we being served introspective mumbo-jumbo with a side of sideboob? Who is this Baudelaire in a sports bra?

Her male audience is confused. He doesn’t know whether to feel aroused or to laugh at the heroic couplets of cringe. Personally, I think this mixture of poetry with softcore porn is an attempt to resist the objectification of her body. It screams: “I am a person too, I think, I read, I have feelings! I am not just a juicy cut of meat!”

An admirable goal, and perhaps it says something about our society that we cannot take a beautiful woman seriously. But seriously, please just stick to prose because line breaks do not make an intellectual.

Never Not Eating
Image credit: gearpatrol.com
In Singapore, everyone is ‘always-on’ and ‘never-not-working’ thanks to our toxic OT culture. Which begs the question: how do certain people find the time to be ‘Never Not Eating”?

You can spot her a mile away. She’s the girl with a tapestry of burgers, kway teows, grain bowls and phos as her social media feed. Her boyfriend is hidden behind a steak florentine and her colleagues are tagged as six different types of cake. We don’t know if her parents exist, but if they do, it’s probably in the background of a lavish brunch.

In real life, her workspace contains more snack than stationery and she thinks that Heng Swee Keat is the name of a Tau Sar Piah vendor. In fact, her love of food is so all-consuming that she will ruminate audibly about possible dinner choices during lunch, with a mouthful of half-eaten korean pancake

To add insult to injury, some of the ‘Never Not Eating’ crew remain thin as high fashion chopsticks despite consuming the GDP of a small Central Asian economy. My hypothesis? Her stomach is the portal to a separate dimension of ravenous aliens intent on draining our food supply.

This article is not sponsored by the Azerbaijan Ministry of Tourism. Have something to say about this story? Write to us at community@ricemedia.co.
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