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Schadenfreude

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20:56 / 05.02.07

I guess I did tell it wrong then - basically, the guy pulled out in front of my friend and procedeed to stare at him as if to say 'yeah, I know I can't go anywhere, but I'm pulling in front of you, what are you going to do about it?' at which point he crashed into the person in front, simply because he was too busy trying to look mean than paying attention to the road ahead - the friend's driving part was unneccesary, but was intending to explain that he wasn't angry road rage about the incident, he just laughed it off, and then the guy crashed - not hurting anyone, just pranging the car infront, because he wasn't paying attention because he was too busy trying to be a hard man - schadenfraud? Well, maybe you had to be there.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

21:14 / 05.02.07

Okay, B the B, that makes a bit more sense.

I don't think there's anything wrong with a thread in which posters recount their own moments of Schadenfreude, provided that all involved are prepared to get their self-examine on during the process. It's pretty much a universal phenomenon.

A moment of pure pleasure today: Dear friend, are you driving a shiny new car with expensive metallic paintwork and a very loud stereo? Are you trying to drive said car through a crowd of pedestrians who have insolently opted to cross in front of you just because the lights happened to be red and the little green man has put in an apperance? I know, shocking. Still, it is a good idea not to lean on your horn. Sadly, the peasants do not know their place, and instead of scurrying to make way will merely glare and make rude gestures as one of their number pauses right in front of your car and casually lights a cigarette, then stands there smirking until well after the green man has started flashing. And you can't actually run him over, so you have to sit there making impotent VROOM VROOM noises until he dawdles out of the way.

21:27 / 05.02.07

But if said peasants were to cross the road without benefit of the green man, yet still pause to light a fag, glare, dawdle and get struck not softly by a car coming the other way…is that Shardenfreuder, or Schadenfraude? I wish it sometimes.

21:28 / 05.02.07

Mm. I suppose it depends who's driving the car.

Leigh Monster loses its cool

21:31 / 05.02.07

i thought shardenfreuder was a chocolate.

damn.

yes, that's right, laugh at my chocolateless pain.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

21:31 / 05.02.07

One way street, dude.

07:02 / 06.02.07

I used UBBScript not to actually quote but to indicate a quote (lazy I know buy I don't feel chastised) I think I'm gonna like it here...

My initial thrust was the temporary high of the experience followed by the squirming uncomfort of the soul.

I'm not used to general forums being so high-brow and will TRY and reflect on my more mundane thoughs.. prehaps i should have lurked a bit first...

naw definately not MY style

07:24 / 06.02.07

I used UBBScript not to actually quote but to indicate a quote (lazy I know buy I don't feel chastised) I think I'm gonna like it here...

Not lazy, it takes the same amount of time to put quotes in bold using the regular Barbe-system, just a bit counter-productive.

I'm not used to general forums being so high-brow and will TRY and reflect on my more mundane thoughs.. prehaps i should have lurked a bit first...

It happens dude. Don't sweat it. It's not like you've started flaming everyone in sight or anything. Conversation is a bit more free and easy but like everywhere else on the site it's a good idea to have a quick think before starting a thread running. Perhaps join in on a few of the active threads rather than lurking, that should get you into the swing of things.

07:26 / 06.02.07

My initial thrust was the temporary high of the experience followed by the squirming uncomfort of the soul.

I think temporary (somewhat smug) high then squirmy discomfort is pretty much it. Schadenfreude does (hopefully) come with a side-order of slightly queasy self-realisation.

People are correct about your initial example, though: schadenfreude is essentially taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others and, if said misfortune is actively engineered by oneself, then the element of fate is removed and it becomes revenge or retaliation.

07:35 / 06.02.07

I share Mordant's response to a tale of distracting somebody else into crashing into an innocent third party as a critique of their perceived bad driving as not schadenfreude

As pointed out above, the distracting was less accountable for the person crashing than initially made out, but in taking schadenfraude to mean - Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others (yahoo dictionary) - then surely the fact that I took pleasure in the fact that the driver had crashed for not paying attention fits that criteria? Or is this too loose, do you think? Does taking a loose definition leave the word open to the abuses of miss-use in not really fitting to the intended mood of the definition?

07:49 / 06.02.07

The only thing that I don't take pleasure in, Benny, is the damage caused to the rammed person's car and, possibly, to the passengers. Otherwise I'm with you.

Mordant, I wish I was there to see that.

