Be honest - would you be put off by a female ‘Colin Hunt’?

[The1976]

When I was 12 and just started high school I developed a ‘Colin Hunt’ - think ‘not 3 bad’ ,

“im mad me” and comedy Disney tie!

well I wasn’t literally wearing a comedy Disney tie especially at school etc but I was wearing one in a figurative sense iyswim.

I developed this persona to compensate for being introverted and having low self esteem in primary school.

I was very very unpopular- I was a fat, spotty female Colin Hunt!

So I just want to know - what would you honestly think of this type of character? What would you think projecting this kind of persona would say about a person in a broader sense ?

Have a watch. The character and portrayal is so clever.
Top layer, an exaggerated parody of a person we can all recognise to some degree.
Next layer, the humanity of the character, the loneliness and sadness within him, and our belief he is genuinely trying to make people happy.
Then wham! Another layer where we see him as actually just self serving and that given the chance, he's happy to reject and sideline another person just as he is rejected himself.

That’s a very interesting analysis

i immediately saw the sadness and loneliness within the character

Who the fuck is Colin Hunt?!

Fast Show character BBC1 1990s played by Charlie Higson

Why would you think everyone would know who this is? I watched the show back in the day but had no idea who you were talking about. Colin Hunt didn’t become some kind of national cultural reference ingrained in society for ever more.

I would think most people would avoid a too try hard zany, I’m mad me person (although I don’t think I’ve ever met one in real life).

Do they do things like wear differing coloured shoes or socks?

Yesss possibly the shoes socks thing and the Disney ties !

Why would you think everyone would know who this is?

IME autistic people will talk about something without giving people the background. They assume you just know, because they do. Its that mind blindness thing. I will add that I'm aware not all autistic people do this, but its defo a thing.

So having the same first letter is "closely resembles" is it?

I have a friend who makes wild, tenuous and laughable "connections" like this. It's a very strange thing to do.

Unless you can tell me what I'm missing.... ?

Haha yes I would probably avoid. They’ve probably got a rotating bow tie they bring out on special occasions 😁

We were all cringey twats as 12 year olds why are you dredging this up now ?

massive over thinking
work on being authentic and work on your self esteem now forget the past

Wow some people are so mean!

No-one can really say, OP because they don't know you IRL but personally, I would find you fun.

Yes, probably a bit irritating and a bit odd. But all kids and teenagers are in agonies and feeling awkward and scared and lonely and pressured and hopeful (and hopeless) and so much more, trying to work out where they fit in the world and who they fit with.
Arguably far better to have been different than to be one of the sheep in trainers and tracksuit pants or whatever.
We all get there eventually, and it sounds like you did.

I probably would too.
At the time - being 12 - I might have thought "oh how annoying" or "how cringe" but secretly I would have quite liked it and been a bit jealous of your confidence to do it.
🙂

I think, for what it's worth, that we all have different aspects to our personality which we amplify/downplay according to what situation we are in. Eg we are not the same at work as we are at home. During adolescence this is exaggerated as we are going through turbulent physical and hormonal changes which affect our thought processes and then behaviour in powerful ways so we often have a more fragile sense of self.

I really can't be doing with this kind of person, if I'm totally honest, but then I'm a bit of a "Daria" type if we're using TV characters to explain ourselves!

Exactly the same thought😁

It does I think - that’s the idea!

Colin Hunt...

m.youtube.com/watch?v=K_25l7nwMmA

She probably thought that if people didn’t know who he was upon reading the thread title then they could either Google it, or scroll past.

If they were a school kid, I wouldn't think anything of them, really. All kids are finding their niche and, even if only subconsciously, trying out personas at that age.

For an adult, I'd find them a bit exhausting to be around. However, I think I can usually tell the difference between the 'wacky' people like that who are affecting a persona to hide shyness/insecurity and the ones who are just extremely confident and excitable and attention-seeking, and I have to say that the latter are actually much more annoying than the former. The former type tend to ease off once they get to know you. The latter type don't.

It's an AI-generated post. Ignore.

Ah, thank you. I wonder if I'll ever catch on 🙄. (quite possibly not)

ETA. My friend actually exists 😄

Ah right !! I move just watched this sketch and I hadn’t read it was a practical joke on your earlier post - so I thought they were watching him for real and literally the ONLY person Colin threw under the bus was Arabella Weir’s meek secretary type character. I didn’t actually realise it was a practical joke and he actually attempted to throw every one of them under the bus! So thankfully it was a bit less ‘brutal’ than I thought!

I remember him, he's the one that kept saying "I'm a alien" and Arabella thought he was wonderful! I probably would have thought you were funny. I too was awkward as hell at that age. Me and my friend used to act out the History Today sketch from Newman and Baddiel.

Thanks so much for including this - this is the exact sketch I watched earlier!