A Requiem For A Dream

What Is It About being "Hardcore"?

You know those people, people who, whenever they see other people enjoying a popular culture product, whether it be a movie, music, or game, will instantly cry out "SELLOUT" at the top of their lungs and then proceed to go home to lock themselves up in their basements listening/watching/playing a movie/cd/game that no one has ever heard of.

So what is it about being "hardcore" that is so appealing? And just what is so goddamn wrong about enjoying something mainstream? Not everyone who listens to mainstream music is a conformist, brainless, tasteless idiot caught up in the corporate marketing machine. Just because you happen to like an obscure band who may have indirectly influenced Nirvana doesn't make you a goddamn arbiter of taste.

I hate hanging out with these people because you can't enjoy anything, nothing at all. This is coming from me, a guy who I consider is already pretty snobbish when it comes to certain things like games, books, movies, etc. But even I can't really take all that shit coming from the uber-elitist snobby club full of angsty people with huge record collections that date back before Jesus was born. Everytime I try to express my enjoyment for a popular band or a movie, these people always cry foul and say this and that are really nothing but ripoffs from such and such a band whom no one has ever heard of.

Listen up punks, let me just say something. Anyone that has ever tried to philosophically tried to prove the existence of God is in some way or another influenced by St. Thomas Aquinas, and everyone who wants to do deontology is influenced by Kant to some extent. Just because someone is influenced by someone else doesn't dimish the value of their work. I don't particuarly give a shit if a popular band is influenced by someone else because that doesn't automatically diminish the artistic value and the enjoyment of that particular piece of music.

Not everyone graduates from a goddamn film school so the next time you have the urge to tell so and so that the top-grossing movie of the weekend is really just a pale imitation of some French existentialist film-making school of thought, just don't do it. I'm just sick and tired of this cult of obscurity. Knowing obscure shit doesn't make you any more intelligent, and neither does knowledge alone help contribute to a meaningful discussion with everyday, rational people who do not possess a lot of esoteric knowledge. You can bring it in, but don't flaunt your level of obscure knowledge as a badge of credibility and authority.

I just tend to see too much of this trend in professional critics, reviewers, and journalists and in people who know too much. There is absolutely nothing wrong with knowing all this, but there is something wrong if you people decide to form a club and act snobby and take your shit out on other people who simply want something to enjoy and to savor. And the worst thing is that just when some people think that they are happy when they purchase something and the first thing someone else says is how shitty that something is because they know some really obscure stuff that no one else knows. Yeah, great way to put out enthusiasm you jack-asses. No one wants to buy a fucking CD only to hear someone else put it down because it is not "original" or "groundbreaking" or that it is a "sell-out".

So let's all take a break from this extreme anti-trendy, anti-mainstream, anti-antying-that-is-heard-or-watched-by-more-than-five-people-who-are-not-film-school graduates-or-vintage-record-collectors. I admit, most mainstream stuff are mediocore at best, but some stuff, albeit rare, is actually decent. Stop drinking those tiny-sized expressos, take off the "i have records that no one knows of" badge of pride, and just let people enjoy what they want.