So an interesting thing came up on the PostModern Jukebox Facebook page a week or so ago. A listener made some comments about how he was tired of PMJ doing covers of modern hits in styles of a different era. Why can’t they just cover the hits of those eras? Never mind that re-stylized covers of modern music is the entire point of PMJ – band leader and piano master Scott Bradlee’s self-description on his Twitter account explicitly reads “I make music sound old.” I’ve been following his work since 2011 when a friend sent me a Youtube video of his Levels of Tetris mashup, and he’d started his song style re-arrangements before that even, so it’s not like PMJ started as a metal band who just recently started doing covers of Celine Dion.1 This guy knew what to expect, and just decided to be negative because he didn’t like one song. Of course, from the comments it appears he only liked one song in the first place: “Like I said he can do whatever he likes but I prefer Radiohead covers to Celine Dion. If that is what you like you are welcome to it but he has lost me as a fan.”2
It’s a sad reality that while the Internet allows us to connect with like-minded people about shared interests in ways like never before, it also opens the door to unwarranted negativity that too often comes as a result of nothing more sinister than having some modicum of success. Using my own experience as an example, as RCM has been slowly growing, so too have the number of trolls who pop up in our streams. A good portion of the offenders are obviously spammers who only want to pop in long enough to cut-and-paste a quick general hate message or a “HEEEEEEEEEEEEY GAIS! Ditch ths BORING streem and follows ME instead!!!1!” A recent one that comes to mind went along the lines of “Do you hate Jews, Blacks, and Homosexuals as much as I do? Then follow me on PornHub!” Because, you know, PornHub’s where a lot of intellectual discussion apparently goes down. *le sigh.*
Even social media, designed specifically as a way to bring people together, is rife with negativity. Popularity breeds contempt, so much so that the writers of the Jimmy Fallon Show have made a very popular segment of celebrities reading some of the mean Tweets users tagged to them. Kevin Murphy, one of the writers and personalities behind the sci-fi movie spoof show Mystery Science Theatre 3000, tells an interesting story about how when he took over the voice role of Tom Servo, someone printed out and sent him a ten foot long banner reading in big bold letters “I HATE TOM SERVO’S NEW VOICE!!!” Rather than take it to heart, Murphy writes that he “proudly hung it on the wall behind my desk” and said of the person who sent the banner, “I feel bad to know that their life is so bereft of joy and meaning that they are reduced to sending hate mail to a puppet.”
But the same kind of behavior is seen targeting non-celebrities as well, and in the case of the everyday individual, non-popularity also breeds contempt. Celebrities, for the most part, have to be thick-skinned when it comes to critique, but if the recipient of said criticism doesn’t have the emotional fortitude to deal with such things, the results can be devastating. For creative types, it could kill off the confidence to complete or even launch an idea – the “why bother if everyone hates it” mentality. Young adults in particular are susceptible to anxiety and depression anyway, and at a time of their lives when finding their own identity as an individual is paramount, unwarranted negativity can be absolutely crushing.
But why does it happen in the first place? The optimistic side of me doesn’t want to believe that humans are naturally violent, but then I think about an experimental piece done by the performance artist Marina Abramovic back in the 1970s. Called Rhythm 0, Abramovic sat completely passive for six hours next to a table with a variety of instruments and a sign that the audience could use the tools to do whatever they wanted to her without fear of reprisal. Starting off gently, the audience got progressively more violent as they realized the artist would take whatever abuse they subjected her to. It wasn’t until one audience member put a loaded gun in her hand and was slowly working her finger around to the trigger that a small group in the audience decided to do something about it, resulting in a fight breaking out. By the end, when the gallery announced the piece was over and the artist began to move again, the audience, unable to face her as a person, simply left rather than deal with the guilt of their actions. It’s something that, sadly, is not an isolated case in the course of human history.
Now take that to the 21st century internet feeds, and the same construct applies. The relative anonymity that comes with user names and a lack of face-to-face interaction make it increasingly easy to forget that there are people on the other ends of those ethernet cables, people with hopes and dreams and jobs and responsibilities and, perhaps most importantly, feelings. I’m not saying criticism in and of itself is a bad thing, but ask yourself: if you’re about to blast the shit out of an artist because of one song you don’t like, if you’re trolling chat telling random strangers they should go kill themselves, if you’re spouting off outrage at hot topics of the day because of an inflammatory headline you saw on one click-bait website whose article you didn’t even bother to read, what are you really doing? Would you conduct yourself the same way if the object of your internet ire were sitting directly across from you? Or if you had to own up to who you actually are rather than sitting behind the relative safety of that username – would you be making the same comments? Sure, there are people who will throw out the argument “First Amendment, free speech, we can say whatever we want.” Okay, but that doesn’t absolve one from responsibility for their actions. In a society where social media is everywhere, the police might not arrest you for making bigoted comments, but employers don’t want to be associated with it. One is technically free to make their comments, but what needs to be understood is that the rest of the world is also free to not put up with it.
So what can we do? Go back to Ghandi’s advice and be the change you want to see in the world. As we saw in Abramovic’s piece, when consequences are removed, society deteriorates quickly; however, even that experiment saw the emergence of a small band of people who said “no, we’re not standing passively by, we can change the outcome of this story” AND THEN DID IT. They took responsibility for their actions and the world became a little bit better as a result. Going back to the original story, PMJ’s community was overwhelmingly supportive and dealt with one negative comment not by feeding into the negativity themselves, but by countering with a slew of positive ones, just showing how their fan base is just as classy as the group itself. The cherry on the cake was how perfectly PMJ’s social media guru handled the situation and came back with the most excellent response that could have been written: “Sorry that our selection of popular songs to remake isn’t up to your standards. We will try harder in the future. In the meantime, please enjoy this coupon for FREE chili lime boneless wings!”
That’s right, my friends: shake it off.
*****
1 – You can see the comment thread on Bradlee’s Instagram feed: https://instagram.com/p/6F32nvkw31/
2 – Let me be clear: one cannot claim to be a fan of something if they only like one very specific piece of work. That makes one a fan of the piece, not the creator as a whole. It’s like someone watching the trailer for a movie and claiming the movie is their favorite ever based solely on the clip, while never actually watching the movie itself. That’s not how fandom works.
thefourthcastle.com 