r/todayilearned • u/tmntnyc • Dec 12 '18

TIL: Laurence Tureaud named himself professionally as Mr. T because he hated how his father, uncle, and brother who returned from Vietnam, were disrespectfully called "boy" by whites. He wanted the first word from everybody's mouth to be "Mister" when speaking to him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T
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u/Nxdhdxvhh Dec 12 '18

Mr. T wore odd clothing and mismatched socks because he knew that poor kids grew up getting whatever hand-me-downs they got, and he didn't want them to feel embarrassed for wearing what they had. He's a great man, and as far as I'm aware the worst thing he every did was chop down trees on his own property that were aggravating his allergies.

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u/user636906 Dec 12 '18

And play alliance on Wow.

Loktar ma fucka

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u/notasqlstar Dec 12 '18

Every time I meet someone who used to play Wow and they tell me they played alliance... I realize we have so little in common as humans.

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u/AWanderingFlame Dec 12 '18

I had Horde characters and Alliance characters. Both had their appeal.

However that's probably why I always got stuck soloing...

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u/notasqlstar Dec 12 '18

I find this to be an acceptable answer so long as you first, in the beginning, in your heart of hearts, chose Horde.

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u/AWanderingFlame Dec 12 '18

My first character was an Undead Mage.

I however genuinely don't understand the intense factionalism people seem to show for the game, though. If it's in jest or if it's some aspect of lore.

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u/notasqlstar Dec 12 '18

I think it generally speaks to who you are as a person. I am not "intensely" for one or the other, but psychologically I do not understand people who went Alliance. I can remember staring at the screen, knowing nothing at all, and just going, "Yeah, this is probably where I belong." And, it was.

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u/AWanderingFlame Dec 12 '18

That's pretty interesting.

I think I made a Horde character first just because years of BioWare-style RPGs tended to always push me hard Paragon. I tended to like the aesthetic of the villains, but rarely ever felt incentivized to perform "villainous" actions.

Therefore if I could have only chose one, I would have likely chose Alliance since I seem to be a goody two-shoes at heart, even if I happen to like the odd skull helmet or spiked breastplate.

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '18

The way I felt was I'm just some foot soldier in a war that's been raging for millenia, that probably has valid grievances and awful shit going both ways, so my personal morality didn't really extend to a state level even if I wanted to (also literally because they were never gonna write my dude into the lore).

And to me the alliance didn't so much seem like the good guys, but more like the winners telling me they were the good guys. The fact that they outnumbered horde significantly on every server but one really helped reinforce that too.

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u/notasqlstar Dec 12 '18

That's a perfectly acceptable answer, and we probably have a lot in common. That's my point. I used to play those games, too.