It really bothers me when people say they hate things, but don’t really have a legitimate reason for doing so. Everyone has heard someone else do this, and most people are guilty of it. Posts of “I hate this generation” or “people are stupid” plaster social media sites, aggregate this trend of social disapproval. It is cool to hate.
Some might call me a hypocrite for this post, and they’d be right. In the past, I have fallen into and followed trends of hatred, but only recently have I looked at them with a grain of salt, and asked myself, is this really all that bad? More often than not, the answer is no. Not to say that I like everything. There are several things and people I despise, but for damn good reasons. (You know who you are).
Haters are common because of its ease, and its implications. When you hate on something, you put yourself above them, you are attempting to establish your superiority by dismissing the subject as somehow worse, worthy of pity and ridicule. People hate because it’s an incredibly easy way to feel that sense of superiority, further validated and fueled by the volume of other people doing the exact same thing. Tossing out a good insult can be surprisingly relaxing and relieving. In a heated argument, the punch of an original and well placed slur can be satisfying to the point that your body respond to it. Saying something like “Listen here, shitdick” at the right place and time can be amazingly therapeutic.
Maybe that’s just me.
Regardless, it’s human nature to enjoy that sort of superiority, that sort of power. Selfishness is part of our nature, and its fun to be selfish, but when you look at it from the right side; we lose so much from this hatred. There was a time I took a firm stand against any music that you can’t play with a physical instrument. Blindly, I hated it because I was on the bandwagon of “old music is good music”, listening to bands like Tool and Nirvana. I was very nearly one of those “born in the wrong generation” kids, Wishing I was born a decade or two earlier. I hated by generation, because I thought the only true culture was the culture that existed before me. I was surprised to enjoy Dubstep and EDM when I gave them a fair chance, and took them for what they are. They are my generation’s mark on history, this is how our music will be remembered, and I’m okay with that. I like Dubstep, its energy, its heaviness. I am content with it representing my generation, because I do not hate this generation, we’re an alright bunch of kids. Had I stayed on the hater bandwagon, part of who I am today, and a huge part of what I enjoy, would be lost.
My initial hatred bias of music is only one example of a phenomenon that happens in every generation. The older generations create their culture, and then look down upon the ones that came after them. That younger generation looks up to them, sees their culture, and envies it, before growing up and doing the exact same thing. It’s a cycle, perpetuated through every generation, looking down upon the new kids on the block doing exactly when the old guys were doing in their own youth. Every generation creates their culture and claims its better instead of just agreeing it’s different. In the grand scheme of things, it seems a bit pathetic.
How ironic of me, hating on hatred. Now I have to ask myself, is this post a legitimate criticism of this culture? Am I simply fulfilling my desire to feel superior to the world by using the very same means I attack?
Maybe.
Maybe this entire blog is just an attack on the world, maybe what I perceive as my love of culture is, in reality, just a hateful rejection of societal norms, fulfilling the exact same function as hating on Rebecca Black. I can think of no way to reconcile this possibility, no way to dispute it, besides the word
maybe.
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