Exactly my feeling. I like what I like, such as Tolkien. But I hate to be lumped in with the nouveau-geeks who only jumped on the bandwagon as the latest thing and who will let it drop once the next big thing hits the scene.
Why do you care why anybody thinks you like what you like?
For the reason that I quoted from Frank. You may not care, but I hate being thought of as one of the cattle.
I think you’re obsessive dweebs and I’d never hang out with you. I’m a little too cool for that. 
All kidding aside, why should one care what others think about them when it comes to personal taste? Is there a reason I should care that “shallow” people are out there, listening to what I listen to? I also find it amazing that people are so quick to judge someone as shallow based on how they intake pop culture. It doesn’t matter that they may have other talents; if they like a book because it suddenly got popular, or only ever listen to the radio, they’re not worth hanging out with, or they are worthy of much sneering and snubbing.
No sarcasm here, I am in earnest: what does it really matter?
Know what? Forget I asked anything in my last post. I’m going to have to chalk this up to personality differences - I just don’t get it. I did try.
All this talk of cattle and sheep and herds has just made me hungry. 
Wanting to have an exclusive ownership is understandable. If you put down time and energy to adapt a certain something and it suddenly gets spread to a wider audience, the audience will not have it “earned” it the way you have and they will likely not appreciate it as much as you do, so you feel that they don’t deserve it.
There is a word for this. We call it jealousy. Your exclusivity is no more, and the jealosu might make you want to drop the item of interest. This is not necessarily immature, as some of the posters here suggest, but it’s definitely drastic and an over-reaction.
I too feel this jealousy sometimes. I identify strongly with the music I listen to and the books that I read, so the exclusivity is tied-in with my self image. Hence, if there’s suddenly a big craze over, say, my favorite band, I can start to feel confused. But there are some factors that raise my confidence:
- I want people to consume good culture, 'cause good culture will lead to new good culture, which is in my interests.
- Our world is a complex system, but whatever goes around comes around. Millions of copies of LOTR had been sold even before the first movie was produced. We do not just grab litterature and music and movies from thin air, they are there for anybody to find. The price we have to pay to consume things we like is that we allow others to do so as well, which is in order with democracy and cosmos.
- I will always be me. Even if my favorite band is suddenly everybody’s favorite band, I will still have a huge archive of specific tastes, whether it’s about music, cooking, places, people… whatever. I am deep and intricate and I’m not just one product. I am more than a thousand products, really. My intellect and persona is only superficially manifested through popular culture.
Whenever I hear that speech it reminds me of the time my mom told me, “Well, tell him you won’t be his friend if he beats you up.”
Ah, now this makes sense. A little light shed in an otherwise dim thread. Thank you, cactus waltz.
I think when you get older, and experience more of the general element of which you mastered the subsubsubsubgenre, you develop more of an appreciation of all sorts of music, even the pop tunes. You liked a certain type of music in high school. As you got into college, you might have gone with friends or dates to recitals, string music performances, and into the clubs and concert venues you were too young to get into before.
Then you realize the degree of professionalism and work that took the artist to where they are. After all, deep down they just want to perform. Plus, those artists might like music you wouldn’t give the time of day to. Johnny Cash liked Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails enough to cover their tunes.
I LOVED The Chris Isaak Show! And I don’t think it gets much cooler than him.
Being from Nashville, I know many people there that feel irritated by the post-death worship of Johnny Cash. Personally, it doesn’t bother me. What does, however, is Reese Witherspoon trying to make herself like this poor little country girl that pulled herself up by her bootstraps. I went to high school with her and we never knew that person. Her father is one of the more prominent surgeons at Vanderbilt hospital. But I also refuse to stop liking something in fear the indie police will hunt me down and beat me over the head with my own converse sneaker for liking someone who has sold out. I still love Franz Ferdinand and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I’m glad when good bands get big so younger people can listen to them on the radio instead of over-produced top 40 pop that is probably ruining their brains.
Just to further piss people off, I should point out at the stage that I actually like to share my interests with friends, and I love the feeling I get when someone comes back to me and says yeah, I watched that movie, or I read that book, or I listened to that cd, and you were right… it was great! I love to share my tastes… Among close friends.
Just as long as it goes no further! :mad: :mad: :mad:
I went through something similar when Johnny Cash died. I thought it was odd that, all of a sudden, everyone acknowledged that he was a living legend up until his death. Where was the love when he was alive? I felt like he had gone out as a has-been and was suddenly recognized because he died.
Then I was further annoyed when it occurred to me that while the fair-weather fans of Johnny Cash were coming out of the woodwork, there had been very little of the same when the world lost Waylon Jennings. Waylon is one of my personal faves, and, while I like Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings outranks him in sheer coolness. I am disappointed that we haven’t seen more tributes to Waylon (even though Shooter Jennings played him in Walk The Line).
So I want more people to jump on my Waylon Jennings bandwagon. And if a huge Waylon Jennings craze did break out, I’d just ride the wave and still be a fan after the trend faded.
I guess I see both sides. It’s annoying when your appreciation gets pushed aside for a wave of mass consumerism, but the important thing is that such waves go away as fast as they come.
I don’t see what the big deal is. If something I like becomes mega-popular, I continue to like it. I just start liking it ironically, which preserves my cool factor. Problem sovled.
Does that mean you like it the same way as before, only while wearing sunglasses indoors?
There is a huge Waylon Jennings craze going around. I didn’t know about him until a friend told me to check out Ralph Mooney’s steel work on his albums. So I jumped on the bandwagon. We’re all latecomers when it comes to discovering something new, in the sense that there are relatively few unknown discoveries we might make without the gift of recommendations or being hipped to something by friends.
Understandable. But I would have just wrote is as “…share my tastes among close friends.” without the set up for the next point:
This I really don’t understand. YMMV, IMHO, etc… But damn, I just see that as childish.
Didn’t Johnny Cash’s rebirth start with “Hurt”? A song he had to sing when he was, ya know, alive?
Ok, I will concede that it is childish.
But hey, thats just the way I feel. I could just pretend it didnt annoy me… But where would the fun be there?
Excellent point. We’ll just throw rocks at all the other posters then, since you and I seem to somewhat understand each other’s thoughts, regardless of total agreement.
I get the first toss! Who will it be…?