No social factor is contrived to be so important, or used so divisively, as one’s music taste. Seemingly above all other things, the particular pressure oscillations of air that one grants unhindered passage into one’s auditory senses is THE defining social boundary.
Imagine walking into a pot-luck dinner you weren’t invited to, scoffing at others’ efforts, disposing of everyone’s offerings and filling their plates with your idea of a meal. Think of the anger and tension that would generate! Now remember that scruffy guy you don’t even know the name of who hijacked the stereo (which was once playing your carefully selected playlist) at your party and imposed his idea of good music upon everyone. He was even douchey enough to bring his own equipment and acted like he was the saviour of the party! Whilst these two cases are not quite perfectly parallel, it is absurd that some think that it is their duty to impose their tastes upon others.
Worse still are those of us who use music as a way of quickly profiling or stereotyping others. Music taste is used as a tool to judge if others are “cool” or “interesting” and enables people to quickly decide if a newcomer is a worthy friend. For some reason, this is deemed to be of greater importance than their moral values, political views, personal hygiene or even, in some ludicrous cases, attractiveness (never mind their appreciation of other art forms; prose, literature etc).
The reality is, most of the music scenesters just feed off online sources to develop their “taste”. A few hours a week trawling online blogs for “new” and “underground” artists requires very little cognitive effort. Ironically, what the scenesters have done is made everything “obscure” as disposable as they perceive mainstream music. With the need for everything to be new, underground and unpopular, artists quickly gain attention from the blogs and websites the scenesters religiously follow. A tipping point is quickly reached, where the artists become too popular for the scenesters, at which point they begin hating on what they took part in building up and look for something new to satisfy their craving.
The good news is, this won’t last. Remember that hot older guy you used to lust after in high school while you lingered around the video store he worked at? Then you saw him after going home at the end of third year. He no longer seemed so “cool” and “interesting”. He was still in the same video store, but with four more years of his youth spent. You grew up, your own tastes developed, you became more assured and more mature. You were no longer be impressed by such superficial things and realised how pathetic your attraction to such a person was. You actually felt a bit sad for him, standing there in the same place he did four years ago.
In short, don’t be a music hijacker. And don’t be so short-sighted as to think that someone’s so-called “love” of the newest cool band says anything whatsoever about them as a person
Just Another Fucking Hipster
