players who refer to their instruments as 'she', 'my baby', etc, in a way that makes you wonder...

vale

... if they have inappropriate feelings towards them?

sometimes i think it's funny, sometimes i think it's just an appreciation thing, but other times i really do feel a bit concerned (& even uncomfortable, if they are really laying it on heavily).

certainly not having a dig at anyone here who does it. i don't know anyone here personally & it's impossible to work out how sincere or intense feelings are from random posts.

but it's something i notice in youtube reviews on occasion, and definitely something i have come across in real life.

going to be harsh & tongue in cheek for caricature effect, but;

when the worst case men do it ('my baby, my little lady, my angel') it makes me feel as if they didn't have enough cash for a mail order bride, so bought an LP instead.

& when worst case women do it ('my baby' usually) it reminds me of women without children who dress their toy dogs in babies clothing.

there's pathos & tragedy & a sort of 'lost-soul' thing in there too, which makes me not want to be too c*nty about it. loneliness & childlessness can hit people hard & everyone is entitled to have their feelings respected.

but on another level, it can come across as funny & weird (you probably know what i mean), & maybe it's possible to discuss shared experiences of that side of it without hating down on people.

anyway. it's strange.

Rabs

Sometimes theres good reasons for it...

thegummy

First day I got my Strat I referred to it as "she" and it went "did you just assume my gender?!"

I must have got one of those right-on feminist types

TheBigDipper

A subset of those people seem to be the ones who write those dreadful product "reviews" (click bait for ads, really, I guess) and only tell you what you could read for yourself on the manufacturers website, followed by personal opinion clearly not based on real world use. 

It's almost as if they think that's how they ought to talk about their instrument rather than their natural inclination. 

Dunno their reasons, though, I've never felt that way myself, so I'm just guessing, but people do this for all sorts of things - cars, motorcycles. 

Although we do name houseplants in our house. 
Robert (Plant)
Jimmy (the second plant, obviously had to be in the same band, eh?)
Al (a prayer plant, the Rev. Al Green)
Carl (a palm plant)

SimonC

I often refer to mine as “ya bastaaad”, usually when re stringing.

TheBigDipper

SimonC said:

I often refer to mine as “ya bastaaad”, usually when re stringing.

I didn't know you had a Rick 12 string.... 

darthed1981

Why do you think they are called "f holes"?

usedtobe

Seriously, it’s well weird!

skunkwerx

Damn.. ‘my baby, my lil lady, my angel’ sounds like shaggy lyrics!! 

i imagine the people that call their guitars stuff like that are also married to walls, or sticking their knobs in tail pipes or summat. 

prowla

Same with cars - people refer to my bass or car as "she" and I'm, thinking - huh?

57Deluxe

SimonC said:

I often refer to mine as “ya bastaaad”, usually when re stringing.

so you have a Bigsby then?

Dominic

yes,I feel the same about people who give their car a name although I can see the affinity ;
We had a drippy Neighbour when I was a kid who had an Austin Princess which he proudly called Norman and friend's mother who had a Morris Minor called Doris ( she used to run knitting classes for the W.I. )

Adam_MD

I find the people who worry about it just as weird as the people who do it.  This thread pops up all the time and the same points get made over and over again - admittedly the mail order bride is a new one on me.  
  In another 3 or 4 posts someone will start bitching about the guys who call their guitar an axe which leads onto playing like butter comments.  
  Seriously guys who find people who name inanimate objects weird are just plain weird and spend way too much time worrying about it.

sawyer

All mine are refered to as what they are. I.e. my Strat or my Charvel etc. Except one. A 1987 Gibson Junior. It's drab and ugly so I call it Betty. As in Ugly Betty. Fab guitar though. But yes,calling your your guitar/cat/motorcyle/or whatever 'she' or 'baby' is weird.

Grangousier

To be fair, a cat may well be (and often is) a 'she'. Not a baby, though. 

The one that weirds me out is when a dog's owners are referred to (or, worse, refer to themselves) as its parents. You're not that chihuahua's dad, you're its owner. Though now you come to mention it I can see the family resemblance.

prowla

Adam_MD said:

I find the people who worry about it just as weird as the people who do it.  This thread pops up all the time and the same points get made over and over again - admittedly the mail order bride is a new one on me.  
  In another 3 or 4 posts someone will start bitching about the guys who call their guitar an axe which leads onto playing like butter comments.  
  Seriously guys who find people who name inanimate objects weird are just plain weird and spend way too much time worrying about it.

That post is plain weird!

Haych

I remember when growing up, my dad and my uncle were slowly renovating a Jaguar XJ6 (it never did get finished) and I'd hang around and help or just watch.  I recall feeling very uncomfortable whenever they'd refer to it (or any other car) as "she".  It was a very definite WTF moment in my youth.

I seem to have a very peculiar thinking pattern, my mind can't just accept something at face value, so as an 8 year old hearing an inanimate object assigned a gender within nanoseconds I'm thinking, "why are they all female?  Where are the male cars?  If they're all female how do they procreate?"

Probably a good job I'm not French!

I still feel uncomfortable today if anyone in any way anthropomorphises an inanimate object; I find it a bit weird.  The questions my mind came up with watching Disney's Cars was unbelievable!!!!

So, no, I can't assign a gender to a guitar, nor a name, nor think of it as my "baby".

DaevidJ

I admittedly do name guitars i have gelled with by name, however i would not go so far as to assign a gender or call it baby... that is a step too far into weirdness  

steamabacus

vale

Haych said:

I remember when growing up, my dad and my uncle were slowly renovating a Jaguar XJ6 (it never did get finished) and I'd hang around and help or just watch.  I recall feeling very uncomfortable whenever they'd refer to it (or any other car) as "she".  It was a very definite WTF moment in my youth.

I seem to have a very peculiar thinking pattern, my mind can't just accept something at face value, so as an 8 year old hearing an inanimate object assigned a gender within nanoseconds I'm thinking, "why are they all female?  Where are the male cars?  If they're all female how do they procreate?"

Probably a good job I'm not French!

I still feel uncomfortable today if anyone in any way anthropomorphises an inanimate object; I find it a bit weird.  The questions my mind came up with watching Disney's Cars was unbelievable!!!!

So, no, I can't assign a gender to a guitar, nor a name, nor think of it as my "baby".

it's a strange one that sometimes i think i'm above & then sometimes i realise i'm in. so i suppose this thread was just to prjoect my anxieties outwards as a question.

on one hand it's always easy & tempting to cast people who do it heavy handedly as something suitable for a channel 4 or louis theroux documentary. comically or creepily awkward.

but then today i logged in and scanned the guitar threads and noticed 'the anxiety of having to hand your guitar over for a refret' thread, and i will freely admit that i got a mad rush of pent up maternal feeling, and visions of myself like cathy in 'cathy come home'... being chased through the rainy streets at night with my guitar wrapped in a sheet, pursued by well-meaning luthiers dressed as social workers.

so it's one of those 'hahaha, i'm so superior... oh hang on, actually that's me' situations.

Sesh

I've got no problem with giving things names, Mack the knife, Barry the hatchet etc, but the she/baby thing is a bit weird. It just suggests the relationship between owner and object has gone too far. Cringy.