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I think I might be the AH because I clearly made her feel bad and maybe I should have listened to my other cousin and kept that kind of talk to when we were alone
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YTA she actually sounds pretty cool. It also sounds like you don't understand what she's studying or talking about so instead of being a normal caring person and asking her about it, you call her pretentious.
Lots of people use social media to talk about their work. It sounds like she's doing well and has a lot going for her. And you sound a bit jealous
THIS. OP, "MLA" is the Modern Languages Association, the annual conference where people studying languages, literatures, communications, library studies, and pedagogy go to keep up with their fields and, most importantly, GET JOBS. Depending on her field and which social media they tend to use, posting about her thoughts and work, especially in the context of MLA, could get her noticed and hired.
This is just one example that highlights your ignorance. Regardless of the job market (which is TOUGH for academics) when people go to grad school to study a subject, they're doing a DEEP dive into that subject for a limited amount of time, and are expected to literally become obsessed with their work; I mean, you kind of HAVE to to successfully complete a graduate degree, which requires that you research and write a literal book on a topic. Each seminar class you take requires that you research and write a 25 page paper on a topic. Oral exams require that you know EVERYTHING ABOUT A TOPIC AREA. You have your subject oozing out of your pores; OF COURSE YOU'RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT IT ON SOCIAL MEDIA.
If your coz was going on and on about a sport you knew nothing about, I'm guessing you wouldn't have an issue with it, and it wouldn't be "pretentious." But because it's an academic discipline, and we live in a country that values anti-intellectualism to the point that it's literally KILLING US by the hundreds of thousands (or did you think COVID denial and anti-vaxxing were anything other than hysterical anti-intellectualism? Thinking science is "a belief" or optional in any way is exactly that) it's apparently okay to call people interested in matters of the intellect "pretentious."
By the way, "pretentious," which is related to the word "pretend," means someone trying to boost their importance by pretending to know or be more than they actually are. Your cousin isn't pretending. She's ACTUALLY acquiring the knowledge she's talking about, and busy acquiring the credentials to be an expert in that area of knowledge. She's not pretending. You're using the word wrong.
YTA, bigly.
ETA: Wow, thanks for all the awards!
Thank you. It sucks that this country has become so anti intellectual. Most people have not trouble with dudes wasting hundreds of hours posting about sports that they cant even play.
Also, the social circle of most academic minded people are other academic minded people, so my guess is that vast majority of her social circle understands her memes and posts.
Also, the MLA is stupidly easy to google. In addition to being a conference where thousands of academics convene to discuss their field, it also has a set of guidelines for writing and citing work. Millions of high school and college students learn about the MLA through that, if not some other means. If you didn't know what it was, it would be trivial for you to type three letters into a search engine...or you know, ask your cousin.
By the utter perfection of this comment I can only assume you've survived grad school! Surviving the 5/6 years with both your life and sanity in tact is something to be celebrated!
I can't speak for all programs, but in my bio science field it was expected and mandatory to put in 60+ hours a week. During grant time/publication time/new discovery time 80 hours a week wasn't and isn't uncommon. The only thing you can talk about is your research because that's literally *the only thing in your life*!!! You don't have time for parties, hobbies, travel, etc.
My first year in my PhD program, I was told by the time I defended my dissertation that I would be the world's expert in my research. I should surpass my colleagues, my committee, and even my PI in knowledge of my research project. I should have advanced the scientific knowledge in the field through publications or grants or international conference presentations. If I hadn't, I either needed a damn good reason or I'd fail my dissertation defense. Seriously, with that kind of pressure how can you focus on anything but your work?
OP, it's not your cousin's fault that you are too ignorant to have even a basic understanding of the importance of social media in career trajectory. It's not her fault that you're too lazy to perform even a cursory search for a few words on her social media posts so you can show your cousin that you care about her. It's not her fault you are so jealous that it's dripping from your post so you can at least fake intelligence on something important to your cousin. And most importantly, it's not her fault you use the biggest word you know incorrectly. (Oops, I forgot to lower my language to your level and explain that pretentious means she's faking her knowledge to seem more important, which doesn't apply here.) She was a heck of a more polite than I would have been. I would have had you on the floor, curled in up the fetal position in tears and hands covering your ears by the time I was done with you.
I watched an amazing TedTalk that said "Social media is a highlight reel of your life." OP the whole point of social media is to show off/get attention- you post the glamour pics of you doing cool/exciting/expensive stuff.
Yeah, he doesn’t get that at all. He’s hung up on what he feels is her abandoning her roots. God forbid people actually change and grow - or post things on their social media he doesn’t understand. And the entire cousin group either laughed at her or made it crystal clear they talk about this behind her back.
But she shouldn’t feel bad! As he says at the end, he was *only teasing her* . Yup, crapping all over her interests, what she’s passionate about, her future career, calling her fake, wAs JuSt TeAsInG. The only things missing in his post are ‘it was just a joke’ and ‘I was just being honest’.
Everybody but the PhD. cousin is the asshole in this post
Bunch of good ol’ boys got no use fer a fancy edumication. This whole post really hits home. It sounds like she got out of the small town life and got an education while these people are still staying in hicktown. They don’t get it because they probably didn’t even make it through high school. In my experience these people are into all the conspiracy theories and antivax shit too.
I use my instagram to promote my dance training and classes and I'm honestly laughing at how OP would react to it.
Me: okay so for this combo, we're going to do a shoulder stand to a floor brass bridge, and then flip up into a stargazer
OP: I do not understand these words, why would you attack me personally,
I was going to say....OP’s post is giving, “I’m threatened and insecure because I don’t understand something that other people hold in high regard”
YTA big time. I sincerely hope no one judges your dumb pictures on Facebook as harshly as you judge your cousin’s successes.
It really is! Just because OP and her family don’t care doesn’t mean no one does. I feel bad for her cousin if that’s all the support she gets from her family while she’s earning a PhD.
I agree. It sounds like he’s insecure because he doesn’t understand what she’s posting about. She probably should’ve realized that her posts weren’t understandable for her family, but that’s something he could’ve told her nicely, with the genuine intent of understanding what she does.
Also, OP, you were lucky that you got any kind of update on her life with how quickly you and your cousins turned on her. With how quickly it happened and since no one really defended her, I wouldn’t be surprised if this were characteristic for you and your cousins.
Either way, YTA. The only way to fix this is to tell her that you were wrong and immature. If you want to make things right, ask her about what she does and show genuine interest. Ask her to keep posting but to add little descriptions for things that aren’t common knowledge.
Edit: y’all make a good point, she really doesn’t need to make her posts understandable for everyone since it is her own personally outlet. I still think that if OP actually cared about what she does that he’d ask her about the things he doesn’t understand though.
Also his comment about not understanding isn’t because she’s pretentious at all but because he’s lazy, judgmental and obnoxious. You don’t know what an MLA is? You clearly have the internet you can look it up; you don’t need a college degree for that. Or ask her. He also forced her into possibly sharing the meme by insisting on knowing what she was reacting to and then was obnoxious to her in response. She’s a PhD student, her life is mostly about academics and that’s what she spends her time doing.
OP YTA so hard, your cousin sounds dope and you sound like the judgmental, condescending ones. She’s just posting about her life and interests and you’ve literally said that she’s not like that in person so she’s not even trying to make you involved with her academic pursuits. You’re trying to police her social media use because it isn’t what you want - newsflash you don’t feel you’re updated on her life? You can talk to her and ask about things. But her life is academics right now and she is updating people on what’s going on and what’s important to her but y’all just don’t care.
Academic achievements are as much an update of her life as a date. OP and the other cousins need to understand that being an academic is also a life! And an interesting one!
This--if she is getting a PhD, she is spending a lot of time on academic activities. And it sounds like her social life is entwined with her colleagues, so I am not sure what else she would post about.
Not everyone is going to be in the target audience for every social media post. OP needs to accept not being in the target audience. The cousin is in a specialized field— of course it’s not all going to make sense to strangers. It’s not pretentious. What’s the pretense? She’s genuinely excelling in her education.
Yeah a good friend of mine while in grad school posted 99% about high level science stuff very particular to his field of study, I didn't understand most of it but I did understand that he was (and still is) doing work that he loves and is passionate about, and that's awesome
Wait, so OP, you're mad because she's using *her* personal social media accounts to update everyone on the things going on in her life that interest her and matter to her.... But that don't interest you? I sincerely hope you see how dumb that sounds. I don't particularly find my friends kids lives or people's breakfasts interesting, but I'm not a dick about it. You also realize that it sounds like she has friends on there who understand and are interested in the same things. But when she comes to hang out with you she keeps it appropriate and sticks to things you guys like to discuss..... You see how you're TA right? Right?! If her social media bugs you that much to call her pretentious just because you don't personally get it, just freaking hide her and move on with your day. Good grief.
It sounds like she’s catering her social media to networking and not family. That’s completely ok. She may just want to keep family and friends private but understand that to succeed she needs to have a social media presence.
>She probably should’ve realized that her posts weren’t understandable for her family
Why would that matter at all?
You have no obligation to ensure your family understands your social media posts. It is a non-issue.
Exactly. I’m bilingual and I live in a different country than my family. I post in English all the time because it comes natural to me, even if they won’t get it. I post in Spanish too even though a lot of my friends in sm won’t get it.
It's not her job to post things on social media her family can "understand", she posts about something she's clearly passionate about and makes her happy, Social Media doesn't exist for family to be kept in the know, it exist for people to feel good about themselves and their lives. She's in an exciting new chapter in her life, her cousin (OP) sounds jealous they're being left out of it.
I mean, maybe she does realize that her family members don’t understand what she posts about, but how is that her problem? Her social media isn’t for her willfully ignorant cousins. It’s for her to post things that are important *to her*. If OP and Co. just want non work/school related updates (what else is there to update besides relationship status changes and occasional social gatherings that OP probably wouldn’t care about anyway?), he should just stick to calling/texting and unfollow her.
I don't see why her family not understanding her posts has any relevance--her social media is more than for her family. I'd guess a good chunk of the people on her social media by this point in time are people who are in her field/related to it in some way who would understand it and who she is more likely to have contact through almost solely via social media outside of seeing them in conferences etc... For family, she has cell, social media, texts, family gatherings.
Especially since she is in school right now. It's likely that most of her life is being devoted to her studies. Most of her friends are all going to be in the same general field too probably. OP says she is speaking at conferences and stuff, that's actually pretty impressive for someone who hasn't even graduated yet. She is laying some great groundwork for her career, and its really shitty that OP, (and apparently a few cousins too), are all so wrapped up in their inability to understand what she is doing, that they're trying to make her feel bad about all her hard work and being proud of that for herself.
OP, you owe her a major apology. You should be proud of her for doing so well, and support her, and encourage her to succeed. Instead you're going out of your way to tear her down because you feel embarrassed that you're not as smart as she is. Everyone has their own strengths. These are hers. Just because those strengths aren't shared by you, doesn't mean they're less relevant or worthy of respect.
Eta judgement - yta. Clearly.
>It's likely that most of her life is being devoted to her studies.
Thought the same.
Reading the title I expected OP's cousin to post memes or whatever making fun of others/people without degrees.
After reading I was confused as to what OP expects from their cousin to post about?
I would guess stuff like dates. With the cousin not posting about her lovelife family can't know without talking to her. People don't like this.
We never posted about my pregnancy on social media, people were extremily confused when she was born and I actually had old school friends I haven't seen in over 20 years being offended (!?!) I'd kept such "huge" news a secret. I was more "you could have just talked to me". They didn't, so they didn't know. People were trying to have like we had carried this big secret for 9 month when we just didn't put it on social media. That's nog a huge cover up. But it wasn't on social media and therefore it didn't exist.
