The difference between having an opinion and being a horrible person

(Photo by Ivo Jansch, CC 2.0)

It's been a while since I've been on a good rant, but an interesting thing happened to some of my friends earlier today, and that's what prompted me to make this post. See, my other big social crowd besides the goth-industrial scene is the anime convention scene. I have a significant number of friends and associates who are active within the anime scene and are involved in a number of ways, including cosplay. As it so happened, some of my friends did group costuming at this year's Katsucon. For the most part, these people received praise for their costumes, but one incident that happened on Facebook today made for the entire spark for this entry.

There was this one person who was supposed to be a friend of one of my friends who did the cosplay. Apparently, this guy didn't like the cosplay and thought the majority of the cosplayers looked subpar. What was particularly tactless and odd was the fact the perpetrator told my friend that he looked fine, but all his friends who were part of the cosplay with him were awful to look at. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see where this is going, particularly after the person making tactless comments about the cosplay threatens to put the pic in question on 4chan.

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

Cosplay is one of those small-time community art scenes, a lot like the goth-industrial music scene. There are a few people high up on the food chain, like Jessica Nigri and Yaya Han, who really make a decent living out of what they do, but most of the people who "make it" within the scene are still people who are close enough to the realities of the world of the common people that they aren't above feeling the sting or elation of what others say about their craft. If you keep up with cosplay, you sometimes see the same people get featured all the time on the big and semi-big geek portal sites, and they're the people who are really popular cosplayers who people enjoy seeing. These people may have a considerable number of followers on their cosplay pages on Facebook. But when Monday morning after cons hit, these people who are not the Jessica Nigris and Yaya Hans put their pants on one leg at a time and go to mundane jobs or classes like the rest of us.

In the goth-industrial scene, it's no different. For instance, while Brittany Bindrim might be telling you about how things were "not [her] plan" and letting you know over and over again that "[she] did this" after work, her mad skills with Photoshop are what pay the bills. I can guarantee you that nobody in I:Scintilla gets treated like Hollywood royalty. Those people shop at the grocery store and pump their own gas like the rest of us. As such, they're more like us than you might think.

We're quick to detach ourselves from artists, particularly in the age of the Internet, and we have kind of thrown decorum out the window. As a result of this detachment, we forget that someone who is a lot like ourselves worked hard on the thing we're consuming. It's one thing when someone who is very famous has a product that has been exposed to the masses, because when someone is at that level, he or she isn't even going to notice what individuals other than people with comparable clout have to say. Someone with that level of success will only notice macro-level trends from the masses, so noticing one person's flippantly biting remark is like noticing a single particular drop of rain within the context of a thunderstorm. But when it comes to most people within the indie scene, up-and-comers, and other people who haven't made it to the big time yet, those people do notice criticism on a much more micro level. Regardless of whether or not they've learned to deal with the criticism, they still notice it.

Of course, none of this is to say that I believe you shouldn't ever criticize artists below a certain level of fame. As a matter of fact, I think that idea is completely absurd. Good, constructive criticism is necessary for artists to improve and gain fame over time. Artists gamble when they completely ignore the input of their fans. Angering your fanbase is a great way make your artwork no longer financially viable. It's better to get constructive criticism now and be able to make adjustments than to wonder why your fanbase simply dwindled over time. That's not to say artists should never take risk, not is it to say that the fans are always right or perfect seers of the future, but public opinion is very important to consider when trying to peddle one's work.

But the key term within the last paragraph was "constructive". If there is something you didn't like about a song, a video, an album, a show, or anything, you need to explain what you didn't like in as direct and non-confrontational as you can. "I didn't like this, because..." or "I would have preferred if you have done this, because..." works a lot better than "Your album sucks!" or "Don't quit your day job!" (An exception to this is if the artist actually did something you deem wrong or offensive. (e.g. took your money and didn't give you product in return, said racial slurs on stage, etc.) In those cases, being a bit more confrontational, without doing something that will get you arrested, mind you, may be more in order.) Artists who want to continue to be artists are remarkably receptive of feedback. You may think some of them are aloof, but they listen to what you have to say. As such, you need to not treat them like garbage. Talk to them like human beings, as if they were standing in front of you in a room.

In summary, I suppose the whole point of this rant is that you shouldn't treat artists within the scene poorly. They actually notice what you have to say. Even if they may not address you directly, they pay attention. Don't be a jerk, unless you just want the scene to dry up and die.

You know what's deplorable? Misogyny.

As my readers should know by now, Unter Null is one of my favorite musicians. I've not had the opportunity to have the years of experience with her music that some people have, but in the short time that I've listened to it, it's moved me. Moreover, based on the half a shot glass's worth of information I have gathered about her personality, Erica has my respect in that category, too. In particular, I like how she's able to take things in stride and change the direction of an annoying situation using sarcasm.

(Photo by Ericadunham, CC 3.0 Unported License)

So, Erica made a status update on her official Facebook page, today. She asked people what people would like to see in her collector's boxset edition of her next Unter Null album. Most of the suggestions were mundane, such as T-shirts, autographs, and wristbands, but someone made a comment about putting in condoms. That was kind of icky, but that was one of the things you could probably roll your eyes and just skip over. The crown jewel though was when someone said "used panties."

