I like to think I’ve always been open to trying new things from the recommendations of my friends. Every now and again someone would say hey! Listen to this new band or hey! Check out this new TV show and because I trust my friends, I would give it a go. Without trying new things you can’t experience new ones. It’s an odd circle but it works.
Now I feel myself at the end of my tether being told everything I do and like is wrong. The most annoying part is that this criticism has come from family and friends.
It always starts off with the little things like music. When you like alternative music, people judge it as crap because if X-Factor won’t cover their songs and if it’s not in the Sunday Top 40 its crap and not worth their time.
Most recently this criticism has taken the form of dub step. I applied my rule of listening before passing judgment. 20 minutes of listening was enough for me. Why people find the sound of a typewriter vomiting being played backwards through a pitch shifter before having its bass levels cranked up is beyond me, but people like it so leave them to it.
But since every student’s new anthem is some dub step track by some illiterate ‘artist’ I find myself on the receiving end of shtick for not liking it. Why? I find absolutely no appeal to it. It is just headache inducing, blood boiling and ear shattering racket (and not the good kind).
Everything I have done to create my own identity which I am comfortable with has suddenly become the root of ridicule among friends. Why? If we get along outside of music tastes, why does it have to be a staple in the daily script when all other conversation topics have been exhausted?
The straw that broke my back today was being told I was using the wrong internet browser. Firefox has been my browser of choice since before I can remember. It seemed more exotic and different to that little blue letter e that became the irritating program that decided it would dedicate the rest of its time taking forever to load up then crash if anything particularly flash was encountered. That and its logo was a fox. What more do you want?
Yet that is all in the past. Nowadays Google Chrome is the browser of choice for all the cool kids. It’s faster (apparently), easier to operate (apparently) and if you ask nicely enough can probably make your morning coffee and walks your dog while you browse away the way some people talk about it.
I used my rule. Didn’t like it. When it first came up, it was blank with no instructions of how to set a homepage, create a toolbar for links, and how to pages you are on into a bookmark without copy and pasting the URL.
It felt cold and sterile, like an empty operating theatre. Nothing exciting there until a motorway pile up ensures to mess up the spick and span surfaces.
It has no passion. No welcome to Mozilla Firefox! Great to see you! Here is all the stuff you need to know and if it’s not, please consult our vast help pages (I am aware Chrome probably has a equally vast and knowledgeable help database but that doesn’t help if you can’t find the sodding thing).
It seems that in the world in which I reside more and more forcefully does not approve of my lifestyle. My freedom to use and do what I like isn’t good enough to please the mass of standardized legions who sit chirping the same words, phrases and products. What happened to opinion? Why cannot things be recommended anymore? Why does your personal opinion of something determine the kind of person you are perceived as?
I cannot claim that I am innocent of trying to force my opinion on people. PS3’s and IPad’s have been received a lot of negative energy in the past. But one PS3 game has changed my opinion of the console and IPad’s may prove themselves to be fantastic gadgets when I get to use one. I have learned this lately in all forms of my criticism and am trying my hardest to hold back, honest.
Maybe it’s because this week has been draining. I haven’t slept well or my diet has been poorer than usual that has led me to feel bitter and snap but I like to think somewhere amongst this ranting text, fuelled by only cynicism and grumpiness that I have made a point. We live in a culture which is a combination of new ideas and products that came from here there and everywhere.
But now we have built walls that touch the sky imprinted with remains of ideas, products and people that the majority has decided to reject because it doesn’t meet the criteria for what they know and what they don’t know scares them to shit bricks.
Rage Against the Machine managed this at Christmas by dedication from fans that came together for a single cause, to make one small change in the world ruled by the masses. It worked. It was beautiful. And it ruffled the feathers of the masses. We need more of this because the change was not made by hassling people to buy the single to beat Simon Cowell. It was done to show that outsiders can make change. And that was just fantastic.
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