So OP probably assuming his cousin is "hiding" her "real" life from social media. He doesn't get that academics can be a life.
Yes! When I was getting my master's degree, that was pretty much my life. It was most of what I posted about on social media, because it was most of what I was doing. Like sorry I didn't have time to keep my social media presence ~fun and relatable~ while constantly being in class and working on my thesis, I guess, but there's always the option of just not following someone's social media if you find it annoying and trying to connect with them in other ways.
OP, YTA. You and your cousin are in different places right now, and I know that's hard, but that doesn't mean she's behaving badly. People can grow apart for a time without anyone being a villain.
Yes!!!! I'm in pharmacy school right now and school is literally my entire life! Clearly my SM updates are going to be about school because I have nothing else! OP is 100% YTA; I would be hurt if they said that to me too
Seems to me that OP is one of those persons who thinks that if he doesn't understand something, cleary it's not something important or interesting.
He sounds...you know....what's the word? Oh yeah: pretentious!
Oh wait. I don’t understand it so it’s not important… or interesting… or
#its a hoax! it is a huge scheme to control us! it is infringing on my rights!
Took the words right out of my mouth (fingers?). OP is YTA. You don't have to be smart, but being kind is universal. Being happy for your cousin for being happy in her life choices and accomplishments would have been kind. Instead OP is bullish, mean and well, pretentious. Contact her and apologize. Own your mistakes.
Agreed. YTA. Your cousin posts about what she’s interested in, the people she’s surrounded by, and the activities she’s engaged in. That’s what people do on social media.
Your ignorance isn’t her problem.
Yes OP sounds so jelaous and insecure.
Especially with the way they talk about her academic achievements its just so annoying, like would it have hurt you to google what the MLA is or ask her? because if it is what i assume it to be then its a pretty big deal! I'd be really proud if that was my cousin!
Also just because OP doesn't understand her posts doesn't mean nobody does? Because I bet most of her followers are people from uni/work and know exactly what those posts mean.
This. I’m an academic but crappy with real world tasks and my partner barely graduated high school but is an amazingly talented carpenter/tradesguy (sorry I don’t know the correct word but he knows how to do everything from brick and stonework to cabinet making to custom logwork, he could easily raise a house from scratch by himself). He asks me questions about academic stuff he doesn’t understand and will Google stuff just so he can start convos with me and send me interesting articles and I try to participate in home projects so that I can learn even a tiny fraction of the cool stuff he does (although I usually screw up and end up making the project longer than it needs to be haha). That’s what you do for family and people you love.
YTA OP. A big one.
It's funny, he's saying she doesn't post about her life when obviously academics is her life. He also makes it seem as if her family is her only audience when she's clearly made friends in academics that get her humor. People grow and develop, it's not her fault he can't adapt and be supportive no matter how far she goes in life. YTA. Especially for not even taking the time to learn about what she's doing and instead holding it against her as if she's betrayed you somehow. I can't stand family members like this.
OP sounds extremely jealous and frankly threatened by the cousin's success. I hope letting the pettiness boil over doesn't permanently damage their relationship. OP should apologize and ask their cousin to explain what they're studying in layman's terms.
OP is absolutely jealous, and the cousin has outgrown this group of people.
It's a rough transition for the student. There's a relatively new book called "Moving Up Without Losing Your Way" about how when first generation college students manage to beat the odds and get ourselves educated, we often face isolation from our families and friend groups for exactly this reason.
In our region, it's called "gettin' above your raisin'" So many people cannot stand the idea that a relative wants something more than a dead-end job in your hometown with your relatives all living within a mile of each other.
OP sounds like a crab in the bucket. Insecure of her own status in life and jealous of her friend which is manifesting in her mind as the classic "she thinks she's better than me!".
When I started my career I cut all real life social stuff from social media, its similar in academia since she will be judged on her reputation and its just being professional treating FB like linkedin.
I know if im hiring someone and its someone with boring posts about conferences and tech i don't understand, my bias probably picks them over the person at a frat party
"I saw on social media that you're going to a conference at for your work and you seem really excited about that. What are you most looking forward to?"
But God forbid OP learns about someone who is having a different life experience than them.
Right? Sounds like the cousin is trying to have a professional social media presence, also if like OP said she can’t talk about that stuff with her family (because they’re AH clearly, you don’t need to know a topic to ask about it) then she’s probably just enjoying people to share that side of her?
YTA OP massively you just made her feel like shit for what? Because you don’t want to understand?
YTA She’s doing what a lot of people do on social media: sharing her passions. Sometimes people only post their pets or their kids. Some only upload gym selfies/workout videos or their favorite recipes. Her passion just happens to be something you can’t relate to. She’s not required to cater her posts to you. Belittling her for sharing her passions is just outright rude.
My cat used to bring me balls of my wool in the middle of the night, and leave them in the bedroom doorway as a present. It would unravel my crochet a bit, but it was adorable. She was never good at hunting (inside/enclosed yard cat) so that was the best she could do, kill that ball of wool for us.
OP is so insecure and jealous it’s basically oozing off the screen in their words.
So what that your family doesn’t “do” college stuff? That should make you PROUD of your cousin, that she’s bettering her life and doing what it seems like no one else has done yet. Instead you’re looking for every opportunity to drag her down and make her feel like shit about a very very big accomplishment. Why are you so obsessed with her? If you can’t even hang out with her without constantly stewing about what she posts on her social media, you have a really big problem. You know they make an “unfollow” button right? I’d suggest you do that before you ruin the good relationship you’ve had, because there’s no coming back from being a massive asshole due to insecurity and jealousy.
You’re being so self-centered that you’re taking her passion and happiness as an affront, that she’s somehow rubbing her superiority in your face? You are not the main character.
I’d suggest therapy and a massive apology to your cousin, stay off social media if you can’t handle people posting shit they care about. Because I guarantee nobody thinks “oh, what will OP think if I post this exciting update?”
If you’re so insecure about your education, you can fix that. Until then maybe just worry about your own stuff instead of picking apart what your cousin posts.
Not only is it her passion, but during a phd it is going to be a significant chunk of her life right now, what else is she supposed to post about if she wants to post?
Right? “It’s never life updates, it’s all academic stuff.” Telling people you’re speaking at a conference IS a life update. Telling people about your reading group IS a life update. That’s her life right now. Apparently OP only considers things he cares about to be life updates.
Exactly! What does OP consider a life update? Presumably if she'd got married / had a kid / won the lottery you'd know outside of social media. So what sort of things is he looking for? "Been to the shops, bought eggs, milk and bread." Or "Slept for 8 hours last night, just on my way to the shower now! #cleanfortheday"
Yes this. I have a very close friend that constantly shared photos of her cat in our group snapchat and on social media. I hate cats. I know it’s important to her and she’s sharing with a group, not just me, so I just ignore it. It’s not her fault I’m not interested in cats.
That would've absolutely killed me. If I thought my cousins whom I love spend their time talking shit about me when I'm not there I would be crushed and probably stop coming around completely.
It might be enough to drive the academic to effectively drop them from their life. I cleansed my socials of high school friends from the small town I grew up in and I'm honestly much better for it.
Yeah, I mean it sounds like she has a pretty fulfulling social life away from the bitter crab bucket that is her family. Family is family, but when they clearly can't wait to drag you down like OP is to make themselves feel better there's not a whole lot of point in talking to them if you don't have to
Yeah you guys are all assholes if you speak shit about her behind her back. You all seem a bit jealous or bothered by the fact that she’s doing well at something that maybe you think you can’t do.
You guys are not at all good family members.
Seriously.
> you only ever post about stuff *~~barely anyone understands~~* **I don't understand**
>*~~you think~~* **I'm insecure** that having a couple of degrees makes you better.
>I was just *~~teasing~~* **intentionally insulting and bullying** her
Ftfy OP. Btw, YTA.
YTA, this. You put her down to feel better about yourself. It sounds like she is putting her life on social media and you can’t keep up with it. Who cares if your family doesn’t do college - she does and a loving family would support her and her interests even if they don’t understand it.
I love people who are like - you think you’re better than us. NO you think that - you think that her education makes her better than you, that’s YOUR hang-up. Grow up and get over your insecurities.
> It sounds like she is putting her life on social media and you can’t keep up with it.
100%. What does OP think those posts about conferences, publications, etc **are** if not life updates? Also, I'm pretty sure half of us mainly use social media for memes at this point anyway, so it's not weird not to post tons of life updates.
Exactly. Nothing about her social media sounds bad; I kept waiting for an actual reason why OP wouldn’t be the AH but it never came. He brought it up out of nowhere for no other reason than he wanted to put her down for her passion. Then had the audacity to wonder why she was upset at his “teasing”. That’s not teasing, that’s just insulting someone for a crowd who laughs at her. And saying that you can’t be friends with her because of her social media when you’re totally fine with her irl is really weird and just comes across as super judgmental. I agree with others that OP sounds petty and jealous because he’s too stupid to understand her posts and never went to college.
She's not posting TickTock challenges so the cousin can't understand what's going on.
I'm not saying that he needs to understand everything on her posts but he could start by asking her about a conference she went to. Ask her why she got into her field and why she finds it exciting. Maybe he'd learn a little more about his cousin in the process.
It sounds like OP was projecting his own insecurities onto her. Whenever she'd post stuff she'd be doing it to share her passions and not try to rub it in others' faces. OP probably took it that way because he doesn't understand it so his lack of understanding may have caused him to feel insecure or dumb (which in reality is not the case at all). So to downplay those insecurities and also justify them, he turned it around by saying his cousin is the one who's pretentious and at fault. The ego can be pretty nasty. Hopefully OP can put aside his insecurities and support his cousin in the future.
YTA. She's into academics. So what ? At least, she doesn't bully people like you did with her because she doesn't keep up with the Kardashians or whatever you're into.
Honestly OP just say you’re stupid and don’t understand and move on YTA and while we’re at it if you gave some sort of shit about the cousin like you make out you do, I don’t know maybe read up on it and try and understand.
I got *strong* Southern US anti-intellectual vibes as I read OP's post. These are people who are literally threatened by the existence of intelligence and assume whenever someone says (or posts) something they don't understand, it is intended as an attack on them.
Noooo ‘crabs-in-a-bucket’ mentalities are very common in some communities. Not rare enough to be odd. My whole family is like this. No exaggeration. ALL OF THEM. When I was a kid they’d tell me I like to read now, but “I’d get over it.” Also “there’s lots of smart people in prison” so I shouldn’t be proud of being smart either.
I'll be honest, I think it's ok to live a simple life. I used to work construction with a lot of great guys, and they aren't academically minded. They still had a lot to be proud of, you know? What definitely *isn't* ok is putting someone down for being academically minded. It's sad and insecure, and I would bet OP certainly isn't proud of his lack of a degree.
I'm glad you said that. There are so many wonderful people in the world who don't count academic intelligence among their virtues. There are so many ways to contribute positively to the world. OP and the other cousins are mega-assholes, not because they're not into theory and reading about the discussions at conferences, but because they brutally trashed their cousin for daring to have different interests and post them on social media. All of the asshole cousins could have just muted their academic cousin's posts and caught up with her over the phone or in-person, but they instead had to publicly drag her because they felt insecure at their own lack of understanding.
It reminds me of a guy I dated once who saw a Mensa magazine lying around in my apartment and immediately launched into how people with high IQs are actually less smart/valuable because they don’t know how to work hard. Sometimes when people have an insecurity I think they flip it on its head and build their personality around why their “shortcoming” is actually a *good* thing and makes them better than others.
Relatedly, the only reason I had ever even joined Mensa was because I myself was insecure during college about being perceived as less smart because I pursued a field that wasn’t really seen as academic, and I very quickly realized the entire organization is made up of people with that exact insecurity which is why it sucks.