I'm not joking here. Someone suggested she put used panties in her box set. Regardless of whether or not that was supposed to be a joke, that was still pretty vile. Erica said, "Allowing some of these comments for posterity. This is what happens when you don't have a dick and still write music." I think she hit the nail on the head with that comment.

Why are there men out there who don't see women as people? I see this all the time when I look at communication between male fans and female artists. Luckily, I don't see it as much within the goth-industrial circles as much as I see it within some other scenes, but it still happens quite a bit. There are some men out there who think women are lesser beings than men are and don't have to be treated with the same respect.

First and foremost, if you're a guy, firing off sexually charged statements, whether in jest or seriousness, to a woman you don't know, just because she's a woman, makes you a jerk. She's a person, just like any man is a person. Moreover, as far as I know, Erica has a husband, and he's likely the only person who can get away with saying things of a sexual nature to her. If you are one of the billions of men on this planet who aren't her husband, and you say things like this to her, you're also a jerk because you're saying these things to another guy's wife.

I'm happy to see that Erica was able to handle this with such poise. If I had to guess, I'd say she probably has plenty of experience having to put up with misogynist fans, and this experience is probably something fairly common among women in the goth-industrial music scene. All things considered, this is not remotely as damaging of a situation as countless others in the past that women have had to endure, but it's still wrong and should be called out for what it is.

The idiocy of the passively accepting "true fan"

(Public Domain License)

This is a more general rant that I think can apply to virtually any entertainment. It doesn't have to be the goth-industrial scene. It doesn't even have to be music.

Why is it that there some people who are under the impression that you are not a "true fan" (and I use that term loosely) of a band, artist, or whatever if you do not think everything that person or those people do is the best thing since sliced bread? Despite what some people may believe, musicians put on their pants one leg at a time, just like the rest of us. Nobody's perfect, and there are times when these musicians put out things that not everyone is going to like. Furthermore, some people seem to ignore at this is a fact of life that is perfectly natural and fine.

There are a lot of musicians I gush over, and obviously I like a significant amount of these people's work. If I didn't, I'd obviously not be a huge fan. That being said, I'm a critical person, too. I call a spade a spade, and I'm not going to shell out money for products that I don't enjoy, regardless of whose name is on it. Furthermore, even if I don't enjoy something, that doesn't automatically mean I think the work was bad. It can mean that, but it doesn't have to.

For example, you all should know by now that I'm a huge I:Scintilla fan. That band is a huge reason why I'm talking to you right now. I have a ton of songs of theirs within my playlists. I couldn't help but to completely fawn over Skin Tight. When Marrow 1, their acoustic EP, came out, I knew it would be different, but I was willing to try it out, anyway. I can't say I was impressed though, and even after a number of listens on the sales page stream, I couldn't bring myself to buy it or even any songs from it. (I might buy their Devo cover, but that's about it.) Do I think less of them because I didn't like that one EP that isn't even representative of much of their discography? Am I a lesser fan because I didn't like something with I:Scintilla's name on it? Possibly even more importantly, does the fact I didn't like the release mean their music was bad?

If you answered "yes" to any of those previous three questions, I need to educate you as to why you're wrong.

First, I have realistic expectations of musicians. Even among my favorite artists, I don't have the expectation that every artist customizes their musical decisions on my personal whims. Regardless of whether their creative focus is more on the desires of fans or their personal wants, decisions are made almost entirely someone who is not me in mind. As such, I don't delude myself into thinking that disagreeing with these decisions is wrong or abnormal. It feels like some people think that disagreement with the choices that musicians make shows some level of deviance. In my opinion, if this is a worry, it shows some level of insecurity. If a fan or an artist is so insecure that disagreement about musical choices causes backlash of some sort, that is squarely a problem with that person.

Second, I consider my opinions of an artist or artists to act like a balance scale. If the good outweighs the bad, I have a favorable opinion, and vice-versa. Even if I don't like something an artist has made, I don't usually write off that person as horrible, assuming I have evidence of the contrary. I admit that first impressions do matter to me, and if my first impression is bad (like it was with Santa Hates You, for example), I will be a lot harder to please. Still, it's not like I just write musicians off because they make one thing I don't like out of a sea of otherwise enjoyable work. That's unreasonable. Some people are under the impression that this is black and white though. If you don't fall over your own feet over everything, you might as well despise everything. There's no middle ground with these people. Obviously, that's asinine.

Third, I can respect a work without enjoying it. Using the Marrow 1 example, it's not like I thought any of the songs on the EP were poorly made. It just wasn't my thing. Would you complain about the culinary expertise of a sushi chef if you don't like sushi? Of course you wouldn't, because that wouldn't make sense. The same goes for my opinion of Marrow 1. That type of acoustic music usually bores me to tears, and this was no exception. I'm not going to say I:Scintilla made bad music though, because that's an unreasonable statement to make. That all being said, there are plenty of things that I don't like because I do think they're badly done. I'm just saying that my dislike for something doesn't necessarily mean that I think something is of poor quality.

What do you all think? Am I full of it? Am I being reasonable?