Smokers Are The Last Nice People Online*

September 19, 2017 3:30 PM

The online people-who-love-to-smoke community is one of the most supportive and kindly corners of the internet I have ever encountered, especially for a group entirely preoccupied with the abetting of a habit that is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide. I’m not sure if this is a particularly illuminating observation, whether it says something profoundly terrible about humanity and where it is headed, or whether this is something we should find solace in. I change my mind about it a lot.

*present company excluded
posted by Johnny Wallflower (36 comments total)

Vapers, OTOH, are like the evangelical wing of smokers.
posted by leotrotsky at 3:41 PM on September 19, 2017 [11 favorites]

I feel like the author hasn't spent much time in other niche communities of the internet. Also, that ended.
posted by jferg at 3:48 PM on September 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Writings of Rosa Lyster previously on MeFi.
posted by Kattullus at 3:51 PM on September 19, 2017

When I was a smoker I met a lot of great people on smoke breaks up on the roof. You never knew who you'd find up there for a five minute chat.

Whelp, see you next time, guy-from-ad-agency-down-the-hall!
posted by notyou at 4:07 PM on September 19, 2017 [19 favorites]

There was a smoke free campus debate at the University of Alaska Anchorage a few years ago.
I was working for student activities at the time, and one thing that was apparent was how much of the campus was in-and-out for most of the students. It was a school where almost 90% students commuted by vehicle to, it felt like my job was to convince other people at school that there was something other than school that they could do on campus.

I had picked up smoking to help break me out of my shell. It occurred to me that smokers at university were always in the process of ad hoc community building. They would ask complete strangers for lighters, make idle chit chat from, and rough it out in the cold together, regardless of background. It was probably the best example of community on the campus during the winter time.

I guess I was depressed at the time, and there was a public debate about the campus smoking ban and I decided to go up to say this all and say in front of the chancellor- 'What's the point of living longer if there's no meaning behind it?". I probably came across as completely nuts. I don't want to romanticize smoking, and I've all but quit now, but man. It is hard to find meaning in life, and it's hard for me to put it down for anyone else.
posted by weewooweewoo at 4:10 PM on September 19, 2017 [43 favorites]

Nearly all of them are unusual in a way you would need to text your friends about

Yikes.

Also I hate the smell and the smoke and the way I feel later, but goddamn if I don’t love the act of smoking (Parliament full flavor, mostly).
posted by uncleozzy at 4:13 PM on September 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

Obligatory IT Crowd Scene
posted by CheapB at 4:14 PM on September 19, 2017 [11 favorites]

There is a website I love called airportsmokers.com. It advertises itself as “the original airport smoking website,” and it does exactly what it says it does: it tells its visitors what airports they can smoke in, and under what sort of conditions.

There is a camaraderie. In about 2004, when I was smoking like it was my job, I was sucking one down in the smoking lounge that (then) existed at the Charlotte airport, and a pilot in uniform told me not to pay attention to the TSA lighter ban, because they wouldn't set off the metal detector. I tried it and he was for sure right.
posted by thelonius at 4:18 PM on September 19, 2017 [4 favorites]

Smoking is great. I snus now, but I still acknowledge that smoking is awesome.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:21 PM on September 19, 2017

The last friendly online community is bananas.org, and I swear I will doxx anyone who ruins these grandchild-feeding innocents.
posted by The Gaffer at 4:23 PM on September 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Just a couple of months ago someone getting off a flight asked me for a light and complained about giving up their lighter. I was happy to inform them that it hasn't been a rule for years.
posted by LizBoBiz at 4:44 PM on September 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Sometimes I wish I could still smoke. My funniest memory is of smoking in the Amsterdam airport clustered under a no smoking sign with about twenty other people. The airport security people walked right by us and our cloud.

I couldn't believe they didn't say anything to us. I kept watching them, and one of the locals hissed at me, "don't look at them." After the police had gone, I asked why they didn't say anything.

They told me, its not allowed, but tolerated. My husband and I still laugh about it. I thought seriously about moving to Amsterdam after that.
posted by BarcelonaRed at 5:25 PM on September 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Vapers, OTOH, are like the evangelical wing of smokers.