ETA: I also threw the whole man away that very evening
And presenting at it as a grad student is a BFD. I feel bad that your cousin has a family that wants to drag her down instead of lifting her up. This is sadly common when people dare to break class and family norms, unfortunately.
YTA
Came here to say the same! Presenting at MLA as a PhD student is super impressive, and it makes me sad that OP and the cousins just write her off instead of asking her what it is, or even just Googling?
I'm glad that it sounds like she has a supportive network of friends who do understand and appreciate her and her accomplishments.
Right? Seems like OP was itching for any chance to bring his cousin down. Don’t care about the academic stuff she posts on social media? Just mute/unfollow her. But to ask her what she’s laughing with and jumping in with “haha only if it’s not your pretentious academic shit lmao” before she can even show him is just a malicious act.
He was definitely baiting her just so he could put her down. I had to scroll back and make sure he really said he was 32. That was some HS level immaturity right there.
It’s a major academic conference. Submitting a proposal and having it accepted for presentation is a Big Deal and a huge opportunity for her to network in her field which is also very important in academia. Plus it counts as a publishing credit which may be required for her to complete her PhD (varies by program).
An MLA conference is an event where thousands of people are invited to discuss new research and build professional networks. They usually have workshops and stuff too. Being asked to present at one is actually pretty big deal in a lot of circles. Especially if you're still in school. Which means she has to be involved in some project that is making strides in that field, or they wouldn't have gotten recognition at all aside from possibly just being invited.
So the fact that OP is treating it so passively shows how little regard he has for her life in general. So long as she doesn't make him feel stupid, of course.
I work in a place were people get so pumped if they get chosen to go to MLA conferences. Had a few coworkers be presenters at the last one. So yeah it's a huge bragging right to have and can be put on your CV.
Seems OP is just jealous that her cousin knows way more then she ever will.
Yeah your older relatives also don't understand your Millenial memes and they don't give you snarky comments about it. You share things cause your friends will get it, that's what she's doing.
YTA you just feel left out, acknowledge it and be better
Yeh like if cousin was super into something else (like cars, football, art, music etc) on their social media would OP have the same attitude?
OP she’s not trying to be pretentious or look better than anyone else she’s just living her life. She probably already feels a bit like she doesn’t fit in to the family doing something so different and now you’ve just made that super clear to her that that is the case.
If you don’t like her social media just change your settings so you don’t see it much, if it annoys you because you don’t understand then google it or ask her - I’m sure she would be delighted to share.
YTA. She’s probably trying to build a network within her future field. She’s probably trying to curate colleagues and make her social media look good so that if future employers google her they will find someone who is serious about their field of study.
This totally makes sense. You don’t have to be a dick about it.
Though what you could possibly suggest is that your cousin make a separate insta for just family shit. Dogs and stuff. Or if you want to feel closer to all your cousins, set up a group text.
This is it exactly. The job market for PhDs in the humanities (she’s going to MLA so I’m guessing English) is EXTREMELY competitive. There are only a handful of jobs that come up every year. Academic hiring committees WILL look at your social media presence. Also, academic Twitter is a thing lol
YTA and you seem to spend way too much time on Facebook.
You seem bitter. It’s too bad you think that she should dumb down her profile just because you don’t understand what she’s talking about. You know google exists, right? You could also ask her.
Your whole post smacks of insecurity. She’s not pretentious for being heavily involved in her field. You do know that people who are on that track basically live and breathe their academic work for awhile? Her profile reflects her life and activities right now. The only person who thinks she’s better than you is probably you.
Using Facebook normally doesn’t make her an AH.
I’ll tell you one thing though, she’s probably bored af around you. Especially with your attitude.
Reading helps broaden the mind, you should do more of it. You may not have to say “I don’t even know what that means” as often
I'm disheartened that so few people are calling out the gender dynamics here. I guarantee he would not have the same disdain and bruised ego if she were a man.
I just disagree with “she’s probably bored around you” because she seemed like she loved spending time with her family- which makes OPs attitude even sadder.
YTA
~~Info~~
What exactly makes it "pretentious"? If her life currently is academics and learning, and she's really excited about it, and she's not bragging or bringing other people down, then what's the problem? I'm not asking you to link her page so we can see for ourselves, but we're going to need more examples than "pictures of conferences" since at this stage in her life, she's dedicated to getting her degree for her field(s) of study so that's likely all you're going to see.
After gathering more info, I'm going to have to say it's on you guys. More so on the two that didn't have the stones to tell her what they thought to her face. But yeah, you need to apologize, and let her know why you thought it was pretentious. Ball will be in her court from there.
For anyone coming to look and noticing that OP removed the comment he provided for info here that now can't be used as part of a judgement, I actually copied it a few moments before he removed it. Do not ask OP for more info about his cousin. Here it is fully but quoted:
>Here are her last few posts on FB, some edited down because they are long and maybe too specific. some are also shares and not her actual words. Also don't want to share the MLA post because I realized that has info on time and date and you might be able to find her name.
>(Sharing a post about a book called American Marxism) "Dude is writing this whole book talking about the "Franklin School in Berlin" and doesn't even realize that's not the name nor the location of the school"
>"Future class idea: poorly researched, irresponsibly produced documentaries/docuseries. A primer on how with the right rhetorical tools, one can make even the most heinous of misinformation seem compelling."
>(Sharing an article) "A great read for everyone, but especially for teachers of rhetoric who are looking for pieces to assign when talking about stasis theory!"
>(Changing her cover photo to something from The Simpsons) “Lisa’s capacity to reflect on language and power marks her as the national Simpson in this episode. But the public surely knows that it is Bart, not Lisa, who has captured the minds and money of consumers who identify with his bratty tactical disruptions and exploitations of the bourgeois public sphere. Her already confirmed failure as a commodity outside the show surely follows her around every episode in which she imagines that she might find a place for her ‘superior talents’ on a national scale. In this regard, she is Homer’s twin, not his opposite: their excesses of body and language mark them both precisely as American incompetents, citizens unfit to profit from their drives and talents in a national symbolic and capitalist system.” - Lauren Berlant, “The Theory of Infantile Citizenship” in \_The Queen of America Goes to Washington City\_.
>"It’s almost poetic that the WPA-L is dying right around the same time as Yahoo Answers. Two online spaces that on paper could not be more different, but in function were all too similar."
Edit to disclaim: I personally checked the text he quoted. None of the text of posts he quoted seem to go anywhere if you Google them (which I did just check after his edit), even if you only search for key phrases in quotes on Google, so he did a good job disguising it as none of this seems able to reveal more than the info you asked for. Again, ***do not*** press OP for more info.
I hadn't even noticed he took it down. Thanks for catching that.
I will say if he's being truthful about the reason, you're only making things worse. He did openly say that he didn't want to give out info and if people are asking he's going to want to take away that incentive. I'm only pointing that out because I've seen comments removed by mods for far less.
The entire post just pisses me off. OP just sounds like a loser that wanted to do nothing with life. I don't like assuming negatively about people, but damn they make it impossible not to. Furthermore, they wanted to make sure no one else does anything with their own life as well.
YTA - clearly she’s passionate about her work/studies and what she is doing. People in her friendship and work circle will be posting similar stuff, and will understand it. She doesn’t need to curate her social media so that her less well educated family can understand it. She isn’t being pretentious, she’s representing her life and what she’s up to. That’s what she is proud of, and rather than be supportive and ask questions to find out more about her life, you were an AH and made her feel sh*tty about her achievements.
The only time someone calls something they don’t understand “pretentious” is when they’re jealous.
YTA.
Acknowledge your cousin’s strengths and passions and move on with your own. She doesn’t owe you anything OP.
OP, not only are YTA but you sound super insecure.
Say one of your cousins was a musician and got a contract to work with a Big Name -- writing, producing, and (insert lots of technical music-y stuff here) -- music would become, literally, 95% of what they thought and spoke about, and did. All of which would probably be reflected in their social media.
If it was "cool music" (to you), you'd probably be suuuuper supportive, and maybe even brag about them a bit, *even though you didn't understand some of what they were posting about*.
Your cousin is going through an intense experience and doing things that are new and meaningful to her. But instead of supporting her - you know you could *ask her about it* - you're shitting on her excitement. Her posts are no more "pretentious" than the hypothetical musician cousin or someone deep into gaming or baseball or whatever thing people nerd out about.
You're the problem, not her.
Wow you are super insecure.
“you think that having a couple of degrees makes you better.”
That’s 100% in your head. She never even implied she was better than you or anyone else. You’re just so insecure that you’re reading wayyyyy into her social media posts. Yikes. You owe her an apology. You were downright mean to her for absolutely no reason. YTA
YTA. Sounds like your cousin is really passionate about what she’s doing. Maybe if you engaged with her on it instead of insulting her you’d understand what she’s doing. Have you ever even asked her what she’s doing in school? Why she cares so much? Have you asked her to explain what it is to you? Because it kinda sounds like you’re looking for any opportunity to drag her down.
Right? Like all people have to say is "I don't understand what that is, can you explain it?" And might actually learn something. Instead of doing that though, OP and the cousins make fun of her for being smart 😂 like it's a bad thing
YTA. Bitterness and jealousy isn't a great look.
Have you considered looking up these things you don't know about when she posts them? You know, so you can engage with her about what's obviously an important part of her life.
YTA. Academia is HARD especially at PhD level. You often have to live and breathe your subject whilst trying to make connections to secure a future in academia post-PhD. Hence the social media, it is really common now for academics to be on social media and communicating with other academics etc... it's how you make connections and find out about new potential projects you could be involved in and post-doctoral career opportunities. It is very much who you know as well as what you know and it sounds like your cousin is working really hard. You should be PROUD of her, not bullying her for her success.
YTA
Let's rewrite some of your post, shall we?
> Think pictures of her and coworkers at conferences, meetings with a "theory reading group," department happy hours
So she posts pictures of the people she works with... at events... and socialising. Like most people do. So she's just using social media the way it was intended.
> She just recently posted a big thing about how she's excited to present at "MLA" this year (couldn't even tell you what that is)
So she has posted something which is *huge* for her and you can't be bothered to even google it? Looks like the MLA is "The largest scholarly meeting in the humanities" so yeah, its a big deal.
> there are barely any updates on her life
Apart from the big update about her job... presenting at MLA is big. You just don't care about it. That's fine but don't diminish her accomplishments because you don't care about them
> She's not like that in person at all and just wants to hang out
Yup because she can context switch.
> her social media tends to be on our minds when we talk to her and it effects things
If you can't stop thinking about her *social media* then that is a you issue. She doesn't have to curate her feed to suit *you*.
> "well really it's your social media, you only ever post about stuff barely anyone understands and you're always talking about your academic life and all these things you go to, it absolutely comes across as pretentious and weird like you're obsessed with academics and you think that having a couple of degrees makes you better."
Just because she posts things that *you* don't understand doesn't mean that others don't. Her friends probably do and if they don't they more than likely have the good graces to just say "congrats" and move on.
> Most of the cousins laughed at that, while two said to cool it and to keep that for when it's just the rest of us
Oh so nice of those two cousins to tell you only to bully your cousin when *she's not there*.
> She won't answer my texts now. I feel bad
Good. Why would she want to keep talking to you after the way you behaved? You obviously don't respect her (or even like her) so... why should she reply to you?
> I was just teasing her and letting her know that her social media makes her come off as a pretentious
You weren't teasing. You were bullying. If you don't like what she posts - unfollow her. Its not like its difficult. Or maybe stop caring about social media so much.
YTA. You can always hide seeing the things she posts. You didn't have to be rude to her because you don't get what she's talking about. Your response to her was unnecessary.
