People hatin' on your special interests.

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I just decorated my room and kitted it out with some stuff from Ikea (shelves, furniture etc). It looks good.
Yesterday my aunt (who shares me love for Ikea) came over and was like, "Yeah, this looks great!" Then she turned to my Spongebob plush, who was sat on one of the shelves looking awesome, and said, "But then you go and ruin it with flippin' Spongebob."

I was like,

Not happened to me, but it reminds me of how I hate meddling people who go near my computer. This one time, one of my mum's friends who I didn't even know started telling me how my wallpaper is low-res, and how he can't move my mouse, which I can work out just fine.

No matter what you do there will always be someone who doesn't like it. It's your bedroom and what's important is that you like it.

Exactly!

Hmmm... Special interests I have that people have hated on...

(Obviously) My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
Crystals
Chakras/Spirituality
My Political Views
Psychedelic Stuff
However nobody has hated on me for liking to play keyboards/synths, yet.

Different people have different tastes. As long as you like it, and it isn't hurting anyone, there isn't a problem, so do what you want about it.

Unfortunately, some people prefer to express their dislike of someone else's tastes in a strong, and very negative way. That's just the way some people are. I am sure there are things your aunt likes that you don't like. Just try to be nicer than she is about expressing your feelings about it.

I am in my early 50s, but I find Sponge Bob Square Pants amusing, and I have watched the cartoons a few times. A while back I wanted a Walmart store card, so I could buy things from their online site with the card. The card I picked has a Sponge Bob hologram on it.

You will never be able to please everyone, and don't have to. Just be yourself and do your own thing.

There was one Saturday in Early September that I was dealing with teenage vandals breaking into my apartment building and vandalizing stuff. It brought back a lot of memories of High School. Anyways, that skinhead that I rant about from time to time was in charge of litter that morning and when he picked me up and we were waiting for another person who was working with us, there was this Rap song that was on the radio that triggered flashbacks of the High School Bullies who were always picking on me, calling me ret*d and making my life hell and I asked him to change the station, because the flashbacks were getting to be too much for me.

He lost patience with me and blew up, saying "NOW YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL WHEN YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE KINKS ALL THE TIME!" I was overtaken with such anxiety that somebody who was supposed to be in charge with people who are different but not in a bad way, would have the audacity to play the Charlie Babbit card (Rain Man) on me and trigger yet another flashback.

The second flashback was of my dad getting angry and threatening that he was going to send a 13 year old version of myself to my bedroom for the rest of the day, if I said anything about The Beatles, my favourite band in the Summer of 1988.

We got to work and I was expected to perform, yet I was having two flashbacks and a meltdown, all at once. I was very anxious and confused for almost an entire month after that happened. I was convinced that I wasn't going to be a Kinks Fan any more, due to the fact that I was listening to everything that I had on CD as well as one Kinks CD a day instead of my usual 3 or 4.

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There was this one time on WP when another member sent me a PM and it was titled with my special interest. You don't need to ask me what that interest is, because you already know. It was around the time of the 2010 Olympics and I got that PM from somebody quite a bit younger than me, who probably doesn't even know who The Kinks are. She asked me how I was supposed going to be accepted into the NT world such as having friends and a boyfriend - things that I'm not really interested in - if I like The Kinks and The Sixties and talk about them a lot. I told her that such things never happen to me, because I'm 35 - I was at the time, I'm 37 now - and I reminded her of my age and that it was more acceptable for me to like those things. I told her that NTs accept me more that I gave up the punk rock life style and went back to liking The 60s by finding that one little thing that I do like about the 60s that made it all possible. I also told her that I wasn't interested in having a boyfriend and that I had 3 quirky friends who accepted me as I was, at the time - 2 of those friends have stuck with me since than.

I felt horrible when her friend sent me a message telling me that she came crying to her, because I wouldn't choose to hurt anybody and that's the honest truth. I'm very open about myself on WP.

sounds like she was maybe joking a bit? i mean it is hardly something that she sees as a big issue even if you do. I don't think most people have strong opinions about spongebob so the chances that you really like it and she really hates it are very small i reckon. I can understand being sensitive about special interests (i am too) but that does not mean she was a hatin' cool picture btw

My father was at least as toxic as the OP's aunt. He could not give a compliment without also pointing out something as a flaw - even things that had nothing to do with what he complimented.

He might compliment me on a new jacket, and then express (fake) amazement that I knew how to dress myself.

Such toxic people are best avoided.

