The art of exploiting stereotypes for fun and profit
In honour of yesterday's festivities, I wish to write about ignorance. And stereotypes. As human beings we all rely upon stereotypes as a means of dealing with the cognitive burden of information overload. The sophistication of those stereotypes depends upon the breadth of knowledge we have about the world. Yesterday I was at an independence day party and at one point we were playing "n truths and a lie" in teams. Knowing how people usually stereotype me, I took the opportunity to flagrantly exploit that tendency.
On my team, I had everybody else write down the wackiest truths about themselves, which were relatively tame, and then put down my lie as "Tony once taught yoga in Egypt". Despite the outlandishness of my claim, it fooled everybody. But the most amusing thing was a conversation that took place amongst another team:
Tony could definitely have taught yoga. Look at the way he's sitting on the grass; nobody is that flexible!
But he told me he grew up in Pakistan and has never been to India...
Well, Pakistan is right next to Egypt!
No, it's not!
Well, those countries are all next to each other in the middle-east.
On my team, I had everybody else write down the wackiest truths about themselves, which were relatively tame, and then put down my lie as "Tony once taught yoga in Egypt". Despite the outlandishness of my claim, it fooled everybody. But the most amusing thing was a conversation that took place amongst another team:
Tony could definitely have taught yoga. Look at the way he's sitting on the grass; nobody is that flexible!
But he told me he grew up in Pakistan and has never been to India...
Well, Pakistan is right next to Egypt!
No, it's not!
Well, those countries are all next to each other in the middle-east.