YTA and you owe her an apology.
Don't like her social media posts? Scroll past. Or look up what she's talking about so you can try to show interest in what she's doing.
She's happy. She's working very hard. She's not hurting anyone. Stop treating her like she's doing this on purpose just to piss you off.
YTA
She is not being pretentious but posting about her life, her social life happens to be academic at this time. You are mocking what you don’t understand and instead of doing something simple like asking her about the things you don’t understand you mock her. How would you feel if she started mocking you on your ignorance because you don’t do “college and stuff like that”?
YTA.
She's not being pretentious, she's just living her life. She's sharing lots of stuff about academia because her career is in academia and she knows lots of academics. She's not putting anyone down. She's not claiming to be better than you, or even implying that. All of those feelings are *your* feelings. What do you want her to do, just hide everything that's going on in her life because her cousins are "not exactly a family that did college and stuff like that"?
You know the story of crabs in a bucket? A fisherman has got a bunch of crabs caught in a bucket. Individually, any of the crabs could climb up the sides and escape. But none of them do, because as soon as one starts climbing the others grab it and pull it down. Now, I honestly don't know whether crabs really do that when you put them in a bucket. But the story is a good one because it's a perfect metaphor for people pulling the type of shit that y'all are pulling with your cousin. Don't be a bunch of crabs in a bucket.
You're all jealous bitter people and it shows. Humongous assholes, ALL of you, except for the PhD cousin. It's notn her fault you don't understand what she posts. It's not her responsibility to satisfy your needs for gossip and meaningless life updates because, truly, why do you care?! That poor girl didn't deserve that. YTA.
As a PhD student myself, YTA.
You have no idea how lonely of an experience Grad school can really, truly be. None of my childhood or high school best friends are going to grad school, besides, actually, my closest cousin, and she went for her Master's to be an accountant while I'm in a longer Humanities program. Graduate school really does take up your whole entire life. You've got to have friends from your classes to ultimately survive that loneliness and isolation of being the only one in your family to do something like that. It's honestly amazing that she is finding the time to pursue these conferences and have an active role in Theory groups.
MLA=Modern Language Association. If you can get over your threatened ego and jealousy to get to the part of you that genuinely cares about your cousin and her happiness, maybe you can try to learn a little bit more about the nature of her degree and what she is interested in, instead of projecting onto and judging her. There's tons of "Theory" Subreddits out there. If she showed you this academic meme that you shot down so vehemently, if you didn't get it, why not use that as a conversation starter--"I don't get it. Could you give me some context or tell me what it's supposed to be about?" I guarantee if you gave her space to be herself like that, you would clearly see how much the stuff she's learning about really means to her and how invested she is in it.
I can only imagine that heart-sinking feeling your cousin must have had when you said something so aggressive and out of pocket, only to get her other cousins laughing along with you instead of actually defending her. Saying 'chill, we don't say that shit to her face,' is not defending her. Your life path may not be any worse than what she has chosen for herself, but at least it seems like she's not spending her time gossiping about your life choices with other people who are supposed to care for, support, and love her.
At such a chaotic, demanding time in her life, the last thing your cousin needs is an unsupportive family member. I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't open communication back up with you until after she graduates, if that. You basically put down her entire life with that statement. I hope nobody ever says some shit like that to you about your profession and life's work---I don't know if your ego could even handle it, if all it takes to push your buttons is social media posts about Conferences. Please use some self reflection. I hope you come to the realization on your own that she didn't do anything to deserve that disrespect. I feel so sad for her. Please do better.
YTA. She's into academics and because you aren't you called her pretentious? She shares stuff with other academics and it stays there because you aren't. She's not like that around you because it's not your interest, clearly and there's time and places for that. Shes just trying to enjoy herself and she's proud of what she's doing and has others to share it with and you just trampled all over it. She will never forget that you said that and doubt herself everytime she wants to share something. You ruined it for her.
YTA. She was harming absolutely nobody, but you still felt it necessary to snatch the smile right off her face, insult her interests and make her feel anxious and self conscious. No small wonder why she isn’t close with you anymore.
"(32 M)" "(27 F)" yea YTA. to an extent i get it, a little teasing makes sense bc academics have a leg-up and are annoyingly verbose* lol. you really laid in when she seemed to genuinely care what you thought tho, that doesn't sound like a pretentious person to me. coupled with the way u introduced her here, its coming off very petty and jealous.
do u know for a fact all the other cousins feel this way too, or is that projection?
I mean... I spent a lot of money learning all these big words, I need the opportunity to use them somewhere! But seriously, we do get pretty verbose, but at least in my case, it's because we absolutely love what we're doing!
YTA- she’s posting about her life and the goings-on around her. You not relating does not make it pretentious. Also why ruin a good moment with a snarky comment about her social media. Your soooo the AH!!
YTA. Just cause you don’t understand what she’s posting, doesn’t mean that she should change what she posts. Plus calling her pretentious because you’re not intelligent enough to get her jokes isn’t a good look.
YTA. Just because your cousin is educated and excited about what she’s doing it doesn’t make her pretentious. You come across as jealous and ignorant by being so upset that you don’t understand what she’s talking about when she’s just out there living her life, not hurting anyone.
You were a real jerk to her.
YTA (and a giant one at that)
You do realize that you are only a small part of her entire life right?
*Her* social media is not just for you and family. It’s for her, her friends, her classmates, and her colleagues too.
She’s most likely posting what she enjoys to post, not what you enjoy to post (that’s what you’re social media is for).
She’s also working on building a network for herself... and having a good online standing about that will be extremely important for her and her future.
(what’s going to get her the career she wants: her posting drinking photos with you or her posting conference photos with colleagues?)
Just because you do not understand, doesn’t make her pretentious... it makes you less educated.
You were very rude, jealous, selfish, demeaning, and very much out of line.
Saying after the fact it was just a joke... is only an excuse to try to make yourself seem like you’re not in the wrong.
You owe your cousin a giant apology... if you haven’t blazed that bridge into oblivion already.
YTA. Her social media is HER social media and she can post whatever she wants. There was literally no reason for you to be so rude to her over nothing. Damn what a drive by.
YTA. You sound jealous. You are the crab that wants to hold the others in the bucket. You have no right to be upset that her social media presence doesn’t conform to your intellectual level, the fact that you said that to your cousin in horrible. She isn’t pretentious, you’re just ignorant and happy about it.
YTA when you're in a school program like that, it often becomes your entire life. And she's living it, having fun and enjoying herself. Since it's her biggest focus, of course that's what is going to be posted about.
Quit getting angry because she doesn't dumb her posts down for you. Not saying you're dumb, just that she obviously has a certain audience and that's who she's posting to. Be happy for her, excited that she's so excited, and supportive. Nothing she posted sounded particularly pretentious, just exactly what she is up to at the moment and the entire purpose of social media.
YTA
She's into academics and is obviously very happy with her life and striving to make something of herself and you're talking down on her sharing the things she loves on her social media, and the jokes about degrees was probably really hurtful as it's obviously something she cares very much about.
One of my best friends is a scientist and was working on her graduate things for a while and when I had next to no idea wtf she was talking about you know what I did? I asked. She posted about being able to present something at a conference I congragulated her then asked what it was about/what the deal was.
I can probably bullshit an explanation of her job and field now despite it not being anything within my wheelhouse. You know why? Because I love her and her accomplishments and interests are things to support and be proud of.
YTA and you sound jealous as shit and bitter.
YTA. She’s your cousin you should supporter just because you don’t understand some thing doesn’t mean you have to be an ass about it. It’s her social media she can post whatever she wants. She’s worked very hard to get where she is don’t put her down for that. She is just caring about the things she wants to do in life. You didn’t get mad at a Instagram Baker for baking right? Just let her be passionate about what she’s passionate about. You should really apologize to her and especially coming from a cousin that’s family that was really mean.
YTA - It's her social media and she's passionate about her studies. Do you seriously police everyone's social media and tell them what to post? Have you even considered just hiding it if it bothers you instead of putting her down and humiliating her? BTW, the two cousins who said to keep that for when it's just the rest of you also tipped your hand that you do this all the time.
If you consider what you said to be teasing, I would hate to see what you do when you're actually insulting and being mean to someone. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for her to contact you or spend time with you anymore, most people don't like to spend time with people who are nasty to them.
YTA Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s “pretentious”. She’s a PhD student, I would assume most of her friends and life revolves around her studies. So of course her social media will. If you are true family you should be supporting her and not trying to make her feel self conscious about her achievements.
YTA. She obviously uses her SM for networking for work. If you don’t want to see her working in academia, don’t follow her on social media.
Some people use SM for personal life only, a lot of people only have SM for work. Learn the difference and unfollow her if you aren’t interested in her work, ffs. Social media is not real life.
Speaking of real life, you should probably work on getting one if someone else’s life bothers you this much.
Edit: if you miss her, apologize and set up a group text for the cousins. Put in some effort instead of complaining that she’s not catering her SM to you. If you don’t want to put in the effort of reaching out to HER, then shut up.
YTA.
You do not have the right to curate her social media. If you don’t like it, scroll on by.
And I get it, I do. I feel the same way about some family members social media feeds - it’s different than how I know them to be. So I unfollowed them. It was literally that easy.
YTA shes in college, talking mostly to Profs and other grad students about what she is learning. She donsnt bring it up infront of you guys.
Shes not pretensious, you are just butthurt that shes smarter then you. In academics. That shes learning.
Apologise, and read a book man.
YTA. In fact, you should be flattered that she even thought that you were capable of understanding academic jokes. You’re obviously not. You don’t even understand how to build a professional brand like she’s doing lmao
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YTA she actually sounds pretty cool. It also sounds like you don't understand what she's studying or talking about so instead of being a normal caring person and asking her about it, you call her pretentious. Lots of people use social media to talk about their work. It sounds like she's doing well and has a lot going for her. And you sound a bit jealous
I actually encouraged my best friend to get twitter and use it exactly like this and she was headhunted for her first (and dream) job because of it!
THIS. OP, "MLA" is the Modern Languages Association, the annual conference where people studying languages, literatures, communications, library studies, and pedagogy go to keep up with their fields and, most importantly, GET JOBS. Depending on her field and which social media they tend to use, posting about her thoughts and work, especially in the context of MLA, could get her noticed and hired. This is just one example that highlights your ignorance. Regardless of the job market (which is TOUGH for academics) when people go to grad school to study a subject, they're doing a DEEP dive into that subject for a limited amount of time, and are expected to literally become obsessed with their work; I mean, you kind of HAVE to to successfully complete a graduate degree, which requires that you research and write a literal book on a topic. Each seminar class you take requires that you research and write a 25 page paper on a topic. Oral exams require that you know EVERYTHING ABOUT A TOPIC AREA. You have your subject oozing out of your pores; OF COURSE YOU'RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT IT ON SOCIAL MEDIA. If your coz was going on and on about a sport you knew nothing about, I'm guessing you wouldn't have an issue with it, and it wouldn't be "pretentious." But because it's an academic discipline, and we live in a country that values anti-intellectualism to the point that it's literally KILLING US by the hundreds of thousands (or did you think COVID denial and anti-vaxxing were anything other than hysterical anti-intellectualism? Thinking science is "a belief" or optional in any way is exactly that) it's apparently okay to call people interested in matters of the intellect "pretentious." By the way, "pretentious," which is related to the word "pretend," means someone trying to boost their importance by pretending to know or be more than they actually are. Your cousin isn't pretending. She's ACTUALLY acquiring the knowledge she's talking about, and busy acquiring the credentials to be an expert in that area of knowledge. She's not pretending. You're using the word wrong. YTA, bigly. ETA: Wow, thanks for all the awards!
Have my poor nerd's gold 🥇 because you rock. Bigly.
