How do you separate good advice from bad advice? - Topic of the day 4/23/25
People love giving advice, but sometimes even though it is well meaning, it isn’t actually good advice. How do you choose to listen to some advice vs others? How do you know it’s not the blind leading the blind?
22 Replies
I mean, easiest way is look at how they dress lol
Good thread everyone
Pack it in, see you tomorrow
good advice is advice I already agree with, bad advice is advice that challenges my shaky assumptions
The more certain and prescriptive the advice giver is the more likely they have a very narrow view and are lacking in any real insight.
Good advice comes from good questions.
And if someone asks a bad low-effort question im not gonna bother to try to give good advice.
recognizing context is helpful
advice means little if the person isn't in the right income bracket/aesthetic/lifestyle to appreciate it
please don't give advice if you don't know what you're talking about about lol
If I can skip 9/10 threads because I don't have anything to add, you can too!
If it comes from @carrion (carrion) it's either good advice or misinformation and I'll believe either
If it's @:3 I just assume I'm being told to take :estrogen:
Jokes aside, context, check if the person's aesthetic sense is in line with yours, and honestly, go try on some clothes and have fun with it
I can help a little bit with like alt fashion and also mfa circa 2017
beyond that is out of my wheelhouse
which is why I only go into threads with ppl trying to emulate 2017 mfa and say: don’t
Not many alt fashion girlies here
and the ones that are know what they’re doing
One important clue for me: Uses "I" statements unless conveying objective facts about something the speaker has knowledge of.
For example:
"Dress sneakers are terrible" -- bad. subjective, without use of "I" statement
"I think dress sneakers look terrible" -- good. expresses opinion but acknowledges subjectivity
"Dress sneakers have glued soles, which makes them less long-lasting" -- objective fact
Dress sneakers are terrible tho
Yeah dress sneakers are objectively awful, I don’t think this is an opinion it’s gospel
I don’t want to say you’re wrong, because I get where you’re coming from but I will say some of the best advice I’ve had comes from people with way different aesthetic sensibilities to mine. I would add the caveat: only take advice from someone you wouldn’t be embarrassed to dress like. Even their style is not your style I’m gonna receive advice from someone who puts that shit on. However, if someone had similar style to me but I felt they dressed worse, I would totally ignore it
LOL! sorry if I chose an overly provocative example. wasn't my intention.
I guess the point is maybe that not everything can be divided into either "objective facts about material qualities" and "just someone's opinion"
Honestly, you should consider all advice pretty much but you need to have an idea of how you're dressing
And it should be filtered through that
Like consider the advice, visualize it, if you have the pieces to follow the advice try it, but your opinion matters too
And in general, people are better at recognizing what's wrong than they are at recognizing how to fix it
So like advice can be bad but try to figure out what they don't like, cause you might land on another way to fix it
Did I just do this in my thread a bit and want to express it, yes
I think this is also where some opinions are worth more than others. Someone might be able to say they don’t like something, but a more informed opinion might be much better at articulating why.
Also, let’s be real, if there’s conflicting opinions I am absolutely not going to weigh them the same
Sure, I'm not saying I don't dismiss certain opinions, I do but it's worth listening to what people aren't liking I think
I'd rather consider bad advice than dismiss good advice, cause I'm confident bad advice can be filtered out by my eyes as the last resort
This is a more nuanced approach than what I’m advocating but I don’t have the mental capacity to be this deliberate
1. Does the advice strike you as accurate, or relevant to your style and values? Assign this a value from 1-3 as follows:
1 - Sounds wrong or doesn't apply to you.
2 - Could be correct, and/or at least partially matches with your goals.
3 - Sounds right on the money, close match to your value and styles.
2. What is the risk of following the advice? Will it cost you time or money? Does it involve going out of your way, or somehow making the wrong impression on others? Assign this a value from 1-3 as follows:
1 - High risk or resource intensive.
2 - Some risk involved, takes a non-negliable amount of time or money.
3- Low risk, could follow with little possible negative impact.
3. Add 1 + 2 above, and analyze as follows*
1-2: Low value, don't follow advice.
3-4: Some value. Considering trying in the future when the opportunity is right, or if you have enough time and money to execute right now.
5-6: Highly applicable, follow advice.
So for example, if somebody tells you "you should try this fit with a yellow scarf," and you have a yellow scarf that you wear and love anyway, and you're about to take a walk to the store. It is highly applicable (3) and low risk (3) to just put it on and walk to the store, so execute.
At the end of the day, advice is just advice. You have the right to heed or ignore the advice you want to listen to and live life in a way that makes you happy. However, that shouldn't discourage you from being open-minded. Try new things and listen to others! You might end up disliking their suggestions after them. I found the style that I'm comfortable in through experimentation, and part of that experimentation involved listening to others and screwing up on my own.