A person, suffering from Pretender syndrome is someone, who will pretend to like a hobby or interest, with his main goal ultimately being not to engage with the people and topic already in that group, but to subvert it to his morals and standards before moving on to the next one.
A content creator by the name of Jim spoke about this very eloquently, showing even examples from his experience:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MUthoPN-jg
It is the type of person you envisage when you recall that last social group you had, but something suddenly fell apart. Those guys you could have a talk with about whatever hobby you had in common or topic you found interesting. Well, this isn't something new. Instead, its been properly identified and described in many journals and psychology/sociology papers. We do, however, choose to not factor this in our daily lives. Few people would think to themselves "Hey, does this new guy fit in? Does he ruin the fun/discussion?". This is often due to members of such communities and groups perceiving them as stale and as a result, shifting their intentions to that place from a personal to a general social goal. They will look for more people to join that circle, so they can introduce that person to said topic. Often, it will be men, getting tired of "the sausage fest" or simply asserting that a female sharing the same interests will make the best romantic match. Be that for themselves or for other group members.
I attribute this to idealism. My personal experience with this has been similar in that regard. I used to be a part of a really decent infosec research group that got coopted by women, begging for attention and help with their generic CS assignments from University. Then there was one, discussing politics with no restrictions on what can be said. Then the Communist censors infiltrated by licking ass of the perceived socially left out. Then there was a amateur video/music creation group, several game/tv show groups and the list goes on and on.
I'm certain that I don't need to continue as even people unfamiliar with this have an idea of what my issue with this is. I aim nothing with this article. I just have a simple request:
Stop it.
