get by just fine here on minimum wage

[asimplechord]

Yesterday spike.com posted this list of 9 bands with the worst fans.

I started reading, thinking it would be like a list of the worst NFL fans - like, Eagles' fans are *unbelievably* rude and crude. Not just to visiting teams and fans, but just in general. My family won't take children to their stadium because they think it's that bad. Fights break out. Lots of drunks (and I say that as someone who attended a Big Ten university and football games while said university consistently made the Playboy list of top 10 party universities) and foul language and just general not-polite-in-public behavior. I've heard it's the same at an Oakland Raiders game.

The Dead were at the top of the list - and I was like, OK, I can see that, even if I don't think that makes them "bad" fans. I went to Dead shows with college friends, and I've been to Bonnaroo, and that crowd *is* loud, and high, and messy.

But the author bags on FOB fans for being naive, Madonna's audiences for being mostly "fat chicks and gays" who pay too much for tickets, and 90's boy bands fans for having no taste.

The last one is a skinhead band, and I can see where if a band is promoting racist, sexist propaganda, and their fans are acting on said urgings, that's bad. A misuse of popularity that promotes violence and social injustice.

But. If they just like the music?

IDK, how does that make them/us bad fans?

Doesn't that just make them/us fans?

I'm not at all clear on the criteria used in determining what makes these fans the "worst". And I'm sorta wondering if the person who wrote the article is a too-cool-for-school indie person, or just looking to stir people up.

Comments

[glendaglamazon.livejournal.com]

Having produced them myself for magazines and Web sites, I can tell you that any list by journalists (even the online variety) is there primarily to rile people up and boost readership. It's the quickest and easiest way to get more eyeballs--especially with anything having to do with pop culture. Why do you think EW does multiple list issues a year? Why do you think AFI published all those 100 movies lists?

This one, unfortunately, seems to even miss his own point in favor of riling up the faithful (primarily ICP fans, it would seem). He could have attempted to make some larger point about single-minded devotion or something, but it appears he really just wanted to piss people off and get more unique visitors.

[asimplechord.livejournal.com]

Sometimes we need a poke to remind ourselves to take things less seriously. But they're the things we love, and sometimes we get overinvested. I think that is part and parcel of being a ridiculous fan. I am one, because I paid (and will pay) ridiculous ticket prices to see Metallica, Eric Clapton, and any of a variety of other bands (bandom and not) - although I'll try to get around LiveNation's astronomical "convenience" fees whenever possible. An article poking at most-obsessive fans, if it had been written, would have made me blush and think about my ticket purchases, but it wouldn't have annoyed me quite the way this article did.

[blushandrecover.livejournal.com]

As much as we want to be separated from, say, the politics/preconceptions of the bands we like, I think it'll always be connected in some way. I've chosen not to listen to artists because I don't agree with them, but it usually comes down to not agreeing with their lyrics, either (ahem, Katy Perry)-- so it still is kind of "all about the music."

[asimplechord.livejournal.com]

I get that for the last band. I wouldn't listen to them either. I'm just annoyed by the arbitrary "Madonna's fans are the worst b/c she's a 50-yr-old whore" and "BSB's fans are the worst b/c they have no taste" nature of the article. [And I'm not even a Madonna or BSB fan; it's a general annoyance at someone who wants to stir shit, and somehow misses his own point. Or can't connect title with what the list actually is; if it had been "Nine Bands I'd Never Pay To See" or "Nine Bands With Fools For Fans" that'd be different.]

[a-carnal-mink.livejournal.com]

The only criteria used is the dude's own opinion. And that's what these types of articles are all about, I guess. Though his comment about Tokio Hotel - "They’re like a goth boy band who grew up on David Hasselhoff and Bauhaus" - I thought was pretty hilarious. :D

I'm actually surprised and slightly begrudgingly impressed that he did his homework on Skrewdriver. (wiki is everybody's friend, it seems *grin*) They were actually a good Oi band once of a day, before all the bullshit started. I still have one of their early songs, "Anti-Social", and sing along with it with much gusto and enjoyment. A great song is a great song. But yeah, their fans are dicks (and, for the majority of the band's career, encouraged by the band themselves to be so) and they thoroughly deserve that top spot.

[asimplechord.livejournal.com]

Tokio Hotel wig me out. The one with the big pointy hair looks like a Barbie doll to me. I've tried to listen to them, but I can't get past the visual. I grow increasingly shallow with age, I think.

[escherzo.livejournal.com]

I'd say definitely trying to stir people up/piss them off, because basically the only point he seems to be making is that 'these bands suck and you suck for liking them!'

... which, yeah, just makes one sound like an asshat.

[asimplechord.livejournal.com]

It makes me wonder what bands he *does* like. Who has the best fans, in his opinion?