February 25, 2008 | | Rants

I am so tried of all the backlash these days. It’s everywhere! As soon as anything, anything, gets remotely popular there are people that automatically jump on the hate wagon. And why? There’s no reason for it, they just want to hate on something because that’s cool, just like 3 month before it was cool to love that same thing. What the hell? Has it always been like this? I guess it has, though I think the proliferation of the internet and blogs and 24/7 media inundation have only served to make the whole much bigger. Whereas before it was just you and your friends, now it’s you and everyone who reads your blog and everyone on the forum you post on and then the forums they post on.

Here’s what I don’t get about America. The whole point to living, the only thing that anyone cares about is The American Dream. And while this sentiment started as just wanting a better life, though the years it’s basically been boiled down to two things: Rich and Popular. EVERYONE wants to be rich and popular. Come on cynics, you know deep down you want that, too. Except that as soon as anyone, anyone, actually reaches this dream, as soon they cross that threshold, they are vilified. Before she made it she’s a “talented, stuggling actress” and after everyone’s labeling her an “ugly hack” or saying she only get where she is because of her big boobs. It’s such a double standard. We want to have it all, but we don’t want anyone else to.

This rant is mainly inspired by all the recent Juno backlash (and backlash on the backlash on the backlash on the backlash), but I can think of a ton of other examples. I saw Juno on opening weekend (and I’d been wanting to see it since I first heard about it months and months and months before) and I loved it. Just because the rest of America decided to take their collective heads out of their asses and see an actual good movie in the theater, just because it made a lot of money, doesn’t make it bad film! It’s the same film it always was. (And if you didn’t like it in the first place, then good for you, you’re completely entitled to your opinion as long as it really is your opinion.) Based on TV ratings I will give you that mainstream America does like some pretty crappy stuff, but that doesn’t mean that EVERYTHING that is popular is bad. It just means that it FINALLY got the recognition it deserves! Why can’t people be happy about that?

Fans of cult favorite TV shows and movies (me included) like to blame the mainstream for being too stupid or too boring or too whatever to get the brilliance of [insert title here] (Off the top of my head: Firefly, Buffy, Angel, Arrested Development, Deadwood, Anything ever made by Tim Minear), but these things are special precisely because they didn’t have mainstream popularity. I can promise you that if any those shows had actually become bona fide hits (ie got above average ratings with our completely bullshit, outdated, TV ratings system), half of the original fans would decide they couldn’t watch the show anymore. I know this because I read tons of those kinds of comments and posts when Lost and 24 became “hits”.

And it’s not even films and TV, it’s everything: People, music, books, fashion, even science and medicine. I remember all the way back in high school, the first time I ever noticed this mass backlash effect was with the Dave Matthews Band. I hadn’t just jumped on the train when they got popular, I had liked them before they were anything. I remember listening to bootleg tapes (tapes!) that my friend made for me. I remember them getting more and more popular (and me feeling superior because I liked them “before they were stars”) and then all of sudden they were the best band ever and just as suddenly it was social poison if you mentioned you liked them. “That’s frat boy, music. How can you like that shit? You have no taste”. Now, I fully admit that I haven’t really liked DMB for a while now, but that’s because I haven’t liked any of their recent albums. That doesn’t mean that Under the Table and Dreaming isn’t one of my favorite albums still. It’s a great album and them being popular or not doesn’t change that fact.

I do think it’s completely possible to like something at one point in your life and later decide that you don’t like it anymore. People grow and change and find new interests and that’s totally fine. There’s nothing wrong with an opinion changing. But that usually takes place over the course of a few years or decades. The backlash cycle for pop culture is about a month to a month and a half. If anything gets popular and stays popular for that amount of time, the backlash always starts. Sometimes I think people are just waiting for that point where they can disagree with everyone else, where they can feel superior because they have a dissenting “opinion”.

What’s the point then? Why even bother to like anything if you’re just going to arbitrarily decide you hate it the next month. Our opinions make us who we are, so how do you know who you are if all your opinions come from someone else?

Well, I think that’s ridiculous. EVERYONE is entitled to their own opinion, no matter what. If you like something, then just like it, for god’s sake. If you don’t like it, guess what, you don’t have to. It’s your opinion. OWN IT. Keep owning it, even if everyone else decides to hate it. Don’t say you love or hate something just because your friend does. Don’t be a fucking sheep.

Tags: backlash, Juno, mainsteam, opinions, pop culture