What the very fuck is wrong with some drivers that they don't understand that a) the road does not belong to them, and b) that cars have the speshul ability to tranform into mobile slaughter-wagons at a moment's notice, unlike pedestrians who only have the speshul ability to become broken and torn.

07:52 / 06.02.07

I'm kind of intrigued that driving seems here to be the main substrate for schadenfreude, suggesting that public transport might render us all better people...

08:01 / 06.02.07

okay - and just to move off of the car-centric-fraude - at work the other day I was watching something fairly intently, and sat slowly on the back of a big leather sofa, slipping slightly on the sofa and looking momentarily less than graceful - a friend laughed and pointed it out a little too enthusiastically, then sat down, still laughing, missed the chair and fell to the floor. My Schadenfraude level was middling to high.

08:03 / 06.02.07

I'm kind of intrigued that driving seems here to be the main substrate for schadenfreude, suggesting that public transport might render us all better people...

...but make Morlocks of the Bus Drivers.

08:08 / 06.02.07

Ah well.... bastards totally deserve it.

*chuckle*

09:25 / 06.02.07

This reminds me, a couple of months ago at work, I'm stood waiting for the bus. The place I work is at an out-of-town retail park (and I work in a chain bookstore there, too, so, yes, I am both KILLING LOCAL BOOKSHOPS, KILLING THE HIGH STREET and KILLING THE PLANET by doing my job, evil me), and has an odd quirk in that there's a bus stop on either side of the road - one going in to the park, one heading out - and buses, when arriving/leaving stop at each bus stop. Some guy drives up, and gets stuck behind a bus at the stop. Not the one I'm waiting for, a different bus. His wife/significant other gets out of the car, then, as soon as she's left, he goes ballistic on the horn, honking at the bus, shouting at the driver to move his arse, and generally being Aggressive Motorist at everyone for having the temerity to want to use public transport.

And then, fantastically, he had to do it all again when he got stuck behind the bus at the stop on the other side of the road, except that time he also had to put up with me pointing at him and doubling over with laughter.

12:38 / 06.02.07

suggesting that public transport might render us all better people...

Do you use the busses much, Ganesh? The ones I get on are constantly recharging my reservoirs of hate and contempt for my fellow humans - not a good way to get less stressed let me tell you. I think there's something about public transport that necessarily turns people into petty assholes, and it's not just the drivers, I get it too. I think it's to do with Englishisms, like the correct way to queue, making sure you have the right change, or those fuckers and their annoying tinny phones (anyone up for a thread about that? I could rant for an eternity about that).

Anyway, speaking of this german word that I can't spell and have just learnt the meaning of, I have a bus-related tale. Every day on the bus there is a regular passenger who bugs the hell out of me, for reasons I can't entirely fathom. When we've left the stop before the one she gets off on, the bell for the next stop (3 mins away) is immediately rung and she will push her way through a packed bus from the back to the front, smacking the shoulders of everyone in seats (myself included) as she barges past, instead of waiting for the bus to stop and for half the bus to get off for the 6th form college. Yesterday she did this as usual, but the bus had to break suddenly and she headbutted a randrail. I'd like to point out here that it wasn't hard enough to really hurt, just enough to leave a faint mark for a few seconds and make her look a bit sheepish. The rest of the passengers were still sitting, because we still had 2 minutes before our stop.

I'm a petty, petty man.

13:08 / 06.02.07

I get mine like a metronome every two years, in the summer, England in a football tournament. I love that shit.

All Acting Regiment

13:47 / 06.02.07

The best shadenfreude is where you learn to see yourself from outside, and whenever you fall over in the street on the iceo r whatever it's a little bit like reading The Potato Elf or something.

14:29 / 06.02.07

Falke - fuck yes. Nothing quite as fun as responding to cries of "We got beaten again!" with a hearty "HA!". That's what they get for making telly unwatchable for a month, the bastards.

19:28 / 06.02.07

NOTE TO FUTURE READERS:

Hello dear readers. This thread's title was once spelt wrongly but has now been moderated to be correct. Presumingly this is so that we don't look like blithering idiots to those who may pass silently in the night, or maybe it's for ease of findage; the search system here being so delightfully helpful in all its other aspects. Regardless, it is now correct where it once was not. When not correct it was the butt of many a joke, as evidenced at the beginning of this thread. Just in case you wondered what all that may have been about.

The non-schadenfreude-ness of the first example remains exactly the same, i.e. not at all.

It may or may not please you to know this, but I tell it anyway because now the thread is tidy and tidiness is next to Godliness, or at least akin to occasionally changing your underpants.

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