Koalas and Other Despicable Things

Generally I am not one to hate anything without a good reason. I tend to base my opinions on personal experience, not rumors, impressions, or others’ viewpoints. While these values hold fast in almost every aspect of my life, the one exception is Koalas. I absolutely cannot stand Koalas. And to be completely honest I don’t really know why. It could be their stupid little faces, the fact that they do nothing but sleep, or that their brains are quite literally smooth, but when I truly ask myself why I hate these cuddly guys I think those reasons aren’t good enough to truly hate them. And yet I do. They just piss me off. So this made me wonder- what things do my friends and other CAPA students around me hate without any reason? I can’t be alone, can I?

My quest begins with Mazie, an 11th-grade Creative Writer, who is disgusted by a drink that most love. “I hate soda,” she sighs. “I don’t know why anybody likes it, it’s so gross… I know to some people it’s sweet but to me it’s sour, I hate anything fizzy, and I don’t get the hype.” That’s a valid take, and Mazie must be living a healthy lifestyle without soda in it. I could never. But more importantly, this proves I’m not crazy. Someone else also irrationally hates a silly thing. While Mazie has a reason for not liking soda, it seems to be a subjective one.

Next is my dear friend Callie, a Sophomore grade MDTV major. She can’t stand repeating herself. “Even if I understand why someone needs to do it,” she explains, “like if they didn’t hear me, or I was mumbling… I just get unreasonably irritated.” When I asked her if she would care to repeat that, she grimaced, exclaiming, “Yes, I would care a significant amount!” while attempting to throttle me (in a loving way of course). I completely understand why Callie feels this way. It also makes me a bit upset when I have to restate something, but probably not to the degree she does. Having experienced her rage in real time, I will definitely keep this in mind in our future conversations.

Finally we have Helen, a 10th grade Visual Artist, who feels uncomfortable with “men who are like, grandpa-age or really old uncle age.” However, it’s not because they can be creepy and gross sometimes. “I don’t know what to talk to them about,” she claims. “They’ll be like ‘do ya like World War 2?’ and it’s like, ‘not especially!’” While this is a bit of a generalization, I understand what Helen means. When talking outside of your generation, it’s difficult to relate to each other. I’m not sure that calls for outright hatred, but different strokes I guess.

So it turns out I’m not a weirdo at all for having a silly and unfounded hatred towards a random thing, even if that thing is cute and cuddly to most. While I was interviewing, other people chimed in with their own irrational hatreds. From simplified Shakespeare to untransposed saxophone charts, the people around me have a variety of small things that upset them. While I still intend to base my dislike for serious things off of legitimate reasons, I’ve learned that it’s ok to be a hater, as long as what I’m hating on is a stupid-looking koala.