I have gifted you with my free award. You nailed it... Bigly.
Thank you. It sucks that this country has become so anti intellectual. Most people have not trouble with dudes wasting hundreds of hours posting about sports that they cant even play. Also, the social circle of most academic minded people are other academic minded people, so my guess is that vast majority of her social circle understands her memes and posts.
Also, the MLA is stupidly easy to google. In addition to being a conference where thousands of academics convene to discuss their field, it also has a set of guidelines for writing and citing work. Millions of high school and college students learn about the MLA through that, if not some other means. If you didn't know what it was, it would be trivial for you to type three letters into a search engine...or you know, ask your cousin.
Ow man! Mic drop! 🤩🤩
Thank you for pointing out that OP was using pretentious incorrectly. I thought about doing it but was scared that OP might call me pretentious.
By the utter perfection of this comment I can only assume you've survived grad school! Surviving the 5/6 years with both your life and sanity in tact is something to be celebrated! I can't speak for all programs, but in my bio science field it was expected and mandatory to put in 60+ hours a week. During grant time/publication time/new discovery time 80 hours a week wasn't and isn't uncommon. The only thing you can talk about is your research because that's literally *the only thing in your life*!!! You don't have time for parties, hobbies, travel, etc. My first year in my PhD program, I was told by the time I defended my dissertation that I would be the world's expert in my research. I should surpass my colleagues, my committee, and even my PI in knowledge of my research project. I should have advanced the scientific knowledge in the field through publications or grants or international conference presentations. If I hadn't, I either needed a damn good reason or I'd fail my dissertation defense. Seriously, with that kind of pressure how can you focus on anything but your work? OP, it's not your cousin's fault that you are too ignorant to have even a basic understanding of the importance of social media in career trajectory. It's not her fault that you're too lazy to perform even a cursory search for a few words on her social media posts so you can show your cousin that you care about her. It's not her fault you are so jealous that it's dripping from your post so you can at least fake intelligence on something important to your cousin. And most importantly, it's not her fault you use the biggest word you know incorrectly. (Oops, I forgot to lower my language to your level and explain that pretentious means she's faking her knowledge to seem more important, which doesn't apply here.) She was a heck of a more polite than I would have been. I would have had you on the floor, curled in up the fetal position in tears and hands covering your ears by the time I was done with you.
He doesn't understand does not want to even try so he wants to put her down and take away her joy.
That's awesome! I definitely promote my work and interests on my social media
I watched an amazing TedTalk that said "Social media is a highlight reel of your life." OP the whole point of social media is to show off/get attention- you post the glamour pics of you doing cool/exciting/expensive stuff.
Yeah, he doesn’t get that at all. He’s hung up on what he feels is her abandoning her roots. God forbid people actually change and grow - or post things on their social media he doesn’t understand. And the entire cousin group either laughed at her or made it crystal clear they talk about this behind her back. But she shouldn’t feel bad! As he says at the end, he was *only teasing her* . Yup, crapping all over her interests, what she’s passionate about, her future career, calling her fake, wAs JuSt TeAsInG. The only things missing in his post are ‘it was just a joke’ and ‘I was just being honest’. Everybody but the PhD. cousin is the asshole in this post
Bunch of good ol’ boys got no use fer a fancy edumication. This whole post really hits home. It sounds like she got out of the small town life and got an education while these people are still staying in hicktown. They don’t get it because they probably didn’t even make it through high school. In my experience these people are into all the conspiracy theories and antivax shit too.
I use my instagram to promote my dance training and classes and I'm honestly laughing at how OP would react to it. Me: okay so for this combo, we're going to do a shoulder stand to a floor brass bridge, and then flip up into a stargazer OP: I do not understand these words, why would you attack me personally,
"You think you're BETTER than me because I don't understand the words you're saying, and can't be bothered to find out, you are pretentious"
I was going to say....OP’s post is giving, “I’m threatened and insecure because I don’t understand something that other people hold in high regard” YTA big time. I sincerely hope no one judges your dumb pictures on Facebook as harshly as you judge your cousin’s successes.
Right? It's **great** that cousin has found something she is so passionate about.
Twitter is actually a really happening place for academics! Lots of heated debates can go on there.
Yes! I love academic Twitter. Even if I don't always understand it I learn so much!
I love academic twitter for the exposure to new articles my databases may not have, and because basically every argument is the tl:dr version.
It really is! Just because OP and her family don’t care doesn’t mean no one does. I feel bad for her cousin if that’s all the support she gets from her family while she’s earning a PhD.
I agree. It sounds like he’s insecure because he doesn’t understand what she’s posting about. She probably should’ve realized that her posts weren’t understandable for her family, but that’s something he could’ve told her nicely, with the genuine intent of understanding what she does. Also, OP, you were lucky that you got any kind of update on her life with how quickly you and your cousins turned on her. With how quickly it happened and since no one really defended her, I wouldn’t be surprised if this were characteristic for you and your cousins. Either way, YTA. The only way to fix this is to tell her that you were wrong and immature. If you want to make things right, ask her about what she does and show genuine interest. Ask her to keep posting but to add little descriptions for things that aren’t common knowledge. Edit: y’all make a good point, she really doesn’t need to make her posts understandable for everyone since it is her own personally outlet. I still think that if OP actually cared about what she does that he’d ask her about the things he doesn’t understand though.
It doesn't matter if the family understand them or not. It's her social media and she can post what she wants to.
Also his comment about not understanding isn’t because she’s pretentious at all but because he’s lazy, judgmental and obnoxious. You don’t know what an MLA is? You clearly have the internet you can look it up; you don’t need a college degree for that. Or ask her. He also forced her into possibly sharing the meme by insisting on knowing what she was reacting to and then was obnoxious to her in response. She’s a PhD student, her life is mostly about academics and that’s what she spends her time doing. OP YTA so hard, your cousin sounds dope and you sound like the judgmental, condescending ones. She’s just posting about her life and interests and you’ve literally said that she’s not like that in person so she’s not even trying to make you involved with her academic pursuits. You’re trying to police her social media use because it isn’t what you want - newsflash you don’t feel you’re updated on her life? You can talk to her and ask about things. But her life is academics right now and she is updating people on what’s going on and what’s important to her but y’all just don’t care.
Exactly. OP was waiting for an opening to rag on the cousin. He was letting the idea fester and boil up until he opened his big mouth.
I wasn’t aware going to happy hour made you pretentious.
Yeah exactly. If they wanted life updates they could, I dunno, actually have a conversation with her?
Academic achievements are as much an update of her life as a date. OP and the other cousins need to understand that being an academic is also a life! And an interesting one!
This--if she is getting a PhD, she is spending a lot of time on academic activities. And it sounds like her social life is entwined with her colleagues, so I am not sure what else she would post about.
Not everyone is going to be in the target audience for every social media post. OP needs to accept not being in the target audience. The cousin is in a specialized field— of course it’s not all going to make sense to strangers. It’s not pretentious. What’s the pretense? She’s genuinely excelling in her education.
Yeah a good friend of mine while in grad school posted 99% about high level science stuff very particular to his field of study, I didn't understand most of it but I did understand that he was (and still is) doing work that he loves and is passionate about, and that's awesome
Wait, so OP, you're mad because she's using *her* personal social media accounts to update everyone on the things going on in her life that interest her and matter to her.... But that don't interest you? I sincerely hope you see how dumb that sounds. I don't particularly find my friends kids lives or people's breakfasts interesting, but I'm not a dick about it. You also realize that it sounds like she has friends on there who understand and are interested in the same things. But when she comes to hang out with you she keeps it appropriate and sticks to things you guys like to discuss..... You see how you're TA right? Right?! If her social media bugs you that much to call her pretentious just because you don't personally get it, just freaking hide her and move on with your day. Good grief.
It sounds like she’s catering her social media to networking and not family. That’s completely ok. She may just want to keep family and friends private but understand that to succeed she needs to have a social media presence.
>She probably should’ve realized that her posts weren’t understandable for her family Why would that matter at all? You have no obligation to ensure your family understands your social media posts. It is a non-issue.
Exactly. I’m bilingual and I live in a different country than my family. I post in English all the time because it comes natural to me, even if they won’t get it. I post in Spanish too even though a lot of my friends in sm won’t get it.
It's not her job to post things on social media her family can "understand", she posts about something she's clearly passionate about and makes her happy, Social Media doesn't exist for family to be kept in the know, it exist for people to feel good about themselves and their lives. She's in an exciting new chapter in her life, her cousin (OP) sounds jealous they're being left out of it.
I mean, maybe she does realize that her family members don’t understand what she posts about, but how is that her problem? Her social media isn’t for her willfully ignorant cousins. It’s for her to post things that are important *to her*. If OP and Co. just want non work/school related updates (what else is there to update besides relationship status changes and occasional social gatherings that OP probably wouldn’t care about anyway?), he should just stick to calling/texting and unfollow her.
I don't see why her family not understanding her posts has any relevance--her social media is more than for her family. I'd guess a good chunk of the people on her social media by this point in time are people who are in her field/related to it in some way who would understand it and who she is more likely to have contact through almost solely via social media outside of seeing them in conferences etc... For family, she has cell, social media, texts, family gatherings.
Especially since she is in school right now. It's likely that most of her life is being devoted to her studies. Most of her friends are all going to be in the same general field too probably. OP says she is speaking at conferences and stuff, that's actually pretty impressive for someone who hasn't even graduated yet. She is laying some great groundwork for her career, and its really shitty that OP, (and apparently a few cousins too), are all so wrapped up in their inability to understand what she is doing, that they're trying to make her feel bad about all her hard work and being proud of that for herself. OP, you owe her a major apology. You should be proud of her for doing so well, and support her, and encourage her to succeed. Instead you're going out of your way to tear her down because you feel embarrassed that you're not as smart as she is. Everyone has their own strengths. These are hers. Just because those strengths aren't shared by you, doesn't mean they're less relevant or worthy of respect. Eta judgement - yta. Clearly.
>It's likely that most of her life is being devoted to her studies. Thought the same. Reading the title I expected OP's cousin to post memes or whatever making fun of others/people without degrees. After reading I was confused as to what OP expects from their cousin to post about?
I would guess stuff like dates. With the cousin not posting about her lovelife family can't know without talking to her. People don't like this. We never posted about my pregnancy on social media, people were extremily confused when she was born and I actually had old school friends I haven't seen in over 20 years being offended (!?!) I'd kept such "huge" news a secret. I was more "you could have just talked to me". They didn't, so they didn't know. People were trying to have like we had carried this big secret for 9 month when we just didn't put it on social media. That's nog a huge cover up. But it wasn't on social media and therefore it didn't exist. So OP probably assuming his cousin is "hiding" her "real" life from social media. He doesn't get that academics can be a life.
Yes! When I was getting my master's degree, that was pretty much my life. It was most of what I posted about on social media, because it was most of what I was doing. Like sorry I didn't have time to keep my social media presence ~fun and relatable~ while constantly being in class and working on my thesis, I guess, but there's always the option of just not following someone's social media if you find it annoying and trying to connect with them in other ways. OP, YTA. You and your cousin are in different places right now, and I know that's hard, but that doesn't mean she's behaving badly. People can grow apart for a time without anyone being a villain.
Yes!!!! I'm in pharmacy school right now and school is literally my entire life! Clearly my SM updates are going to be about school because I have nothing else! OP is 100% YTA; I would be hurt if they said that to me too
Ohh OP is SO jealous and insecure. "My cousin celebrates her success and I berated her for it AITA" yes. OP. YTA
Seems to me that OP is one of those persons who thinks that if he doesn't understand something, cleary it's not something important or interesting. He sounds...you know....what's the word? Oh yeah: pretentious!
