[yakult]

Generalized version:

"Only <low status> people get <common condition that I do not have, or would like to signal I do not have>".

Once you see the pattern you'll see it everywhere.

[bonniemuffin]

Nah, I'm pretty sure he just wanted to encourage me to come up with ways to entertain myself. Thus, my childhood hobbies included building a city out of empty kleenex boxes for a family of little pieces of wool to live in; recording songs off the radio onto cassette tapes and coming up with indexing strategies to keep track of them in notebooks; and soaking every plant I could find in rubbing alcohol to find out which ones made dye I could paint with. Weird kid, what can I say.

[loeber]

Sounds like you spent your time exploring creative pursuits. That's worthwhile. Seems like a fun childhood. I believe that it is important to stave off boredom with creative, rather than consumptive activities.

[frubar]

I think you mean you'll project it everywhere. I say this to my kids as well, not to signal anything but to engage their creativity. A lot of kids these days can't figure anything to do if they don't have a device in their hands. I had to routinely ride in a car for 8+ hours as a kid and mobile devices either didn't exist or were so expensive as to may as well not exist. A lot of my creativity today stems from techniques I developed in those times.

[ShannonAlther]

I think his dad was just trying to get his son to stop whining about how bored he was.

[coldtea]

Only this case, despite following the syntactic form, has nothing to do with this pattern.

For one, it's not about signaling superiority (which is what the pattern is all about) -- it's merely advice. The sayer (?) is not claiming they are exciting themselves, just that being bored is a sign of not recognizing opportunities to be engaged with something.

(Also, in the general case, the presence of the pattern or the snobbism of the one saying it, doesn't mean it's also wrong).