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Qustion of the Day

We Asked People to Share Their Least Acceptable Opinions

Everyone is secretly a jerk about something.
All photos by the author

Take an honest look inside and you'll find some unfounded and ridiculous opinions about people you barely know. Ironically it seems to be something that binds humanity as a whole—our universal taste for intolerance. Usually this intolerance is just straight-up sexism or racism—which, for the record, we have no interest in sharing here—but it's also often directed at people who drive a certain way, or eat certain things, or enjoy a particular style of music. And we figured that it'd be a strange bonding experience to explore how we're all judgemental assholes. Each and every one of us.

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With that in mind we walked around Sydney, inviting people to overshare.

Jack, 25, from the UK

VICE: Hey Jack, what’s your most unfashionable opinion?
Jack: I don’t like Australians. The last four Australians I worked for owe me money. So fuck Australians. I live in the place, I like Australia. But man, some of the people here piss me off.

So really, four of the people here piss you off.
Yeah just those four but they've changed my perspective on Australians. They're just so willing to screw backpackers over. Like if you get a backpacker, it’s a way of getting cheap labour and you can get them without paying.

And what kind of work were you doing?
Demolition. So I was demolishing a house, loading up my tipper truck and taking it to the tip. I worked like 150 hours for the last guy in like two weeks and he never paid me. So I rang him and said, “Look can I come back and work for you?” He said yeah so I went to his house and stole his tipper truck and parked it down there [points down the road]. It's still there and that was like four weeks ago. So that’s me getting revenge on Australians.

I’ll leave that part of the story out.
Fuck it, put it in. I don’t care.

Sam, 22, also originally from the UK

Hey Sam, what’s your most unfashionable opinion?
I have a prejudice against those who like mainstream music.

Why?
I think people just like it because it’s the main thing to do. They don’t really know what they like. It’s not their own thing.

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You’re wearing a Guns N' Roses shirt. It's not like they're an obscure band.
The difference is that most people have heard about three of their songs. But I’ve been into them since day one. I’ve got every single piece of their music, got tracks on vinyl, like fucking everything.

So this is another way of saying that you think most people aren’t free-thinking individuals, yeah?
Yeah I think people just read magazines and click on the radio. They like what they hear and don’t really venture out. Just following what you hear and see, that’s about it. I’m particular when it comes to music I guess because I play music.

Julie, 23, originally from France

What’s your secret prejudice?
I don’t like old people. Old people are stupid

Why don’t you like old people?
It’s not that I don’t like them, as such. It’s just that they are very close-minded. All the time they say, “You need to find a boy, you need to find a job. When we were young we worked a lot. Now you young people have a really nice life.” They say their life was hard and shit and now young people are in paradise.

There has to be some truth to that though?
No, because I think life was better then, than now.

How do you come to that conclusion?
Because in France, the old people have money and I think when I am old, I don’t think I will have any money.

They probably have money because they have had all their lives to save it.
Before they were able to buy homes and now it's just so difficult. We do pay pensions now, but I think when I'm old it'll be harder because everyone's life expectancy will increase. We once lived to 80, now we can live to 100 and we won’t be able to afford to pay everyone’s pension. It makes us work longer too. We used to retire at 60 but now we have to work until 70.

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Reece, 27, from North-West Sydney

What’s your most unfashionable opinion?
I don’t like rich people.

What’s the thinking behind this?
I’m a Marxist, so it goes hand in hand with the way that I see the world. Also where I see the main problems of the world coming from.

Do you think there are some cases where capitalism is a good thing?
No, I’m pretty much against the whole system.

I guess the main criticism against Marxism / Communism is that it’s never really been able to properly function in a society.
That’s one of the main things that people get wrong. They look at North Korea, Russia and China and they think that’s Marxism. I don’t think Communism can successfully operate on an isolated, country by country basis. It has to be a global revolution in order for it to work. But if you look at the 1917 Russian Revolution you can see a glimpse of what it would look like, before it was taken over and corrupted by the Stalinists.

Amy, 22, from Bankstown.

Hey Amy, what’s your most uncool opinion?
I think veganism should be the moral baseline for everyone.

Why?
Because most people already kind of believe in veganism. We all think that we shouldn’t harm others unnecessarily and we all believe that we should take care of animals. So we believe in the same thing.

What about plants?
Living sentient creatures, that’s the distinction. I’m not for plant rights because I don’t believe they suffer. I get that question a lot.

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Can you understand why anyone would want to eat animals products?
The only logical thing—which is very rare for people to actually admit it—is they truly don’t care about anyone other than themselves. So the main reasons that people eat animal products boils down to four main things, taste, habit, tradition, and convenience. The difference between us vegans and everyone else is that our actions reflect our morals.

But people can still have a lot of empathy yet still eat animals.
It’s not that people don’t have empathy towards them. I just think we can’t dismiss that empathy by saying, “it’s food" or "we need to eat them for health reasons.”

Diana, 26. France

What’s your least fashionable opinion?
I have a problem with people who wear suits everyday.

What's wrong with wearing a sick suit?
I hate the oppression and the lack of freedom in business attire. I just don’t understand why you can’t look and feel like yourself when you go to work, whatever job you do.

So you think suits remove personality and freedom of expression?
Yeah. It's like trying to mould everyone into the same box so they look the same when difference is what makes the world rich and open-minded.

Do you think there may be a reason why wearing suits everyday has developed? I mean they can look pretty cool, better impressions can be created and you can look more classy.
Obviously you have to be presentable and clean. It’s common sense. But it’s all about extremes. I think it’s getting better anyway. I think in Australia it’s quite relaxed, but in France its totally opposite. You have to look this way if you work in a certain industry. You just won’t be accepted and you won't get a job if you don’t fit into this box.

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