Facebook Flamewars

I was told not to inject any more misery into the world, but I simply couldn't resist this time. There was a certain person on my Facebook friends list who posted their weekly top 3 from last.fm. I recognized two of the three bands as indie rock bands. I made the comment that there must be a hipster/indie kit that kids can send away for--which in return opened up, as my aunt would say, a can of worms, which ended in many sensitive people flaming me and one girl saying that I was a waste of existence. It's funny because at one point I was unfriended by the original person, and couldn't respond to the comments being made towards me.

It is funny how music is more sacred to some people than philosophical or religious issues. If you insult someone's music, you can be sure that they will take it more personally than if you were to make fun of their prophet. And that was more or less the reaction that I got. Flamed by several like-minded individuals and banned from responding.

You see, I'm used to people disliking my music. I've heard nasty remarks made about it since I started listening to it. This is why I don't try to share my music with people, and I don't care to hear what other people are listening to. I know for a fact that my music isn't accessible to the standard issue American because I have put a medley of tracks I enjoy on the jukebox at last call to drive everyone out--and it works. That doesn't mean that I like shitty music anymore than it means that the majority of people don't like good music.

It's not my fault that I hold myself, and those around me, to a higher intellectual standard, and don't think that it is particularly conducive to happiness to constantly be living in the past. "I should have been born in the '70s, '60s..." blah blah blah. That isn't happiness, it is deluded and I have every right to burst that bubble as you have to annoy me with it. So if it pisses you off, that is your problem, not mine.

This, of course, is a rationalization because the only casualty on my side in a "war" like that is my pride. Since I had a million and a half good retorts to the kiddies, and wasn't allowed to voice them, I have to dwell on them. But I should be used to this kind of reaction by now. After all, people are sensitive about their music because they believe that who they are is defined by what they listen to. They also deny it too.. which in turn reinforces their tendency to be defensive about insults towards what they listen to.

Further, eclectic listeners are like people who are friends to everyone. A friend to all is a friend to none. You simply can not trust them. Same thing with music. A person who likes everything has no taste, and therefore has an unreliable opinion. All opinions are unreliable.. really. That's why they are called opinions. What annoys me is that I'm wasn't criticizing her as a person.. simply pointing out that people who listen to indie music like Bob Dylan and the Beatles because the former genre is a derivative of the latter artists. What's more, people think that being informed makes one judgmental. If you are following along, you can kind of see how a slam against the music is a slam against the person because the music is a de facto personality. When I point that out, because I have seen it over and over and over again, I'm the enemy.

People don't like to have their existences invalidated. Hense the reason that the last comment was explicitly, "[Whinger the Ginger] is the biggest waste of existence..." because without anything clever to say, they are left with only the obvious. Actually what insulted me the most was the crack some kid made about my T-shirts. He was most likely projecting, but what he said was something along the lines of me going to Goodwill to get ironic T-shirts.. like most indie/hipsters are known to do. I don't know why this comment bothered me at all, but mostly it had something to do with the fact that all of my t-shirts say something funny. They don't necessarily say something ironic. Perhaps one does. It says "Sarcasm: Just one of my many talents" which I'll admit is ironic. The rest of my shirts say something like "Hope is for Sissies," "Everybody Lies," and "Normal's Overrated" which aren't ironic at all.. and I didn't get them at Goodwill, I got them for donating to the House charities. This is why I think he was either projecting, or trying to do what I do.. predict people by their cliches.

Obviously the fact that I blog about this at all demonstrates how insecure I feel about the situation. I usually don't mean for people to get so upset by what I say. But like I said, you can't comment on someone's music without them flipping a lid. Music is the new religion. Even though I feel the need to rationalize the situation so that I don't feel so much like a turd--flexing my intellectual muscles to humiliate others--I am reminded how much of a pest Socrates was for caring about truth over politeness. Being nice is overrated, and when I see the truth about a person I will sacrifice the friendship for the truth. Interestingly, most friends are friends because of the lies, not the truths they tell each other. That is probably because most friendships in 21st century America are based on what one person can get out of another person, and the fear of being cut off keeps people smiling and lying through gritted teeth. Ha. Now whose project....