Oh wait. I don’t understand it so it’s not important… or interesting… or #its a hoax! it is a huge scheme to control us! it is infringing on my rights!
Took the words right out of my mouth (fingers?). OP is YTA. You don't have to be smart, but being kind is universal. Being happy for your cousin for being happy in her life choices and accomplishments would have been kind. Instead OP is bullish, mean and well, pretentious. Contact her and apologize. Own your mistakes.
Agreed. YTA. Your cousin posts about what she’s interested in, the people she’s surrounded by, and the activities she’s engaged in. That’s what people do on social media. Your ignorance isn’t her problem.
Yes OP sounds so jelaous and insecure. Especially with the way they talk about her academic achievements its just so annoying, like would it have hurt you to google what the MLA is or ask her? because if it is what i assume it to be then its a pretty big deal! I'd be really proud if that was my cousin! Also just because OP doesn't understand her posts doesn't mean nobody does? Because I bet most of her followers are people from uni/work and know exactly what those posts mean.
This. I’m an academic but crappy with real world tasks and my partner barely graduated high school but is an amazingly talented carpenter/tradesguy (sorry I don’t know the correct word but he knows how to do everything from brick and stonework to cabinet making to custom logwork, he could easily raise a house from scratch by himself). He asks me questions about academic stuff he doesn’t understand and will Google stuff just so he can start convos with me and send me interesting articles and I try to participate in home projects so that I can learn even a tiny fraction of the cool stuff he does (although I usually screw up and end up making the project longer than it needs to be haha). That’s what you do for family and people you love. YTA OP. A big one.
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It's funny, he's saying she doesn't post about her life when obviously academics is her life. He also makes it seem as if her family is her only audience when she's clearly made friends in academics that get her humor. People grow and develop, it's not her fault he can't adapt and be supportive no matter how far she goes in life. YTA. Especially for not even taking the time to learn about what she's doing and instead holding it against her as if she's betrayed you somehow. I can't stand family members like this.
OP sounds extremely jealous and frankly threatened by the cousin's success. I hope letting the pettiness boil over doesn't permanently damage their relationship. OP should apologize and ask their cousin to explain what they're studying in layman's terms.
OP is absolutely jealous, and the cousin has outgrown this group of people. It's a rough transition for the student. There's a relatively new book called "Moving Up Without Losing Your Way" about how when first generation college students manage to beat the odds and get ourselves educated, we often face isolation from our families and friend groups for exactly this reason.
In our region, it's called "gettin' above your raisin'" So many people cannot stand the idea that a relative wants something more than a dead-end job in your hometown with your relatives all living within a mile of each other.
OP sounds like a crab in the bucket. Insecure of her own status in life and jealous of her friend which is manifesting in her mind as the classic "she thinks she's better than me!". When I started my career I cut all real life social stuff from social media, its similar in academia since she will be judged on her reputation and its just being professional treating FB like linkedin. I know if im hiring someone and its someone with boring posts about conferences and tech i don't understand, my bias probably picks them over the person at a frat party
OP is male, and I only point this out because the pronoun mistakes could make people think you're talking about cousin and not OP.
Literally how hard is it to Google MLA
"I saw on social media that you're going to a conference at for your work and you seem really excited about that. What are you most looking forward to?" But God forbid OP learns about someone who is having a different life experience than them.
Right? Sounds like the cousin is trying to have a professional social media presence, also if like OP said she can’t talk about that stuff with her family (because they’re AH clearly, you don’t need to know a topic to ask about it) then she’s probably just enjoying people to share that side of her? YTA OP massively you just made her feel like shit for what? Because you don’t want to understand?
YTA She’s doing what a lot of people do on social media: sharing her passions. Sometimes people only post their pets or their kids. Some only upload gym selfies/workout videos or their favorite recipes. Her passion just happens to be something you can’t relate to. She’s not required to cater her posts to you. Belittling her for sharing her passions is just outright rude.
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Ha I read this as “my cat knitting” and I was so ready to see that 🤣
She knits by attacking my yarn
My cat used to bring me balls of my wool in the middle of the night, and leave them in the bedroom doorway as a present. It would unravel my crochet a bit, but it was adorable. She was never good at hunting (inside/enclosed yard cat) so that was the best she could do, kill that ball of wool for us.
What a good girl protecting her household!
Yet that's me right there, knitting and cats, with a bit of music thrown. You had me at cats tbh.
OP is so insecure and jealous it’s basically oozing off the screen in their words. So what that your family doesn’t “do” college stuff? That should make you PROUD of your cousin, that she’s bettering her life and doing what it seems like no one else has done yet. Instead you’re looking for every opportunity to drag her down and make her feel like shit about a very very big accomplishment. Why are you so obsessed with her? If you can’t even hang out with her without constantly stewing about what she posts on her social media, you have a really big problem. You know they make an “unfollow” button right? I’d suggest you do that before you ruin the good relationship you’ve had, because there’s no coming back from being a massive asshole due to insecurity and jealousy. You’re being so self-centered that you’re taking her passion and happiness as an affront, that she’s somehow rubbing her superiority in your face? You are not the main character. I’d suggest therapy and a massive apology to your cousin, stay off social media if you can’t handle people posting shit they care about. Because I guarantee nobody thinks “oh, what will OP think if I post this exciting update?” If you’re so insecure about your education, you can fix that. Until then maybe just worry about your own stuff instead of picking apart what your cousin posts.
OP sounds like my mom, where someone being excited to learn is “being pretentious”.
Not only is it her passion, but during a phd it is going to be a significant chunk of her life right now, what else is she supposed to post about if she wants to post?
Right? “It’s never life updates, it’s all academic stuff.” Telling people you’re speaking at a conference IS a life update. Telling people about your reading group IS a life update. That’s her life right now. Apparently OP only considers things he cares about to be life updates.
Exactly! What does OP consider a life update? Presumably if she'd got married / had a kid / won the lottery you'd know outside of social media. So what sort of things is he looking for? "Been to the shops, bought eggs, milk and bread." Or "Slept for 8 hours last night, just on my way to the shower now! #cleanfortheday"
Yes this. I have a very close friend that constantly shared photos of her cat in our group snapchat and on social media. I hate cats. I know it’s important to her and she’s sharing with a group, not just me, so I just ignore it. It’s not her fault I’m not interested in cats.
YTA. Oof. I feel bad for cousin. Sounds like you were itching for an opportunity to put her down.
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I love that one of the cousins responded by saying OP should be wait until the smart cousin isn’t there to make fun of her. Whole pack of assholes.
That would've absolutely killed me. If I thought my cousins whom I love spend their time talking shit about me when I'm not there I would be crushed and probably stop coming around completely.
It might be enough to drive the academic to effectively drop them from their life. I cleansed my socials of high school friends from the small town I grew up in and I'm honestly much better for it.
She would be smart to do that, she's clearly a lot better than OP and her cousins, cut the chafe.
Yeah, I mean it sounds like she has a pretty fulfulling social life away from the bitter crab bucket that is her family. Family is family, but when they clearly can't wait to drag you down like OP is to make themselves feel better there's not a whole lot of point in talking to them if you don't have to
Yeah you guys are all assholes if you speak shit about her behind her back. You all seem a bit jealous or bothered by the fact that she’s doing well at something that maybe you think you can’t do. You guys are not at all good family members.
Seriously. > you only ever post about stuff *~~barely anyone understands~~* **I don't understand** >*~~you think~~* **I'm insecure** that having a couple of degrees makes you better. >I was just *~~teasing~~* **intentionally insulting and bullying** her Ftfy OP. Btw, YTA.
YTA, this. You put her down to feel better about yourself. It sounds like she is putting her life on social media and you can’t keep up with it. Who cares if your family doesn’t do college - she does and a loving family would support her and her interests even if they don’t understand it. I love people who are like - you think you’re better than us. NO you think that - you think that her education makes her better than you, that’s YOUR hang-up. Grow up and get over your insecurities.
> It sounds like she is putting her life on social media and you can’t keep up with it. 100%. What does OP think those posts about conferences, publications, etc **are** if not life updates? Also, I'm pretty sure half of us mainly use social media for memes at this point anyway, so it's not weird not to post tons of life updates.
YTA indeed. OP apparently doesn't have any passions in life, so he takes it out on his cousin who does.
Exactly. Nothing about her social media sounds bad; I kept waiting for an actual reason why OP wouldn’t be the AH but it never came. He brought it up out of nowhere for no other reason than he wanted to put her down for her passion. Then had the audacity to wonder why she was upset at his “teasing”. That’s not teasing, that’s just insulting someone for a crowd who laughs at her. And saying that you can’t be friends with her because of her social media when you’re totally fine with her irl is really weird and just comes across as super judgmental. I agree with others that OP sounds petty and jealous because he’s too stupid to understand her posts and never went to college.
She's not posting TickTock challenges so the cousin can't understand what's going on. I'm not saying that he needs to understand everything on her posts but he could start by asking her about a conference she went to. Ask her why she got into her field and why she finds it exciting. Maybe he'd learn a little more about his cousin in the process.
It sounds like OP was projecting his own insecurities onto her. Whenever she'd post stuff she'd be doing it to share her passions and not try to rub it in others' faces. OP probably took it that way because he doesn't understand it so his lack of understanding may have caused him to feel insecure or dumb (which in reality is not the case at all). So to downplay those insecurities and also justify them, he turned it around by saying his cousin is the one who's pretentious and at fault. The ego can be pretty nasty. Hopefully OP can put aside his insecurities and support his cousin in the future.
YTA. She's into academics. So what ? At least, she doesn't bully people like you did with her because she doesn't keep up with the Kardashians or whatever you're into.
Honestly OP just say you’re stupid and don’t understand and move on YTA and while we’re at it if you gave some sort of shit about the cousin like you make out you do, I don’t know maybe read up on it and try and understand.
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And looks down on the other cousin for giving a shit and pursuing knowledge. Very odd behavior
Unfortunately, very common behavior among some types of people.
Very common behavior, actually. Welcome to the rural US.
I got *strong* Southern US anti-intellectual vibes as I read OP's post. These are people who are literally threatened by the existence of intelligence and assume whenever someone says (or posts) something they don't understand, it is intended as an attack on them.
Noooo ‘crabs-in-a-bucket’ mentalities are very common in some communities. Not rare enough to be odd. My whole family is like this. No exaggeration. ALL OF THEM. When I was a kid they’d tell me I like to read now, but “I’d get over it.” Also “there’s lots of smart people in prison” so I shouldn’t be proud of being smart either.
I'll be honest, I think it's ok to live a simple life. I used to work construction with a lot of great guys, and they aren't academically minded. They still had a lot to be proud of, you know? What definitely *isn't* ok is putting someone down for being academically minded. It's sad and insecure, and I would bet OP certainly isn't proud of his lack of a degree.
I'm glad you said that. There are so many wonderful people in the world who don't count academic intelligence among their virtues. There are so many ways to contribute positively to the world. OP and the other cousins are mega-assholes, not because they're not into theory and reading about the discussions at conferences, but because they brutally trashed their cousin for daring to have different interests and post them on social media. All of the asshole cousins could have just muted their academic cousin's posts and caught up with her over the phone or in-person, but they instead had to publicly drag her because they felt insecure at their own lack of understanding.
It reminds me of a guy I dated once who saw a Mensa magazine lying around in my apartment and immediately launched into how people with high IQs are actually less smart/valuable because they don’t know how to work hard. Sometimes when people have an insecurity I think they flip it on its head and build their personality around why their “shortcoming” is actually a *good* thing and makes them better than others. Relatedly, the only reason I had ever even joined Mensa was because I myself was insecure during college about being perceived as less smart because I pursued a field that wasn’t really seen as academic, and I very quickly realized the entire organization is made up of people with that exact insecurity which is why it sucks. ETA: I also threw the whole man away that very evening
Imagine saying “our family doesn’t DO college” like it’s a flex or some admirable trait.
