Three cents about … “Ten bands”

And yet again I see a little hate directed toward the whole “10 bands” viral thing. Hey, that’s cool, most of us get irritated with one viral / meme or another now & then.  But I’m a little bumfuzzled about this particular one.

 

Here’s the part I don’t get: the high percentage of those who are worked up enough to bitch about it that seem to be connected to the music business in some way.  Let me be clear though: not all musicians were snarking about it, only a few really.  And not every mealy-mouther has a connection to music.  But there was a noticeable overlap between music-related workers & complainers, at least in what I saw.  Well over half the gripes came from people — often tertiary types — that have some relationship to music

 

I can’t imagine an actor complaining because people were talking about movies or plays. I can’t imagine a preacher complaining because people listed their favorite scriptures. I can’t imagine a grocery clerk getting bent because people were talking about food.  And yet …

Now let me also try to make something completely crystal clear before I go any farther.  If you happen to be a musician that got annoyed simply by the viral repetition or whatever, you’re not the subject of my rant here.   See above, about how we all get tired of one thing or another. No, what follows here is about those folks who seemed to take some sort of bizarre offense at the very existence of the topic.

 

Since I happen to actually like a fair number of musical folks, let me try to help out their kindred who seem to have missed both the point of the whole exercise and any understanding of why it caught on so well:  I thought AdWeek hit on a big part of it as they analyzed the sudden success really,  it wasn’t about what bands you’ve seen, it’s about using your understanding of how people perceive you & playing around with it.

It was about conversations.  I saw a LOT of these across my FB wall in the past 2-3 days.  Virtually all of them not only talked about the bands mentioned but also about how they fit into the timelines of their lives.  Not the bands but rather, how the concert experience came to occur.  Where you sat, where you saw it, why you went.   You know, actual conversations rather than the same ol’ picture shares, meme shares, hoaxes, and fake news links.

It was about nostalgia.   A growing portion of the population doesn’t remember when “camping out for tickets” was a thing.  If you DO remember, odds are you have some fond recollections to go with the uncomfortable attempts to sleep and freezing your butt off.

It was about shared experiences.  “You were there too?  We didn’t even know each other then, how funny is that?” and “do you remember that one guy, down toward the front, who kept trying to …”.
I was there, you were there, that’s a connection.

I’m looking back through the things I saw and find myself even more perplexed by the angst they seemed to generate for some people.   I don’t see anything that does another musician any harm.  I don’t see anything that diminishes anybody in any way.  I don’t see anything that requires any more effort to ignore or avoid than any of dozens of things that must surely upset the equilibrium of these hyper-sensitive souls every single day of their glaringly unhappy existence.

Well buttercup, if you think those lists yanked your chain, let me show you what a REAL tug on it feels like:  take your pitiful little complaints, shine ’em up reaaaaal nice, and shove them up your tightly puckered ass.   You’re either so pathetically self-centered that you can’t fathom not being the center of attention for fifteen (more) minutes and you’re just pissed that everyone isn’t kissing your feet & posting about youyouyou OR you’re so out of touch with how actual humans connect with each other that you’re unlikely to contribute much, if anything, to the social media sphere.  Don’t go away mad, just go away.

Ah hell, who am I kidding? As long as you shut the hell up with the whining, I don’t really care if you leave mad or not.

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