I think when she said it she was trying to make a joke, but I suppose it upset me so much because out of all the things in my bedroom she could have picked to comment on (like the HUGE guinea pig enclosure) she chose the one that means the most to me. I'm not angry with her, because she doesn't know that Spongebob is my special interest so she can't have known that the comment would upset me, but I still find it hard to understand why some interests are more socially acceptable than others. If I had had posters of a boy band on my wall, or a collection of cacti, or hundreds of earrings, she probably wouldn't have even noticed them.
I guess it's partly my fault for having an interest that's so yellow and sticks out like a sore thumb.

Were we raised by the same dad??? My dad did the same thing, we called it a "back-handed compliment".
It just killed him to say something nice so he had to follow it up with an insult.

Jojo

I kinda like spongebob...he's cute. I even had a dream about him.

Spongebob and Patrick drove down to the "One Stop Party Shop" in the Oldfield side of my town and went to get himself some beer, when he came out, he found out that someone stole his bubble machine car. So he and Patrick are walking and complaining about how someone stole their ride, then when they walked back to cartoon land...they discovered that the prom queen stole their car so she could have the bubble maker thing on top of his car to put on her staff (a long pole with the bubble thing on top) for her prom outfit.
Then I woke up.

I have no idea what that was all about.

Not knowing her, I don't know what personality she has, but I suspect that she might be a little judgmental and selfish in some ways. Not that she is a bad person, but like my own aunt, and my Grandma, she might be blurting out her own likings and dislikings and judging you based on her own wishes. That's not evil, but it feels very belittling to the one in your position.

I know the feeling exactly. I like old TV sets, and huge tornado sirens. We have what most people would call a beautiful home with a pool and spa and redwood deck out back, and a spectacular view of the Ronald Reagan Library and the valley below, and the Pacific Ocean in the distance. People stand out there and gaze around when they visit, and then ask me what that big yellow siren is doing in the middle of the deck? I answer "because I like it there". I might not have been able to say that when I was 20, as that might have been a bit rude. But that's what I'd have been quietly thinking to myself. This is our house not someone else' house, and my wife and I will decide what we do and don't want in it. If that's your room or your house where you put the shelves up, and whether you put Sponge Bob or a row of antique porcelain telephone pole insulators on them, that's supposed to be your space to please you... Not your aunt, if it's how I understand it should be.

Not only do I have a 1,200-pound Federal Thunderbolt siren on the pool deck, but I also have a 1986 Honda motorcycle in the living room, and about 100 old TV sets here & there around the house (no packrat; nicely and neatly displayed)

Charles

Awww. I like Spongebob- I really identify with Patrick, even though I know I'm like Squidward-Hey Squidward has some Aspie traits (unsocial, musical, short tempered)
When I was into comic books and wanted to be a comic book artist/writer, I got a lot of grief about it. I even had an English teacher laugh in my face when I mentioned "Love and Rockets" (the comic) when discussing punk rock in literature.

I have always been mildly facinated by sirens. I think it stemmed from watching nuclear war PSAs in a history lesson once, which frightened me silly and gave me nightmares. But I couldn't stay away - even though they scared me, I found myself listening to sirens on Youtube. It's gradually expanded to include flood sirens, tornado sirens, fire alarms and (for some bizarre reason) ice cream van chimes.

Kind of related ... I remember when I moved from primary to secondary school, the bell they used to signal the end of lessons was the same bell they used for the fire alarm in primary school, so for the first few weeks I jumped out of my skin every time the bell went.

People hate on my interests (Tim Burton movies and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) all the time - or maybe it just seems that way because I'm really sensitive to negative comments about them.

People hate Tim Burton movies for various reasons. Some of the more common complaints I've heard are: he's overrated, he panders to the emo/goth crowd, he only does remakes, and he only works with the same people on every movie. I personally don't see any of those things as necessarily being bad things, and they're at least partially untrue anyway.

I also take offense when people insult individual movies of his that happen to be my favorites. Alice in Wonderland gets a lot of hate for some reason. A lot of people were disappointed with it, saying things like it's too cliche, Mia Wasikowska (the lead actress) didn't do a good job, it was too bleak, etc, etc. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is another personal favorite that gets attacked. I think the biggest reason why people didn't like it was because they kept unfavorably comparing it to the Gene Wilder version. It's no surprise that Johnny Depp's performance as Willy Wonka gets criticized, but I think he was the best part of the movie.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic tends to get criticized not for being a children's show (lots of internet-going folks watch cartoons), but for being overrated or accused of being a fad that people only say they enjoy just to be ironic. So basically, people hate it because it's popular.