I am the kind of person who likes things to be done properly. I feel that there is a right way and a wrong way to do many, many things and I get quite distressed when people do it a different way. This makes me really good at my job, which is to make things correct in agreement with a host of very specific rules. It probably makes me a little annoying in person sometimes. As I've gotten older I've tried to channel most of this energy into things where there are objective rights and wrongs (and to recognize that not all the things that seem objective to me in fact are).
Here are some things that people get wrong that annoy me:the words to songs, historical costumes, fictional costumes, quotes of any kind but especially movie quotes, sidewalk behavior, traffic rules, spelling, historical facts, facts related to me, correct words for things esp but not only when they get it wrong on purpose, behavior related to public transportation (both official and common sense), manners when there's no cultural excuse, how to break rules, grammar, the use of the word Nazi.
That took me exactly 2 minutes. I'm trying to say that I not only understand this feeling of low-level annoyance, I BREATHE it.
But some of these things are really gatekeeping -- deciding who deserves access. So I am trying really hard to dial back my annoyance not in terms of whether there is an objective right or wrong, but in terms of whether the person could know better, and more importantly in terms of whether the wrong does actual harm. Grammar mistakes from people not lucky enough to have had my education? No harm. Factual errors from non-famous strangers on social media? No harm but maybe avoid those people because they are tedious. A dog off leash at a children's park? Potential harm. A dress with a zipper at a Jane Austen ball? No harm.
I'm not trying to say that people who experience irritation at other people who are not on their level are WRONG because that's too meta even for me. I'm just saying I don't think it's making me better in any way to be so irritated by people who don't care as much as I do, and if you're like me, maybe you would benefit from that perspective.
Yesterday I met a Czech woman who doesn't pay any attention to international news or news in general, and she doesn't speak much English, so she likes social media but only for the pictures. She had been surprised on Tuesday when instagram seemed broken, and all the artists that she follows had black profiles. She looked into it, learned about it, was shocked. She wouldn't have known.
So if all you did was black out your profile photo, I personally don't think that's enough. But I don't think that's nothing. And I don't think you're doing it wrong, if you're trying. And I think that -- just like correctly quoting Monty Python and not standing in doorways -- I'm gonna keep working on just doing it right myself, as well as I can.