Stoicism hasn't been popular since Victorian times. I think SV types and rationalists kind of revived it, since it was moral austerity without any real religious background. To an extent they do the same with meditation; it's somehow gone from being something associated with New Age thinking, to something atheist rationalists tout the benefits of while carefully avoiding any hint of spirituality.
Everyone I know who identifies as a stoic is an emotionally stunted software engineer who realistically isn't tasked with stoically shouldering very much of anything.
As a counterpoint, most of the people I know whom I would consider to follow a Stoic philosophy don't self-classify all that much.
I would also say that there's a pretty big difference between "stiff upper lip/no emotions" that people imagine when using the the adjective "stoic" and the Stoic writings of Marcus Aurelius and the like.
> I would also say that there's a pretty big difference between "stiff upper lip/no emotions" that people imagine when using the the adjective "stoic" and the Stoic writings of Marcus Aurelius and the like.
A quick way to find out what sort of self-proclaimed lover of Meditations you’re dealing with is to ask what they think of its physics and metaphysics.
Taking amusement in catching little social lies isn’t exactly gatekeeping. More like sport.
I don’t give a damn whether people call themselves Stoics or not and whether they’re sincere—whatever that means—or not, but I’m very sure, specifically, that there are a lot more fans of Meditations than people who’ve read it or even meaningfully read about it, which is funny in that “oh boy, aren’t we humans goofy” sort of way. It’s also an easy phenomenon to stumble on innocently while trying to discuss the book, though I think that goes for a lot of Very Important Books that more people claim to have read than actually have. IIRC someone wrote a whole tongue-partially-in-cheek guide to pretending at having read books, for the reason that it’s pretty common.