Vapers are just smokers with no self awareness.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:41 PM on September 19, 2017

Other vapers are the worst part about vaping. They're great for sharing information on studies and safety but ye gods, the culture. But it's the only way I've been able to stop cigarettes.
posted by jason_steakums at 5:58 PM on September 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

I vape, but I certainly don't enjoy the company of other vapers. I also use it to not smoke cigarettes and it's had a huge effect. Vapers as a subculture seem to have broken the rule that smoke breaks were the great equalizer.
posted by rhizome at 7:20 PM on September 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

I took up vaping to quit smoking and it's great except for the douchebag culture around it.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:23 PM on September 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

God. I remember buying Dunhills and using a zippo. I had a vintage sterling silver cigarette case. There was this whole ritualistic mystique I had going on. I remember marveling at how smexy my black wine nailpolish looked as I picked tobacco leaves from my tongue. As an asthmatic, I was always considerate of others when I smoked, moving quite far from buildings and entrances and never, never lighting up near anyone who was eating. I actually loved smoking, as disgusting and horrible as it was. It smelled bad, tasted worse, but it felt divine while I was actually doing it. All the coolest and most interesting people smoked, and I met tons of strangers because I spent inordinate amounts of time outdoors. I remember being offered a joint in exchange for a loosie in Baltimore. I just gave the dude a Dunhill and wished him well. I used to go outside my building at two or three am in Denver to smoke and stalk an artist who painted oils without his shirt on in a bricky loft. His window was open and I watched his work progress over the years through a haze of smoke and occasionally frosty breath.

Then I got thyroid cancer and realized how ridiculous it was that I was lighting up a smoke after swallowing radiation. Now I never go outdoors if I can help it and I've gained 50 lbs. because I eat to replace nicotine and I don't walk everywhere so I can smoke. Meh.
posted by xyzzy at 7:23 PM on September 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

You know what, pally, I am a smoker AND I AM GODDAMN NICE AS FUCK!
posted by Samizdata at 7:39 PM on September 19, 2017 [9 favorites]

Yeah, I was definitely a lot nicer when I smoked...
posted by destructive cactus at 7:52 PM on September 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

I smoked for ten years then quit. I started smoking in college as a way to make new friends and it was super effective.

Quitting smoking was the single hardest thing I've ever done. But if I make it past my life-expectancy, I'm sure as fuck going to take up smoking cigars again.
posted by Groundhog Week at 8:10 PM on September 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

I heard the pro-ana community is also very welcoming and supportive. I wonder what other groups are like this.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 8:53 PM on September 19, 2017 [6 favorites]

Smoking was the way I made friends, got outside, and lived through a series of absolutely terrible minimum wage jobs.

I miss smoking. It enrages me when people hate on smokers all the while hypocriticaly forgetting all the crappy-for-your-health things they themselves do.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 9:05 PM on September 19, 2017 [7 favorites]

I tried smoking when I was about thirteen or so, egged on by some of the kids at the group home that I spent some time at (believe it or not, the kids could spend some of their allowance on cigarettes--the 1970s, ladies and germs), but I couldn't get (excuse the expression) the hack of it. Started smoking little cigars (La Corona Whiffs) in my junior year of college, until I realized that adopting props never makes you cool, just a poser. I was also encouraged to quit by an encounter with some students from another university who were visiting ours; most of them were smokers, so, to fit in, I got a pack of Camels filterless and tried smoking them like my little cigars, and was thoroughly mocked by one of the visitors who could tell that I wasn't inhaling. Sometimes I think that I'd like to thank her for discouraging me, and sometimes I hope that she eventually coughed up a lung.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:13 PM on September 19, 2017

I'm a very nice vaper but I hate the cloud bomber guys who smoke watermelon or peppermint (ick ick) just so they can blow a big one. I too miss smoking rituals and my fancy tins and nice lighters, but I do feel better. And since I'm retired I no longer have the group to hang out with. And I live alone so I can vape to my heart's content.
posted by MovableBookLady at 9:27 PM on September 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

You've just set our movement back twenty years.
posted by zamboni at 9:29 PM on September 19, 2017

In 1848 the Milanese kicked off the new year by giving up smoking and gambling (possibly starting a trend). The reason was that the Austrian Empire, which were occupying the kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia at the time, had its main income from taxes on tobacco and gambling, and patriotic Milanese wanted to deprive them of that income and force them to negotiate. They were mainly seeking greater freedom and a constitution. After a couple of days, brilliant octogenarian (!) Austrian general Joseph Radetzky von Radetz, commander of the Milan garrison, was tired of waiting for the patriot's resolve to break, equpped his men with six cigars and a ration of brandy each and sent them in small groups into the city to light it up in the now probably cranky Milanese's faces. His plan of course worked, and after a while a civilian could stand it no more and snatched a cigar from a soldier's mouth, starting an escalating chain of events that justified Austrian use of force.

