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[textualdeviance]

What the heck is it with knee-jerk contrarians/rebels?

I really, really don't get people who act out against something just because they perceive it as popular or because someone they don't like likes it. I mean, fair enough if the underground band you like gets shitty after they get a contract or if you're opposed to the recording industry on principle. But if they're otherwise still the same band, still doing the same good stuff, wtf?

Likewise with the liking something just because it's non-mainstream. (Especially when said non-mainstream stuff has become mainstream on its own. Hi, Hot Topic? Is not counter-culture. Sheesh.)

Grow the hell up, y'know? Y'know what really IS cool and independent? Liking what you like and disliking what you don't like regardless of how many other people like those things.

And this goes for everything, btw: Pop culture, politics, religion, fashion, w'ev.

Mindless trendoiding is stupid, but so is mindless trend bucking. Assess each thing on its own merits. Learn about it from experts in that field. Find out what's good or not so good about it, using reliable sources for that information. And then make up your own mind based on all that data collection. If it turns out that the thing has merit, go for it. Don't look around you to see whether everyone else is on that train.

Comments

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

I guess I can kind of understand that, but in a way, it seems more like an interest based on a fandom, rather than the other way around.

I'm not sure how increased audience would necessarily dilute the overall quality of a band's music, for instance. If one likes the band primarily because of the experience of seeing them in a small venue, and not because of their music, is one really a fan of the band, or of the surrounding experience?

This is kind of my problem with fandom in general, actually. I grok getting together to enjoy something of mutual interest, but when the getting together trumps the base interest... It's just weird, y'know?

Like with my LOTR fandom experiences, for instance. I certainly like all the friends I met in that fandom, and I definitely still like the source material/people involved in its production. But at some point, LOTR fandom became less about LOTR itself or anyone involved in creating it, and more about intra-fandom politics and bullshittery.

Being my first experience with fandom per se, I found this both bizarre and off-putting and thus that's a large part of why I left when I did. My interest in LOTR hadn't waned, but my interest in participating in the metaculture around it most definitely had.

FWIW, this rant was inspired by something more current events than pop culture (think the Ron Paul freaks) but I've seen the same phenomenon across so many different kinds of interests that it makes me wonder if it's just a personality type--ooh, lookit me, I'm all EDGY and DIFFERENT!--and not something specific to each individual interest.

All that said, you do have an interesting point about dilution. I think a lot of things (bands, politicians, whatever) start off with a core of fans who are actually interested in them as individuals, and then suddenly get a landslide of wannabes who crash the party not because of an actual interest in the subject itself, but because they want to be part of the supposed cool kids who were the first fans.

And it's that group--the first wave of moths to a newly prominent flame--that I really detest. Not the initial group of loyalists, and not the large group that comes after them when the word is out.