# What is with the hate for Mariah Carey? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [December 13, 2022, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437 "2022-12-13T02:10:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/21 "2022-12-13T10:20:33Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > When I finally become God-Emperor (c’mon, Satan - you owe me!) it will be banned from all public areas/retail establishments unless specially permitted for specific and limited holiday events. Well, raise the debt ceiling and remove Mark Cuban from existence and you’ll have my vote. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/22 "2022-12-13T10:35:09Z")
The same Mak Cuban who is fighting outrageous drug prices and robber baron drug companies with his direct-to-consumer pharmacy [website](https://costplusdrugs.com/)? My beef with Mariah Carey goes way back to when I first saw her on the telly. It was a behind-the-scenes look at her house (maybe from “Cribs”?). Carey was in her closet, which was the size of my house, trying on shoes. With every pair she had her assistant remove the previous shoes from her feet and apply the new pair. Mariah was standing, the assistant was down on her hands and knees, exchanging Her Majesty’s shoes. mmm ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/23 "2022-12-13T11:43:45Z")
I’d imagine assistants of A list celebrities don’t get paid peasant wages. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/24 "2022-12-13T12:46:07Z")
As for me, the song and the singing in it are fine - I mean, I probably wouldn’t seek it out to listen to, but it’s a perfectly nice, generic pop Christmas song. However, it’s the insanely high rotation with which it is played every December that makes me want to gouge my eardrums out. People complain about “Last Christmas” but honestly if there was a Mariahgeddon contest, everyone would be out before Advent even started. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/25 "2022-12-13T12:55:50Z")
Imagine Mariah covering That-“I still want a hoooola hooop”. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanubv.2/32/3260_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/26 "2022-12-13T13:00:12Z")
MC is not my favorite artist but I love the song. I tear up a little when the young girl sings it in **Love** **Actually** and when I hear it in a store or something, I’m definitely dancing a little. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/27 "2022-12-13T13:05:30Z")
As much as I hate it, I think I have an even greater hatred of Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime.” That frays my nerves even more, but nobody tell my kids, please! ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/28 "2022-12-13T13:18:42Z")
Part of it is success backlash. It’s a very popular Christmas song that is excessively played during the holidays. Anything that reaches the level of ubiquity it has is going to garner a certain amount of hatred. Personally, I’m not a fan of MC, and I don’t think much of the song either way. It’s a poppy, somewhat catchy song that doesn’t enrage me to hear but I wouldn’t choose to listen to it. Fortunately, working from home I don’t listent to much holiday music until maybe Christmas Eve when Mrs. solost and I might put on one of the local channels that go to 24/7 holiday tunes after Thanksgiving. I did work in an office building years ago where they played one of those 24/7 holiday music stations for a couple months. Fortunately the music didn’t make it into my office, but I was a sysadmin who had to often leave the office to deal with stuff and I’d hear the same songs over and over and over and over. The absolute worst was “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”. After the 4th or 5th time in a single day I contemplated jamming sharpened pencils into my ears. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/29 "2022-12-13T13:22:54Z")
Hers is just a really revved up version. I like it, but I pretty much like all Christmas music! LOL ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/30 "2022-12-13T13:29:07Z")
It’s just about the only Christmas ‘evergreen’ of the last 25+ years, so it gets the same heavy rotation as all the older, equally awful, treacly Christmas songs of earlier decades. We’ve sort of, pavlov-ish, learned to tune out White Christmas and all the other crap to the point where it’s all part of the holiday backdrop. AIWFCIY hasn’t quite reached that level of saturation yet, give it another ten years and it will be just another awful Christmas ditty. What I really think is at play here is that many people despise MC, and think that she isn’t worthy of being in the pantheon as perceived greats of yesteryear, e.g. Bing Crosby or Dean Martin. And just to annoy y’all: [https://vimeo.com/486862241v](https://vimeo.com/486862241v) ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/31 "2022-12-13T13:46:53Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > However, it’s the insanely high rotation with which it is played every December that makes me want to gouge my eardrums out. People complain about “Last Christmas” but honestly if there was a Mariahgeddon contest, everyone would be out before Advent even started. ⁢ This is entirely my impression of where the hatred started. The song was just so overplayed, especially on PA systems like at grocery stores, that people got sick of it. That was the context I first heard about this hatred. