Gen X Playlist

If you’re Gen X as I am, you may remember that back in junior high and high school there were cliques, and some of them divided themselves up on the basis of what music they listened to.

Or, the cliques (which may have consisted of jocks, dweebs, surfers, or what have you) all naturally seemed to gravitate towards one type of music or another.

And sometimes, one could find a “metal head” (heavy metal fan) mocking or making fun of the kid who was into Michael Jackson, for instance.

It went from being acceptable to find Michael Jackson cool in the early or mid 1980s to being considered nerdy by other kids if you still admitted to liking him or his music by the late 1980s or so.

I remember one day, in my sophomore year of high school, before math class started, that the resident stoner metal head guy (who normally wore “Iron Maiden” band t-shirts to school) was being teased by a black guy about his metal fandom when the white metal kid shot back, “And I guess you’re a big Michael Jackson fan!” – That was considered a put-down.

By that time, MJ was out of favor with a lot of kids. If you were a MJ fan, you were supposed to keep it to yourself and not advertise it around other kids.

Anyway, that’s about as heated as things got.

But kids in the 1980s more or less politely agreed to disagree with each other over whatever singers or bands other kids enjoyed. Another kid may find your favorite singer or taste in music lame, and even tell you so, but things never got terribly heated.

Not so today.

Today, on social media, even among 20- and 30  something adults, one can find the fan groups (fandoms) of various singers going at each other’s throats.

Continue reading “Toxic Fans in the Music World: The Stans”