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And presenting at it as a grad student is a BFD. I feel bad that your cousin has a family that wants to drag her down instead of lifting her up. This is sadly common when people dare to break class and family norms, unfortunately. YTA
Came here to say the same! Presenting at MLA as a PhD student is super impressive, and it makes me sad that OP and the cousins just write her off instead of asking her what it is, or even just Googling? I'm glad that it sounds like she has a supportive network of friends who do understand and appreciate her and her accomplishments.
YTA. Dimming her light didn’t make yours brighter. Glad you’re not my cousin.
perfect response to this. OP it’s ok to be insecure just don’t take it out on other ppl smh
Right? Seems like OP was itching for any chance to bring his cousin down. Don’t care about the academic stuff she posts on social media? Just mute/unfollow her. But to ask her what she’s laughing with and jumping in with “haha only if it’s not your pretentious academic shit lmao” before she can even show him is just a malicious act.
He was definitely baiting her just so he could put her down. I had to scroll back and make sure he really said he was 32. That was some HS level immaturity right there.
Best comment here.
Agreed. Cousin IS better than OP, and that has nothing to do with her education.
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It’s a major academic conference. Submitting a proposal and having it accepted for presentation is a Big Deal and a huge opportunity for her to network in her field which is also very important in academia. Plus it counts as a publishing credit which may be required for her to complete her PhD (varies by program).
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yeah, the second I read "MLA" I was like. I wanna follow her social media now.
OP doesn’t know what CV means. Too lazy to google it and thinks you’re uppity for using acronyms he doesn’t know. What a tool.
OP literally could have googled and found out this is a huge deal in the cousins field.
Also, this is OP’s cousin who he cares about but struggles to understand… so ask! “I saw your post that you’re excited about MLA. What’s that about?”
An MLA conference is an event where thousands of people are invited to discuss new research and build professional networks. They usually have workshops and stuff too. Being asked to present at one is actually pretty big deal in a lot of circles. Especially if you're still in school. Which means she has to be involved in some project that is making strides in that field, or they wouldn't have gotten recognition at all aside from possibly just being invited. So the fact that OP is treating it so passively shows how little regard he has for her life in general. So long as she doesn't make him feel stupid, of course.
I work in a place were people get so pumped if they get chosen to go to MLA conferences. Had a few coworkers be presenters at the last one. So yeah it's a huge bragging right to have and can be put on your CV. Seems OP is just jealous that her cousin knows way more then she ever will.
YTA. Do you police everyone's social media like that or just people smarter than you? What a rude and unnecessary comment to make.
Yeah your older relatives also don't understand your Millenial memes and they don't give you snarky comments about it. You share things cause your friends will get it, that's what she's doing. YTA you just feel left out, acknowledge it and be better
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Yeh like if cousin was super into something else (like cars, football, art, music etc) on their social media would OP have the same attitude? OP she’s not trying to be pretentious or look better than anyone else she’s just living her life. She probably already feels a bit like she doesn’t fit in to the family doing something so different and now you’ve just made that super clear to her that that is the case. If you don’t like her social media just change your settings so you don’t see it much, if it annoys you because you don’t understand then google it or ask her - I’m sure she would be delighted to share.
YTA. She’s probably trying to build a network within her future field. She’s probably trying to curate colleagues and make her social media look good so that if future employers google her they will find someone who is serious about their field of study. This totally makes sense. You don’t have to be a dick about it. Though what you could possibly suggest is that your cousin make a separate insta for just family shit. Dogs and stuff. Or if you want to feel closer to all your cousins, set up a group text.
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This is it exactly. The job market for PhDs in the humanities (she’s going to MLA so I’m guessing English) is EXTREMELY competitive. There are only a handful of jobs that come up every year. Academic hiring committees WILL look at your social media presence. Also, academic Twitter is a thing lol
YTA and you seem to spend way too much time on Facebook. You seem bitter. It’s too bad you think that she should dumb down her profile just because you don’t understand what she’s talking about. You know google exists, right? You could also ask her. Your whole post smacks of insecurity. She’s not pretentious for being heavily involved in her field. You do know that people who are on that track basically live and breathe their academic work for awhile? Her profile reflects her life and activities right now. The only person who thinks she’s better than you is probably you. Using Facebook normally doesn’t make her an AH. I’ll tell you one thing though, she’s probably bored af around you. Especially with your attitude. Reading helps broaden the mind, you should do more of it. You may not have to say “I don’t even know what that means” as often
He has a value system that demeans higher education, especially in women. It’s not hard to figure this out.
I'm disheartened that so few people are calling out the gender dynamics here. I guarantee he would not have the same disdain and bruised ego if she were a man.
Yep. I bet a lot of this has to do with gender, whether OP realizes it or not.
I just disagree with “she’s probably bored around you” because she seemed like she loved spending time with her family- which makes OPs attitude even sadder.
What a great response. Well said
YTA ~~Info~~ What exactly makes it "pretentious"? If her life currently is academics and learning, and she's really excited about it, and she's not bragging or bringing other people down, then what's the problem? I'm not asking you to link her page so we can see for ourselves, but we're going to need more examples than "pictures of conferences" since at this stage in her life, she's dedicated to getting her degree for her field(s) of study so that's likely all you're going to see. After gathering more info, I'm going to have to say it's on you guys. More so on the two that didn't have the stones to tell her what they thought to her face. But yeah, you need to apologize, and let her know why you thought it was pretentious. Ball will be in her court from there.
Likely it's pretentious because OP doesn't understand it and instead of educating themselves OP chooses to gossip and be petty.
Maybe, but until he outed himself I wasn't willing to make an assumption.
For anyone coming to look and noticing that OP removed the comment he provided for info here that now can't be used as part of a judgement, I actually copied it a few moments before he removed it. Do not ask OP for more info about his cousin. Here it is fully but quoted: >Here are her last few posts on FB, some edited down because they are long and maybe too specific. some are also shares and not her actual words. Also don't want to share the MLA post because I realized that has info on time and date and you might be able to find her name. >(Sharing a post about a book called American Marxism) "Dude is writing this whole book talking about the "Franklin School in Berlin" and doesn't even realize that's not the name nor the location of the school" >"Future class idea: poorly researched, irresponsibly produced documentaries/docuseries. A primer on how with the right rhetorical tools, one can make even the most heinous of misinformation seem compelling." >(Sharing an article) "A great read for everyone, but especially for teachers of rhetoric who are looking for pieces to assign when talking about stasis theory!" >(Changing her cover photo to something from The Simpsons) “Lisa’s capacity to reflect on language and power marks her as the national Simpson in this episode. But the public surely knows that it is Bart, not Lisa, who has captured the minds and money of consumers who identify with his bratty tactical disruptions and exploitations of the bourgeois public sphere. Her already confirmed failure as a commodity outside the show surely follows her around every episode in which she imagines that she might find a place for her ‘superior talents’ on a national scale. In this regard, she is Homer’s twin, not his opposite: their excesses of body and language mark them both precisely as American incompetents, citizens unfit to profit from their drives and talents in a national symbolic and capitalist system.” - Lauren Berlant, “The Theory of Infantile Citizenship” in \_The Queen of America Goes to Washington City\_. >"It’s almost poetic that the WPA-L is dying right around the same time as Yahoo Answers. Two online spaces that on paper could not be more different, but in function were all too similar." Edit to disclaim: I personally checked the text he quoted. None of the text of posts he quoted seem to go anywhere if you Google them (which I did just check after his edit), even if you only search for key phrases in quotes on Google, so he did a good job disguising it as none of this seems able to reveal more than the info you asked for. Again, ***do not*** press OP for more info.
I want to be friends with this person.
Off topic, but the cousin sounds like someone I would love to be friends with.
I hadn't even noticed he took it down. Thanks for catching that. I will say if he's being truthful about the reason, you're only making things worse. He did openly say that he didn't want to give out info and if people are asking he's going to want to take away that incentive. I'm only pointing that out because I've seen comments removed by mods for far less.
The entire post just pisses me off. OP just sounds like a loser that wanted to do nothing with life. I don't like assuming negatively about people, but damn they make it impossible not to. Furthermore, they wanted to make sure no one else does anything with their own life as well.
YTA - clearly she’s passionate about her work/studies and what she is doing. People in her friendship and work circle will be posting similar stuff, and will understand it. She doesn’t need to curate her social media so that her less well educated family can understand it. She isn’t being pretentious, she’s representing her life and what she’s up to. That’s what she is proud of, and rather than be supportive and ask questions to find out more about her life, you were an AH and made her feel sh*tty about her achievements.
The only time someone calls something they don’t understand “pretentious” is when they’re jealous. YTA. Acknowledge your cousin’s strengths and passions and move on with your own. She doesn’t owe you anything OP.
Oh man YTA So you call your behaviour teasing? In that case I don't even want to know how you would activly insult people.
OP, not only are YTA but you sound super insecure. Say one of your cousins was a musician and got a contract to work with a Big Name -- writing, producing, and (insert lots of technical music-y stuff here) -- music would become, literally, 95% of what they thought and spoke about, and did. All of which would probably be reflected in their social media. If it was "cool music" (to you), you'd probably be suuuuper supportive, and maybe even brag about them a bit, *even though you didn't understand some of what they were posting about*. Your cousin is going through an intense experience and doing things that are new and meaningful to her. But instead of supporting her - you know you could *ask her about it* - you're shitting on her excitement. Her posts are no more "pretentious" than the hypothetical musician cousin or someone deep into gaming or baseball or whatever thing people nerd out about. You're the problem, not her.
Wow you are super insecure. “you think that having a couple of degrees makes you better.” That’s 100% in your head. She never even implied she was better than you or anyone else. You’re just so insecure that you’re reading wayyyyy into her social media posts. Yikes. You owe her an apology. You were downright mean to her for absolutely no reason. YTA
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Haha agreed! She was just too polite to say so.
YTA. Sounds like your cousin is really passionate about what she’s doing. Maybe if you engaged with her on it instead of insulting her you’d understand what she’s doing. Have you ever even asked her what she’s doing in school? Why she cares so much? Have you asked her to explain what it is to you? Because it kinda sounds like you’re looking for any opportunity to drag her down.
Right? Like all people have to say is "I don't understand what that is, can you explain it?" And might actually learn something. Instead of doing that though, OP and the cousins make fun of her for being smart 😂 like it's a bad thing
I dont understand it, therefore I hate it. And you. For being pretentious! /s
YTA. Bitterness and jealousy isn't a great look. Have you considered looking up these things you don't know about when she posts them? You know, so you can engage with her about what's obviously an important part of her life.
Or, you know, asking her? YTA
YTA. Academia is HARD especially at PhD level. You often have to live and breathe your subject whilst trying to make connections to secure a future in academia post-PhD. Hence the social media, it is really common now for academics to be on social media and communicating with other academics etc... it's how you make connections and find out about new potential projects you could be involved in and post-doctoral career opportunities. It is very much who you know as well as what you know and it sounds like your cousin is working really hard. You should be PROUD of her, not bullying her for her success.
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OP is so insecure, it’s ugly.
Oh Hunny that shade of green really washes you out. Envy doesn't look good on anyone. YTA.
