It seems like if the statement is literal, then it’s self-disproving, since the person cares enough to say that, and the person who they were saying that to cared enough to say whatever they said or did prior. Also the likelihood of no one (as in, no human I guess?) caring about what they had to say seems very low, and chances are a large number of other people probably would care, too.
If the statement isn’t literal but more rhetorical, then I’m not sure what it means, but I suspect it basically just means “I don’t care” (as in the person who says “No one cares” doesn’t care themself and wants to express this in a way that seeks to hold more weight by asserting that all other people feel the same sentiment as them, even though arguably they demonstrably care somewhat if they went out of their way to say that, I guess depending on effort required, or perhaps didn’t care originally but then developed some degree of care as a result of the annoyance they felt at being exposed to something)… or maybe it just means “I don’t like what you said/did” or “I’m annoyed by you”… alternatively it could mean “I think you’re stupid/worthless”, “I disagree with you” or “I don’t want you to speak/speak about this again”, or similar.
Anyhow, what is the most appropriate way to respond to this? It seems like an emotionally charged statement that warrants, perhaps being completely ignored, or maybe a measured response seeking to find some understanding or common ground, though a witty retort could be appropriate if respectful (I don’t believe 2 wrongs make a right, unless the first wrong somewhat necessitates the second, if that makes sense). That said, I’m open to hearing any kind of replies that might be given, regardless of how cordial/civil (or not) they are.
Whether the person saying it actually cares or not is irrelevant. They’re saying it to be rudely dismissive of what is being said while simultaneously trying to sound like a badass for attempting to speak for everyone else.
i.e., Being assholes for clout.
It’s schoolyard bullshit that shows the person saying it still has a bit of growing up to do.
It has been my experience 100% of the time that if someone says “No one cares” they in fact do care. People who don’t care say nothing.
So I pretty much agree with your assessment that it’s Self-disproving.
Context matters a lot:
-Discussing a general topic at length among peers, and someone says “Dude, no one cares”? They’re telling you to stop taking, and a) are annoyed, or b) in a mood to put you down. Use the rest of the context to determine your next move (e.g. stop discussing it, point out why it’s important, or leave).-Discussing an insecurity of yours, and someone says “Dude, no one cares”. Usually means they think the basis for your feeling insecure is unwarranted, usually though not always followed by a more direct statement on said insecurity. Meant to be reassuring, as someone else said.
-In some cases, “no one cares” means that in the speaker’s experience, the amount of people who do care about thing x is marginal, to the point that paying too much attention to that warps the understanding of the situation. This is tricky - by way of example, I’ve said “no one cares if people are trans or not” before (I’ve learned - this is a deliberate example, stay with me). Taken at face value, this is blatantly untrue - some people care a lot, both in a negative and positive sense. But as just a guy in the world, this is truly my experience - other people being trans generally isn’t something the majority of people care about. I can think of only one person I’ve met who does care (negative sense), and he’s generally a weird guy anyway.
As you can imagine, though, going around saying this carries some danger, as it can gloss over the risks posed to trans people by those ostensibly marginal figures. My saying no one cares is a product of my necessarily limited exposure to and experience of the world. The best way to approach this IMO is considering, and speaking respectfully to, the speaker’s blindspots - whether or not the people who care are truly marginal demographically, the impact the people at the margins actually have in the topic of discussion, etc. Depending on the exact topic, either it will be demonstrated that it is essentially true - while it’s doubtless someone cares, the number of people and impact they have on the topic is marginal to the point that this is irrelevant to the topic at hand - or identify a blindspot that hampers the speaker’s understanding of the situation.
I will note that in speaking of context, you may not be neurotypical (took a couple tests at some insistance by my kid, and despite being an odd duck in general, odds are I am) - unfortunately I can’t speak to how to elicit and identify full context in that case, but others here might. Apologies if that’s the case, where “use the rest of the context” probably sounds like “draw the rest of the fucking owl” in an owl drawing tutorial.
I think this pretty much sums up every reasonable possibility.
tldr but usually the meta language of ‘no one cares’ is ‘shut up(because no one cares)’
But it really the case that no one cares? I suspect that some people might.
I promise you no one cares either way
Nah, it’s not a literal statement. It’s a rude way to say “I don’t want to talk about this”. It can be due to a genuine lack of interest, or if you’re trying to have an emotional conversation, it’s a malicious way to downplay your experience.
It’s a big old world and there’s always at least one person who will care about something.
But does no one really care? I think at least someone might.
https://fs.blog/epistemology-know-know-know/
If you can prove or disprove that you’ve solved a field of philosophy.
“Only from our direct experience can we claim any knowledge about the world.”
