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Thanks for sharing that - it gave me a lot more perspective. I've spent a lot of the last three years out of the States, and it was quite insightful. Just pondering now, but I think it might come down to a couple things - First, a lot of people take anything different than them as a threat to them. So if you don't blend in, they might not like you even though you're just doing your own thing, enjoying your life, dressing in a way that appeals to you, and so on. People sometimes take that as a threat simply because it's different. But there's also a second kind of thing, where the people who are rejecting the mainstream do it in a haughty way - so it's not so much the taste in music, as it is the way you present the taste in music. As if someone who doesn't know isn't the club - intentionally exclusionary. (Also, I remember this kind somewhat commonly in some New York City circles - there's some people with this insufferable "oh you don't know about abc? I seeee, hmmm...." I haven't seen it so much elsewhere) So whenever someone feels excluded, they usually wind up disliking whoever they feel excluded by. Sometimes it's intentional and elitist, but I think most of the time it isn't: Hearkening back 10 years or so, I remember when other kids were talking about music I didn't know, I'd always feel kind of shy and left out. Nowadays, I'll say, "Wait - I don't know that one. Any good?" And then five seconds later, "Ok - and I don't know that one. Any good?" And if it happens a third time, "Hmm, I don't know much about this genre - it's all going over my head. Could you explain the basics to me, how it started, who is important, what I'd want to listen to to get started?" Like, I like the Beatles. Great stuff. But I'll ask people, "Did you ever play any of their albums straight through? What songs have you heard?" If I just start saying that Revolver's first two tracks might be the best two in a row on any Beatles album, but that Sgt. Pepper's plays much better all the way through, it'd lose people, and most people are too shy to speak up. So they'd feel left out, and then maybe they'd kind of project that outwards and dislike me. So you've got two genuinely different kinds of people - the kind that want to exclude and make people feel left out, and the people who are doing their own thing who are very nice and would happily welcome with you if you could get into a good chat with them. Something to think about. Thanks for taking the time to elaborate and explain what's going on, I learned quite a bit from it. |
Funny you mention the Beatles. This argument inspired me to start writing a post about hipsterism, and I open with the argument that the Beatles were the most hipster band of all time. I mean, naming an album after an old-timey 20s pastiche, singing songs about carnivals and India, and did you see what they were wearing? Totally inauthentic hipster garb, that. ;-)