“It’s a Human Thing…” (Humans Are Weird/Earth is Space Australia)

prowls-analysis:

nerdworm:

almachroma:

prowls-analysis:

It just occurred to me that sometime after first contact, as humanity learned just how weird we are among intelligent species, someone would start printing T-shirts with pictures of all the weird stuff humans do–bond to everything, throw things, eat capsaicin, make things that shouldn’t work work, breathe oxygen, live in places no alien would dream of even visiting, pursuit predation/endurance running, artificial limbs, body art, extreme sports, (whatever I’m forgetting)–with the words, “It’s a human thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

I guarantee that it would be super popular with humans

We revel in the things that make us different, which is weird for a hyper social species like us. Those shirts would sell better than any other design ever

We like being different in groups,
really. We’re gregarious to a fault–even our introverts eventually want to at least see another of our own kind. (It just takes longer for us to get lonely.) What might confuse/bemuse aliens is that humans aren’t content to belong to
just one or two groups. We identify ourselves (or are identified by others) as
members of all manners of group. We’re members of immediate and extended
families. We identify as members of an occupational group. We’re fans of _____.
We belong to this culture, that religion, this social class. Race, gender,
introvert/extrovert, allergies and medical conditions, life experiences good
and bad, hobbies, parent/grandparent status, generation, political affiliation,
food preferences, hometown–all that stuff large and small, trivial and
not-so-trivial, we easily pile one group membership on top of another and
another and another, without confusion.

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