My direct experiences tell me that there are a lot of diverse humans, and even other sentient beings/non-human animals who could potentially care about something. For example, if I wear a blue shirt and want to tell everyone about it, I might find (or perhaps never know for certain, but have reason to believe based on perceived observances of behavior/expression) that a cow given the name Samantha is the only one who actually appreciates it. Or maybe no one does, it’s possible, but it seems like we can infer that’s unlikely given how varied the individuals on the planet are, and even other relevant information about them, such as the observation that blue is a popular favorite color. But even though we can reason the likelihood of that based on certain presuppositions (such as reality being real, rather than a simulation, but even then you could argue it still exists on some level if not physically, & solipsism being doubtful due to the verisimilitude of life, but even granting it trivially, establishing some truth of reality & in particular the existence of other minds than my own as a basis for reasoning), it’s still not entirely certain, and yet neither is the claim that no one cares. It seems like “someone (other than myself) cares” and “no one (other than myself) cares” are both technically unprovable claims, but if we agree on reality being real & other functional minds existing and establish common ground there, we should be able to grant some degree of credence via the observations we experience in this “reality” to the notion or theory that there is a stronger likelihood of at least some other mind being one who would or may care (even if they don’t currently, possibly due to lack of awareness of the thing to care about), than to the idea that no one would care, no?
alright that’s not direct experience, there’s derived conclusions in there.
Interesting. Could you possibly elaborate?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_valid_argument_forms
“It seems like”, “I guess”, “alternately it could be” is another way of prepositioning A therefore B.
B is unknown and derived. A is known.
What is A in this case (that which is definitively known)? The fact one has a subjective experience of some kind of perceived reality and in this reality we see other people that tell us they’re real and say they have separate minds to us? And then is B the proposition “reality is real to a degree insofar as other minds that appear to exist do indeed exist and are sentient and hold opinions”? Because I agree A doesn’t necessarily entail B in that case, it is something that I’m assuming for sake of argument as a basis for further reasoning.
But if we presuppose both A and B are true (let’s call them AB), then it seems like the information and observed, even anecdotal/firsthand experience we can obtain from reality (and especially if we trust secondhand sources, but even if not) appears to (uncertainly) create the grounds for a case to be made that, using reasoning and empirical observations (a combination of a priori and a posteriori), we can deduce that if a large number of people care about a wide variety of diverse interests (which seems to be deducible by AB + an average experience of life where you meet a significant number of people who aren’t lying to you (=C)), then there is a high likelihood of at least one of them caring about a given subject or phenomenon?
So this is assuming some things, such as A (apparently known, so maybe not assumed), in addition to B & C, but if ABC, then is it really an invalid form of reasoning to conclude or speculate that D (someone cares) is likely? Is any form of argument which isn’t entirely certain unequivocally invalid? Because then you can’t really consider anything valid (aside from A, or things which are known beyond a shadow of doubt, even if you acknowledge their uncertainty), right? This is why certain elements of Descartes’ philosophy seem absurd to me… in addition to the intuitively contradictory idea that “All that we can know is I think therefore I am, but also God exists and is an evil demon that has created a false reality(?)”…
but do they care if you think at least someone might care? (no)
And no one cares about that either
Everyone appears to be hitting the “shut up, no one cares”.
There is also the “stop worrying, no one cares.” This is meant to be reassuring. It may be literal.
Going out on a limb here that you’re either young, or some flavor of “nuero-spicy” (I think that’s the hip new term people are using lately).
It’s almost always used rhetorically. To a degree that I could count the number of times I’ve heard it used otherwise in my over 30 years of life on one hand.
The way to respond to it depends on the conversation, but generally it’s your cue to change the subject, or drop the topic they were referring to. Unless you want to start an argument or make things awkward.
You’re also missing some other important “rhetorical” or at least non-literal uses:
- “You’re over thinking this”
- “So few people care about this that it isn’t worth discussing (at least right now or in this context)”
- “That isn’t relevant”
I’m sure I’m missing some other uses myself.
The only way to determine which it’s being used as is through context clues, tone, body language, facial expressions, etc. Welcome to the
annoying as hellwonderful world of navigating conversations with people that don’t directly say what they mean.It gets easier over time with experience, same as any other skill. It’s just a harder skill for some of us to build than it is for others… same as any other skill.
You’re missing a critical distinction.
People can not care about (topic), while caring a lot about (disruptive discussion of (topic)).
The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
It’s like I don’t have a particular opinion about cornflakes, but if you keep waving a box of them in people’s face and hitting them with it, then i’mma ask you to stop.
It can be annoying to have to deal with someone going into excessive detail, making inappropriately-fine distinctions, or taking a strong position on one side or other of an argument that nobody’s making - since in all of those cases, nobody is willing or able to engage with the topic, and it’s just taking up conversation-space with (effectively) a monologue that they find boring and exhausting.
If someone says ‘hey look at that funny-shaped tree’ because it looks like something else, it’s usually worth a ‘heh’ in the moment and you move on.
