Written by:	Thryce
Published:	June 09, 2010

The funniest social critic of all time once argued that "thou shall keep thy religion to thyself" should be one of the Ten Commandments. If you change "religion" with the more general "beliefs", you have one of the most elementary wisdoms ever spoken. Why do people have to prove their right on what they like to absurd extents? Here are a few of my thoughts on the subject.


Just last weekend one of my longtime friends, who clearly has an open-minded taste in music, announced in his Facebook status he was studying for his exams "Limp Bizkit-style". This struck me as odd. No one of the sane people I know likes Limp Bizkit, let alone listens to them while studying. And even if they would, they sure as hell wouldn't let the whole world know on Facebook.


To put this into perspective a bit, at the time Limp Bizkit released those two infamous albums (they're absolute shit, but still everybody knows about them, weird huh?) me and my friends were young teenagers that were still easily influenced by popular, commercial, mainstream music. We didn't know any better, and we certainly didn't have any internet yet so we didn't quite know what else was there.






Back then, Limp Bizkit were totally hot, so of course we bought those now crappy releases. But soon we found out about the mistake we made, gradually discovered other and better stuff, moved away from those childhood sins and forgot about the band altogether. Then the internet became available for every single nutcase out there and suddenly everyone's hatred towards this atrocity was available for everyone. The result: nobody would even admit he used to have/still has these abominations in their CD collection.

(Pretty sure my friend only has a limited idea of the massive amount of internet flame wars, trash talk and endless arguing Limp Bizkit has generated over the years - probably because he doesn't give a shit about those things, which is exactly why he's one of my friends.)


Oh and by the way. To all the people still living in 2002, expressing your dislike of Limp Bizkit was already old years ago. "Limp Bizkit suck!" Yeah, we got that. Fascinating opinion. What else is new?


Moving on. You can like every piece of shit classified as music you want, but why can nobody else? Every band you like is the best band on the whole planet, on that we'll all agree. But why is it that everyone who thinks otherwise or likes other bands that are nowhere close to your favorite bands is plain wrong? Why do you have to call them out on a subjective taste that is different than your own? Is it because of some sort of superiority feeling? Either way, brutal truth: it's totally pointless.






And why is it that you immediately have to insult people with another opinion? Why is it that people waste so much of their valuable time on flame wars? "Metallica is tha best, shithead", says monkey 1. "No Megadeth is tha best, fucknoodle", says monkey 2. "Fuck 'em both, they're long past their prime, and you're a doucheosaurus for even listening to them", says monkey 3. Seriously, who has time for this? I mean, I got better stuff to do; like checking out good bands. Silly monkeys.


There's this kid in my neighborhood who wears All Shall Perish shirts and listens to St. Anger. The guy has a horrible taste in music - obviously. Big deal, that's no reason to spit on him and beat him up. You just have to accept the fact people have other opinions, tastes and preferences, and live with it (an idea a lot of us are very uncomfortable with).






Seriously, at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is what you like, right? Leave other people alone with what you think they should think. People can have any opinion about your favorite band, just as much as you can have any opinion on the next guy's favorite band. At the end of the day, it all comes down to your CD collection/hard drive stored with tons of downloaded music you want to be buried with. Obviously, my friend didn't give a shit about what you think. As long as he could enjoy his study afternoon in complete "Limp Bizkit-style".

Moral of the story: whatever, let the haters hate and get over it already.






But then - and here's a very interesting twist - why is it that as soon as everyone else picks up on your favorite band and agrees with you, you start liking them less and even call them "sell-outs"? Hating a band just because they've become popular is purely a matter of snobbism. Just like giving up on what used to be one of your favorite bands because they're "known by the general public now" is a desperate attempt at maintaining an elite status. Congratulations, you can play with the kvlt kids now. But kvlt kids can't play with each other because they alone can score the points.


The answer to all these questions? It's typically human, I guess. And nobody can blame you for being human. But somewhere it's also downright disgusting. Again, the main problem I have with humanity in general is the enforcement of one's own right; whether it's musical preferences, political views or religion in general. It all comes down to a matter of controlling others by feeding them your own point of view (just like Carlin said). My solution? Be even more egocentric than you already are on this point. I mean, fuck what everyone else thinks, as long as *I* like it, it's good enough, right? Right? Unfortunately, "each to his own" is a lesson humanity will never learn...


So yeah, bottom line, your favorite band still sucks big time. What are you gonna do about it, bitch?