(TikTok screencap)
Of course I know him. He’s me!
I didn’t know it was a racial trait.
White people’s ancestors had to survive brutal winters. It’s the reason they’re white.
Ehhhh, even places like the Sahara can get below freezing temps at night. Of course we also shouldn’t forget that people native to the Asian steppe and American high plains would also need to deal with freezing temps. I just think that it’s a human trait in general to need to mess with fires. (That probably stems from a vast amount of people on earth being able to trace their heritage back to the Mongols)
Or gendered. I do this in my friend group. I also grill, smoke, and bbq.
Yeah my sister and I are both the fire keeper type.
DONT HATE it’s all he’s got
Well, technically without him there would be no fire.
be honest, the Nike gel soles are doin most of the heavy liftin’
That’s what I’m sayin’! I’m mildly autistic and not very good socially. Even if I want to be there it can be difficult. Tending to the fire is a way I get to participate.
I feel like it’s a do-or-die caveman instinct or something.
I was hanging out with a group of people in my friend’s backyard. We were supposed to have a bonfire, but the wood was wet and wasn’t burning. We used all sorts of fuel, fire starters, etc. I saw what looked like corner of a log turn into ember, so wouldn’t give up. Never got a flame when we were there, of course.
I felt very proud though when my friend sent me door camera footage of the firepit turning into a massive blaze in the middle of night that woke her up.
Wet wood is the worst. If you have some dry and some wet you can sort of power through it. A cabin we were at with a wood burning fireplace had a lot of wet wood. It kept popping and scaring us so we kept making that joke from The Office “the fire is shooting at us!”
Brown guy here, I like fire too
I went to an engineering school and I am here to tell you that pyromancy is practiced by every type of person.
The best pyromancy comes from the United States, we have such classics as The German Barbeque, Korean Barbeque, Vietnam Barbeque, and California.
Is that a jab about all the forest fires CA keeps experiencing? If so, well done. I chuckled.
I’m from the Inland Empire here in SoCal I have to make jokes or the sirens call of the inferno starts to eat away at ones mind.
Yeah, whats the deal with “white guy”? Guys like fucking with fire. Black, white, brown, blue. If theres an alien species on the other side of the galaxy, you can bet they have something very much like guys, and the love fucking with fire.
In my experience, they’ve been Mexican or Puerto Rican. Though those are my two main travel destinations, so there might be some selection bias. Both for me and the meme
Wait… I’m white!?
I know a set of brothers who all have this ingrained. They have each said at one point or another “You gotta fuck the fire.”
Hope the intent has/will always be basic firepit maintenance.
I kind of get that way but I’ve never really realized it was obsessive behavior until this meme pointed it out.
It’s me, i’m that guy. I’m fun to camp with ladies ;)
I too feel very seen right now.
Evolved trait
This is a white thing? I never knew that.
I’m black and I like fire, though aside from a fireplace visiting family once, I haven’t had much opportunities to tend an open flame. I did enjoy keeping it going that one time though.
I grew up in the woods and chopped wood and did all the back-country stuff, but it wasn’t until looking back way later in life that I realized that we lived in what was basically rural, racist, white America. The segregation that still exists is unfair in what it denies to children growing up. I feel like if were a black parent I might have serious reservations about taking my family out to most of rural America.
The legacy of homesteading being a “white settler” thing has left indelible marks on many places.
There’s at least one organization working to fix that lingering impact. Outdoorafro.org is all about linking Black Americans with the parks and wild places that have historically been off-limits, dangerous, or discouraged.
I would love to see more people of color embracing America’s wilds, if we had larger communities of color in the woods it wouldn’t feel so dangerous out there. Diversity leads to people not feeling like they own a thing and can make rules about who belongs there.
I would also love to see more progressives broadly reclaim the US flag and responsible gun ownership. I feel we lost the country because we let them plaster themselves with propaganda and made it feel “gross” to support our country. We allowed the seeding of far too much “America Bad” sentiment and it led to too many young people tuning out and not caring what happens to our home.
The OP’s observation is that there is at least one white guy that fucks with keeping the fire going. There can be as many others as you wish!
Right, but it mentions a white guy specifically.
I wonder if there is a genetic component to keeping fire for recreation or comfort.
I think all societies have a cooking on fire aspect.
The use of fire seems to play a much more active role in societies in cold climates. It seems to play a less prominent role in the tropics with warmer nighttime temperatures.
This reminded me of something my dad told me when I was younger. It was mostly to justify saying that no, I did not need a TV in my room, but still kinda interesting:
In many cultures (definitely the ones my family grew out of), the fire served as a gathering spot. People would talk about stuff, share food and jokes, and relax together. It was a shared experience and source of comfort that helped strengthen interpersonal bonds.
His argument was that the family TV served a similar function (without the whole ‘also it’s the means for cooked food’ aspect, which shouldn’t be overlooked). It’s a point that made some sense to me at that stage of late 20th century mainstream society.
Hmm…the 21st century, defined as billions of little fires, and many of us cold. There’s a really pretentious poem here somewhere.
Yeah I miss the days when my entire family would gather by the TV at night to watch something, anything really, I could be laying on the sofa reading a book but still enjoy the company and finding something interesting while channel surfing was it’s own joy, now I can stream or download anything I want to watch on all my devices and I can’t find anything interesting that makes me feel the sense of peace I had back then as a kid
Survivalists like to boast of their skills to start a fire from scratch with no modern tool. But that wasn’t the main skill in ancient times. Most societies found it easier to start a fire once and then keep the flame going through several mediums. It was a practical, mundane but vital activity that everyone participated in. The calories gains from eating cooked food was our cheat code for unlocking brain power.