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/32 "2022-12-14T00:32:16Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > If you think that’s sexing up the holiday, you should hear Ariana Grande sing about wanting to fuck Santa Claus Or “Santa Baby”… which if sung by Eartha Kitt is okay… but the others are dreadful. (See, the other version are just about greed, but Eartha sings it like Santa is gonna get a _very_ good time too…) > [@Seanette](#): > > How many arrangements of Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, etc., even need to EXIST, let alone be inflicted on store employees all day? Yep. Burl Ives can carry a couple of those old chestnuts off… > [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Christmas music in general can be much of a muchness. Most people I know have some songs they don’t care for. I’m not a fan of Carey but it invokes, at most, mild disdain rather than antipathy. It is better than Chipmunks, getting two front teeth and a few others. Exactly. > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > If anyone here who is defending MC, and also partake of the totally irrational disdain for A Horse With No Name, well, now you know how I feel. I kinda like that song. > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I don’t like sexed up Christmas Songs, including but not limited to Santa Baby It’s Cold Outside and Santa Got Stuck In My Chimney, Santa Baby is cool if Eartha does it, and It’s Cold Outside works only for Deano, > [@solost](#): > > The absolute worst was “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” That is a great song… exactly _once_ per Xmas season. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/33 "2022-12-14T01:31:39Z")
I initially disliked her because of her over the top ego. Then it was her over the top auto-tuned warbler singing. But when she tried, and failed, in being trademarked “Queen of Christmas,” that was it. They are plenty of female singers whose voice quality and vocal range, Christmas catalogs spanning (often ) decades, and a genuine “niceness” as a human being, makes Mariah Carey as Mariah Pariah. Forever. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/jf2VErVh4CQ/maxresdefault.jpg "We're Not Gonna Take It - Mariah Carey Christmas Special") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf2VErVh4CQ) ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/34 "2022-12-14T02:59:58Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > But when she tried, and failed, in being trademarked “Queen of Christmas,” that was it. Hehehe, yeah. That’s where I finally went from “who cares” to “NOPE!”. Besides, I’m the Queen of Christmas. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/35 "2022-12-14T03:18:30Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > Besides, I’m the Queen of Christmas. Yeah, well I’m the Duke of Linus Pauling Day, so by my command take your megadose of Vitamin C! Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/36 "2022-12-14T03:20:01Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Yeah, well I’m the Duke of Linus Pauling Day, so by my command take your megadose of Vitamin C! I’ll have what he’s having, please. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/37 "2022-12-14T03:22:16Z")
Sure thing! I think that if my morning urine doesn’t have a healthy orange glow, my day might be ruined. I might not even enjoy my morning cigarette. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/38 "2022-12-14T05:56:13Z")
I saw her on Colbert’s show last week. She is Bat-Fuckin’-Shit Insane. Can’t say I’ve ever heard that Christmas song. ---
**Author:** ![Pazu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pazu/32/15522_2.png) [@Pazu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pazu)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/39 "2022-12-14T06:26:23Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > If you think that’s sexing up the holiday, you should hear Ariana Grande sing about wanting to fuck Santa Claus (set to a melody that plagiarizes Amy Grant for some reason). Or you could check out this little number (“It’s That Time of Year”) from _Anna and the Apocalypse_: [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VEefZSvh434/hqdefault.jpg "Marli Siu - It's That Time of Year 2018") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEefZSvh434) (I quite liked _Anna and the Apocalypse_, actually.) ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2022, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437/40 "2022-12-14T12:31:45Z")
I’ve never liked her. The type of music she sings, her personality, etc. Add to that the fact that I hate xmas music. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-with-the-hate-for-mariah-carey/976437.md?page=3)