However, thing soon spiralled out of control and by the end of the day 61 people were dead. This kicked off the Five Days of Milan which again caused the First Italian War of Independence, setting the place for eventual Italian unification and independence, hastening the fall of the Austrian Empire and forever changing the map of Europe.

So be careful around those smokers, kids!
posted by Harald74 at 11:59 PM on September 19, 2017 [18 favorites]

(This was brought to my attention on the way to work this morning in the latest issue of Mike Duncan's excellent Revolutions Podcast, BTW.)
posted by Harald74 at 12:01 AM on September 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

I am not an infosec pen-tester, but I do work in infosec so I have some of that mindset when I look at things sometimes. Ever since I first started working for a tech company office where smoking wasn't allowed inside, I've figured the absolute best way to get inside any building is to wander by and smoke there occasionally. Just often enough to get some visual recognition, and then, some time, you put out your cigarette timed just right to follow someone in the door. Boom.
posted by rmd1023 at 5:13 AM on September 20, 2017 [12 favorites]

I've never been "a smoker" but I have definitely smoked or just loitered in smoke holes - in college, to get in with professors, and at work to get in with certain colleagues. Smoking also seems to help with stress, but I haven't been buddies with a smoker in a long time so I no longer have anyone to bum from.
posted by bunderful at 5:44 AM on September 20, 2017

Curious about the lighters, so I went to TSA:
Disposable and Zippo lighters without fuel are allowed in checked bags. Lighters with fuel are prohibited in checked bags...
What good is a lighter without fuel?

OTOH, I can advise against filling up a Zippo, putting it in your pocket, and taking a flight.
I did that once (once!) decades ago- something about the cabin pressure, I think, caused the naphtha to leak out in my pocket.
At the end of a 2-hour flight I had a very red patch of skin on my leg about the size and shape of a Zippo.
posted by MtDewd at 6:53 AM on September 20, 2017

Not all vapers are cloud-chasing dudebros - a lot of us do it just to not smoke. While we take such great pains to not paint large groups with a wide brush, please keep us in mind too.
posted by davelog at 7:30 AM on September 20, 2017 [3 favorites]

I smoked for a few years in my late 20s-early 30s. When I quit, I thought I would start again when (and if) I am old. So, now I am old (74) and have asthma and no desire to smoke.
Doctor says asthma often develops later in life for people who spent their childhood among second-hand smoke.
posted by lazydog at 8:12 AM on September 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

I miss my Zippo. Hell, I even miss the occasional gnarly tonsillolith.

But most of all, I miss the easy cameraderie. It's kind of a shame I don't need to bum a light for my vape rig.
posted by whuppy at 9:05 AM on September 20, 2017

Jen Kirkman has a great bit about global warming, where she wants a specific answer about just how far off the bad times are. Is it, like, scientist time where it's hundreds of years away, or political time where it's five years from now? "What I want to know is, can I start smoking again?"
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:24 AM on September 20, 2017 [4 favorites]

Mmmm. That lighter-fluid taste when lighting a ciggy with a Zippo. Mmmmm.

I miss smoking. Sometimes.
posted by Cookiebastard at 12:41 PM on September 20, 2017

I accidentally found /r/cigarettes and still occasionally return. Strange sub; skews really young, skews less educated, both pro-smoking and pro-quitting.

The vibe is very casual, sharing, some asks, not entirely unlike a smoke break at work with strangers. Not really noticing many "regulars," but the traffic isn't very high.

Not sure if it's moderated (very lightly, I suspect) but I see less "cruddy internet behaviour" there than say even, /r/dcss (which skews older and more educated, core of "regulars") as a control. Don't think I've ever seen any racism on /r/cigarettes, compared to say /r/vancouver where racism and anger is in abundance even with a supposedly healthy moderation board.
posted by porpoise at 2:27 PM on September 20, 2017