Not all the world's a stage
Jul. 5th, 2005 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
substituteI don't like the word "drama". I hear it a lot. Friends and coworkers use it and it's everywhere online.
What does "drama" mean? A big argument, an unpleasant revelation, a crappy public relationship breakup, a confrontation, raised voices. Any kind of emotional blowup that isn't hidden is called "drama".
What does it really mean? That someone is being neurotic or manipulative and creating a theatrical scene, that trivial items are being puffed up to great size, that someone is a "drama queen" who needs to create public messes for his or her own reasons. Okay, that happens and it's annoying as hell. We all know a few people who do their best to turn everyday life into a soap opera.
But the word "drama" gets applied to anything emotional and public. Whether it's someone who gets in a shouting match with his ex-girlfriend at a party or someone who hits the end of the rope and guzzles a fifth of vodka and a handful of pills and has to go to the ICU, it's "drama". Basically "drama" is anything that makes you have to notice that other people are in bad trouble and can't help communicating it. It's an inconvenience to you, and it makes you stop having fun, and you want to trivialize it. So here's your label for that purpose!
Not everyone who loses their shit in public is clamoring for attention. Occasionally it's a tragedy and not a soap opera, and not to be dismissed.
What does "drama" mean? A big argument, an unpleasant revelation, a crappy public relationship breakup, a confrontation, raised voices. Any kind of emotional blowup that isn't hidden is called "drama".
What does it really mean? That someone is being neurotic or manipulative and creating a theatrical scene, that trivial items are being puffed up to great size, that someone is a "drama queen" who needs to create public messes for his or her own reasons. Okay, that happens and it's annoying as hell. We all know a few people who do their best to turn everyday life into a soap opera.
But the word "drama" gets applied to anything emotional and public. Whether it's someone who gets in a shouting match with his ex-girlfriend at a party or someone who hits the end of the rope and guzzles a fifth of vodka and a handful of pills and has to go to the ICU, it's "drama". Basically "drama" is anything that makes you have to notice that other people are in bad trouble and can't help communicating it. It's an inconvenience to you, and it makes you stop having fun, and you want to trivialize it. So here's your label for that purpose!
Not everyone who loses their shit in public is clamoring for attention. Occasionally it's a tragedy and not a soap opera, and not to be dismissed.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-05 10:08 pm (UTC)Your recent situation with the photographer was not "drama". The
assholeesteemed gentleman who caused everyone else hurt and pain by his actions turned a subsection of that into "drama".People using "drama" in real tragic or crisis situations are the same ilk that refer to everything as "ironic" that is simply unexpected.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-05 10:12 pm (UTC)Great analogy.