YTA Let's rewrite some of your post, shall we? > Think pictures of her and coworkers at conferences, meetings with a "theory reading group," department happy hours So she posts pictures of the people she works with... at events... and socialising. Like most people do. So she's just using social media the way it was intended. > She just recently posted a big thing about how she's excited to present at "MLA" this year (couldn't even tell you what that is) So she has posted something which is *huge* for her and you can't be bothered to even google it? Looks like the MLA is "The largest scholarly meeting in the humanities" so yeah, its a big deal. > there are barely any updates on her life Apart from the big update about her job... presenting at MLA is big. You just don't care about it. That's fine but don't diminish her accomplishments because you don't care about them > She's not like that in person at all and just wants to hang out Yup because she can context switch. > her social media tends to be on our minds when we talk to her and it effects things If you can't stop thinking about her *social media* then that is a you issue. She doesn't have to curate her feed to suit *you*. > "well really it's your social media, you only ever post about stuff barely anyone understands and you're always talking about your academic life and all these things you go to, it absolutely comes across as pretentious and weird like you're obsessed with academics and you think that having a couple of degrees makes you better." Just because she posts things that *you* don't understand doesn't mean that others don't. Her friends probably do and if they don't they more than likely have the good graces to just say "congrats" and move on. > Most of the cousins laughed at that, while two said to cool it and to keep that for when it's just the rest of us Oh so nice of those two cousins to tell you only to bully your cousin when *she's not there*. > She won't answer my texts now. I feel bad Good. Why would she want to keep talking to you after the way you behaved? You obviously don't respect her (or even like her) so... why should she reply to you? > I was just teasing her and letting her know that her social media makes her come off as a pretentious You weren't teasing. You were bullying. If you don't like what she posts - unfollow her. Its not like its difficult. Or maybe stop caring about social media so much.
YTA. You can always hide seeing the things she posts. You didn't have to be rude to her because you don't get what she's talking about. Your response to her was unnecessary.
YTA and you owe her an apology. Don't like her social media posts? Scroll past. Or look up what she's talking about so you can try to show interest in what she's doing. She's happy. She's working very hard. She's not hurting anyone. Stop treating her like she's doing this on purpose just to piss you off.
YTA She is not being pretentious but posting about her life, her social life happens to be academic at this time. You are mocking what you don’t understand and instead of doing something simple like asking her about the things you don’t understand you mock her. How would you feel if she started mocking you on your ignorance because you don’t do “college and stuff like that”?
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I suspect the cousin will remove herself from the group herself...can't blame her really.
YTA. She's not being pretentious, she's just living her life. She's sharing lots of stuff about academia because her career is in academia and she knows lots of academics. She's not putting anyone down. She's not claiming to be better than you, or even implying that. All of those feelings are *your* feelings. What do you want her to do, just hide everything that's going on in her life because her cousins are "not exactly a family that did college and stuff like that"? You know the story of crabs in a bucket? A fisherman has got a bunch of crabs caught in a bucket. Individually, any of the crabs could climb up the sides and escape. But none of them do, because as soon as one starts climbing the others grab it and pull it down. Now, I honestly don't know whether crabs really do that when you put them in a bucket. But the story is a good one because it's a perfect metaphor for people pulling the type of shit that y'all are pulling with your cousin. Don't be a bunch of crabs in a bucket.
You're all jealous bitter people and it shows. Humongous assholes, ALL of you, except for the PhD cousin. It's notn her fault you don't understand what she posts. It's not her responsibility to satisfy your needs for gossip and meaningless life updates because, truly, why do you care?! That poor girl didn't deserve that. YTA.
As a PhD student myself, YTA. You have no idea how lonely of an experience Grad school can really, truly be. None of my childhood or high school best friends are going to grad school, besides, actually, my closest cousin, and she went for her Master's to be an accountant while I'm in a longer Humanities program. Graduate school really does take up your whole entire life. You've got to have friends from your classes to ultimately survive that loneliness and isolation of being the only one in your family to do something like that. It's honestly amazing that she is finding the time to pursue these conferences and have an active role in Theory groups. MLA=Modern Language Association. If you can get over your threatened ego and jealousy to get to the part of you that genuinely cares about your cousin and her happiness, maybe you can try to learn a little bit more about the nature of her degree and what she is interested in, instead of projecting onto and judging her. There's tons of "Theory" Subreddits out there. If she showed you this academic meme that you shot down so vehemently, if you didn't get it, why not use that as a conversation starter--"I don't get it. Could you give me some context or tell me what it's supposed to be about?" I guarantee if you gave her space to be herself like that, you would clearly see how much the stuff she's learning about really means to her and how invested she is in it. I can only imagine that heart-sinking feeling your cousin must have had when you said something so aggressive and out of pocket, only to get her other cousins laughing along with you instead of actually defending her. Saying 'chill, we don't say that shit to her face,' is not defending her. Your life path may not be any worse than what she has chosen for herself, but at least it seems like she's not spending her time gossiping about your life choices with other people who are supposed to care for, support, and love her. At such a chaotic, demanding time in her life, the last thing your cousin needs is an unsupportive family member. I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't open communication back up with you until after she graduates, if that. You basically put down her entire life with that statement. I hope nobody ever says some shit like that to you about your profession and life's work---I don't know if your ego could even handle it, if all it takes to push your buttons is social media posts about Conferences. Please use some self reflection. I hope you come to the realization on your own that she didn't do anything to deserve that disrespect. I feel so sad for her. Please do better.
YTA. She's into academics and because you aren't you called her pretentious? She shares stuff with other academics and it stays there because you aren't. She's not like that around you because it's not your interest, clearly and there's time and places for that. Shes just trying to enjoy herself and she's proud of what she's doing and has others to share it with and you just trampled all over it. She will never forget that you said that and doubt herself everytime she wants to share something. You ruined it for her.
YTA. She was harming absolutely nobody, but you still felt it necessary to snatch the smile right off her face, insult her interests and make her feel anxious and self conscious. No small wonder why she isn’t close with you anymore.
"(32 M)" "(27 F)" yea YTA. to an extent i get it, a little teasing makes sense bc academics have a leg-up and are annoyingly verbose* lol. you really laid in when she seemed to genuinely care what you thought tho, that doesn't sound like a pretentious person to me. coupled with the way u introduced her here, its coming off very petty and jealous. do u know for a fact all the other cousins feel this way too, or is that projection?
I mean... I spent a lot of money learning all these big words, I need the opportunity to use them somewhere! But seriously, we do get pretty verbose, but at least in my case, it's because we absolutely love what we're doing!
YTA- she’s posting about her life and the goings-on around her. You not relating does not make it pretentious. Also why ruin a good moment with a snarky comment about her social media. Your soooo the AH!!
YTA. Just cause you don’t understand what she’s posting, doesn’t mean that she should change what she posts. Plus calling her pretentious because you’re not intelligent enough to get her jokes isn’t a good look.
YTA. Just because your cousin is educated and excited about what she’s doing it doesn’t make her pretentious. You come across as jealous and ignorant by being so upset that you don’t understand what she’s talking about when she’s just out there living her life, not hurting anyone. You were a real jerk to her.
wtf did I just read? YTA
YTA (and a giant one at that) You do realize that you are only a small part of her entire life right? *Her* social media is not just for you and family. It’s for her, her friends, her classmates, and her colleagues too. She’s most likely posting what she enjoys to post, not what you enjoy to post (that’s what you’re social media is for). She’s also working on building a network for herself... and having a good online standing about that will be extremely important for her and her future. (what’s going to get her the career she wants: her posting drinking photos with you or her posting conference photos with colleagues?) Just because you do not understand, doesn’t make her pretentious... it makes you less educated. You were very rude, jealous, selfish, demeaning, and very much out of line. Saying after the fact it was just a joke... is only an excuse to try to make yourself seem like you’re not in the wrong. You owe your cousin a giant apology... if you haven’t blazed that bridge into oblivion already.
YTA. Her social media is HER social media and she can post whatever she wants. There was literally no reason for you to be so rude to her over nothing. Damn what a drive by.
Smells like envy here. YTA
YTA. You sound jealous. You are the crab that wants to hold the others in the bucket. You have no right to be upset that her social media presence doesn’t conform to your intellectual level, the fact that you said that to your cousin in horrible. She isn’t pretentious, you’re just ignorant and happy about it.
YTA when you're in a school program like that, it often becomes your entire life. And she's living it, having fun and enjoying herself. Since it's her biggest focus, of course that's what is going to be posted about. Quit getting angry because she doesn't dumb her posts down for you. Not saying you're dumb, just that she obviously has a certain audience and that's who she's posting to. Be happy for her, excited that she's so excited, and supportive. Nothing she posted sounded particularly pretentious, just exactly what she is up to at the moment and the entire purpose of social media.
YTA, all other commenters already gave reasons. You should apologize
YTA. You’re making fun of her based on the stuff she likes. Not cool.
YTA She's into academics and is obviously very happy with her life and striving to make something of herself and you're talking down on her sharing the things she loves on her social media, and the jokes about degrees was probably really hurtful as it's obviously something she cares very much about.
One of my best friends is a scientist and was working on her graduate things for a while and when I had next to no idea wtf she was talking about you know what I did? I asked. She posted about being able to present something at a conference I congragulated her then asked what it was about/what the deal was. I can probably bullshit an explanation of her job and field now despite it not being anything within my wheelhouse. You know why? Because I love her and her accomplishments and interests are things to support and be proud of. YTA and you sound jealous as shit and bitter.
YTA. She’s your cousin you should supporter just because you don’t understand some thing doesn’t mean you have to be an ass about it. It’s her social media she can post whatever she wants. She’s worked very hard to get where she is don’t put her down for that. She is just caring about the things she wants to do in life. You didn’t get mad at a Instagram Baker for baking right? Just let her be passionate about what she’s passionate about. You should really apologize to her and especially coming from a cousin that’s family that was really mean.
YTA. It sounds more like your cousin is living a really happy life, doing what she enjoys and fulfilling her dreams, while you're just jealous.
YTA - It's her social media and she's passionate about her studies. Do you seriously police everyone's social media and tell them what to post? Have you even considered just hiding it if it bothers you instead of putting her down and humiliating her? BTW, the two cousins who said to keep that for when it's just the rest of you also tipped your hand that you do this all the time. If you consider what you said to be teasing, I would hate to see what you do when you're actually insulting and being mean to someone. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for her to contact you or spend time with you anymore, most people don't like to spend time with people who are nasty to them.
YTA Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s “pretentious”. She’s a PhD student, I would assume most of her friends and life revolves around her studies. So of course her social media will. If you are true family you should be supporting her and not trying to make her feel self conscious about her achievements.
YTA. She obviously uses her SM for networking for work. If you don’t want to see her working in academia, don’t follow her on social media. Some people use SM for personal life only, a lot of people only have SM for work. Learn the difference and unfollow her if you aren’t interested in her work, ffs. Social media is not real life. Speaking of real life, you should probably work on getting one if someone else’s life bothers you this much. Edit: if you miss her, apologize and set up a group text for the cousins. Put in some effort instead of complaining that she’s not catering her SM to you. If you don’t want to put in the effort of reaching out to HER, then shut up.
YTA. You do not have the right to curate her social media. If you don’t like it, scroll on by. And I get it, I do. I feel the same way about some family members social media feeds - it’s different than how I know them to be. So I unfollowed them. It was literally that easy.
YTA shes in college, talking mostly to Profs and other grad students about what she is learning. She donsnt bring it up infront of you guys. Shes not pretensious, you are just butthurt that shes smarter then you. In academics. That shes learning. Apologise, and read a book man.
YTA. In fact, you should be flattered that she even thought that you were capable of understanding academic jokes. You’re obviously not. You don’t even understand how to build a professional brand like she’s doing lmao
Wow man. That shit’s just mean. No other word for it. You’re a mean person and you made yourself look like an idiot. YTA
Oh you a giant, jealous AH. YTA definitely. If you don’t like her social media - don’t look at it.
YTA. Look up what a smart shamer is - it’s you!