The most persistant passive aggressive slam I get from people who don’t know what to make of me is the “you have too much free time” declaration.
For years I didn’t realize it was a burn and I would correct the person saying this by informing them that have no free time whatsoever. The things they’re ascribing to being the products of huge amounts of dead times are things I work on whenever possible because I want to. The videos I make, the art I product and the blogs I write pile up in huge lists as ideas that I can’t churn out fast enough, yet these people think they’re the results of having so little to do that they are the last resorts of self-entertainment.
It was only when I thought about it that deeply that I realized I am being made fun of every time someone says that. Like most unprovoked taunts, it says more about the person saying it than the person its directed towards since as I noted – its a false statement – but more importantly – if you take the comment genuinely then it means the person saying it can’t think of any other reason to produce the things I do other than every single thing known to man as an alternative being unavailable. They can’t fathom why someone would spend time writing or creating media – and they’re so untalented and shallow that they vastly overestimate the time required for such things.
I mean, what do these people think? That it really takes days of hard work to do these things? Even the videos that do take a long time to edit are never projects that bar other activity. and then it’s REALLY awkward when a person says this line just to something I’ve said on the spot. Like a joke or observation or question I made up just then and then i’m told I have “too much time” on my hands for which to come up with that? Really? How can you be that pathetic that you could think such comments require hours of pondering to the exclusion of… i dont even know what. I should start asking people what they do with their days or at least what they think I should be doing with mine that should take the place of the art I produce.
The truth is that this phrase is only said by dumb people. Dumb people who are shamed by their dumbness. because if I make an observation that is lame or ask a question that doesn’t make anyone think then the response is only to label whatever was said as being lame. If I make a video or post an article that is boring or of low quality then that is pointed out. but if I create something or say something that illicit the response of “you must have had too much free time on your hands and been really bored to have come up with that” it is a subversive way of saying “I think what you did there was clever or of high quality, but fuck you for doing it”.
Ya, well fuck you for not doing it too. Quit suckling from the creativity of people like me and start adding to it instead. If you cant, then enjoy that others are doing it.
Don’t hate. Appreciate.
(this person had way too much free time)
This is the kind of remark I come by every now and then. It always makes me think that if that person had no less than all the time in the world, he/she would still probably spend it watching old sitcom re-runs on tv, or something in that matter.
This person probably wants to portray him/herself as a clever individual, whose time is too valuable to be spent in the making of that something to which he’s referring with this remark. However, this only indicates that he/she clearly has no insight on the matter at hand but yet the perceived competence to fill-in with their own analysis.
In other words, these people are not only dumb but also self-righteous.
Sorry for my bad english 🙂 I found this article after googling “too much free time”. I’ve heard it many times myself, but this time it was all over my Facebook feed after someone had made a flip paper animation out of “Gangnam Style” music video. Not exactly high culture but still, someone had the skill the and the determination to make it come true. In the opposite, the people making this remark will probably never be able to create anything.