If you start going into great detail of whether or not it actually counts as a tree, or just infodumping neat tree facts, or start ranting about which genus it properly belongs to despite what some people think… then someone will shut you down with ‘Dude. No one cares’.
What if the tree looked exactly like your face and you failed to recognise it so I obsessively photographed it from all angles & made you gaze at the photos until you agreed with me and said “Huh. Something’s up with that”.?
You can not care about something at one moment, and then care at a later moment. People are dynamic like that.
Usually the goal of saying that is simply to hurt your feelings and/or establish themselves as both above you and distinct from you
If it’s said by someone you care about or have to regularly spend time around, it might be worth addressing, though otherwise it’s probably best to ignore/block
If it’s the former, deciding how to address it requires first identifying your priorities between:
- maintaining the relationship
- maintaining your dignity/self respect
- achieving an objective
There’s a DBT worksheet series for this that I’ve used a lot, personally, and have found super helpful
On how to respond; if it’s on the internet: It’s rude and stifling discussion, downvote and move on.
If it’s in person: Probably a good time to change topic. Or, if it is something that is actually important for that specific person, you need to tell them how it directly impacts them in a way they do care about. If they still give the ‘no one cares’ response, it’s absolutely a good time to change topic.
my classmates had a “who asked” and “noone cares” phase. It was the worst. When we talked about using these way too much we came to the conclusion that it’s a perfect conversation killer, you can’t come back from it. However, in our case we used it impulsively. Not really meaning it, so after a sigh and a “nah but fr” combo we got the convo back on track… usually.
WE hated and it still done it. What being bored in school for hours a day does to you. You said a fact?? a statement even?? “who asked”… It was anti-learning/talking culture. It’s so good that everyone just forgot about it. tiktok, reels, shorts and whatnot are not spamming it anymore, so it doesn’t exist anymore. If someone gets smart these days and says these, we’ll express our cringe (it’s so last year) so they’ll feel bad, not doing it again.
But to answer what it means, nothing. noone means it. it’s “funny”. They get joy out of killing a convo this “fun” way. They said the trending meme! Anyways this was my two cents
Yeah, “who asked?” is the other one. Also doesn’t seem literal, because does someone really need to ask you about something in order for you to offer your opinion on it? Is this one of those weird, oppressive, “you shall only speak when spoken to” situations, arguably harkening back to multiple forms of historical discrimination/oppression & attempts to silence people or restrict freedom of speech/dissenting thought (not consciously, I’m almost positive)?. Seems like a thought-terminating cliche, basically meaningless, just a method of shutting anyone down without having to provide any justified reason. Also could be bullying depending on how it’s used. But yeah, mostly it’s just nonsense. I appreciate your comments & advice.
Usually it would be used as a substitute for “shut up”. Your second paragraph explains it pretty well. Telling someone that doesnt talk to you personay “I dont care” is egotistic because you dont consider others opinions. Assuming noone cares makes that person seem like a kind of spokesperson for everyone else.
The response is difficult and depends heavily on the situation. A good general purpose response could be “speak for yourself”. Judging from your post, you seem to be a socially awkward person (not trying to offend you, sorry if I am), so chances are you are actually annoying people by eg talking a lot. If you arent sure, you could leave it at that. If the person trying to make you shut up is just a bully or doesnt like you in particular, you could start talking again after your response. The same for if what you were talking about was important to you.
You could also just try to confirm the statement. “does actually noone care?” Dont be needy or whiney about it though, keep your dignity. Chances are you wont get a response even if some people didnt mind you talking but wouldnt go so far as to say they were actively interested. But in case someone steps up and says they care, your win. If noone cares, you can accept it and stop talking but dont be offended, sometimes its hard to know when to shut up and you could use this as future reference.
Of course another good response would be something along the lines of “sorry, but you dont have to be mean about it”. It doesnt force the other person to get defensive, so the situation doesnt escalate. Also you dont leave yourself insulted.
Oh and also your point about people caring when the say “noone cares”. That is not the case. Caring about telling you that noone cares is not the same as caring about the topic itself.
I suffer from social anxiety, but I’m unsure how you inferred that based on my post or my writing style (I also have incoherent thoughts sometimes, so it may just be coincidental). Not offended at all btw, I only mildly care (lol). Just curious. And I appreciate your comment.
I guess first of all from the deep thought process involved. Most people dont analyse social interactions this deeply and dont put much thought into it. Also, you taking the statement quite literally, questioning whether actually noone cares, who it is that doesnt care or whether the statedment is logical in itself. Usually those thoughts wouldnt even arise in people (in my experience), the sentence would mostly produce a set of emotions and thoughts in the listener depending mostly on the context not necessarily on the choice of words or their meaning in a completely neutral setting
How to respond? If it’s online block them and carry on if others are actually engaging with the subject, if not then go somewhere else.
If offline and nobody else is really engaging with you positively about it, say “alright” and walk away.
Thank you!
Sean cares 🥺
