I hate this one meme account
I hate this one meme account
Stay calm everyone, the fun police are here to make sure no one buys anything on Record Store Day
Listen. I’m technically on a self-imposed writing break until the end of the month, in a desperate attempt to get my creativity back. But for whatever reason, it feels like the right time for a rant, so here goes nothing.
I saw a decent amount of social media posts yesterday making fun of Record Store Day. Maybe this isn’t the first year that’s been the case, but it’s the first time I noticed it, and it coincides with some thoughts I’ve been having about the (sub)cultural moment we’re in.
First of all, I don’t really like most of the memes this account posts. There are bangers here and there, but I think they’re usually mean in an uncreative way. This post struck me no differently, with the sweeping, world-weary verdict that Record Store Day Sucks.
But this isn’t the only account that I saw post about RSD - a bunch of indie-leaning Twitter accounts that I follow said the same thing.
And? I get it! Truly! You don’t have to explain to me how long lines and the people in them are annoying, or that Record Store Day marketing gimmicks feel lame. But there’s something about this spite, and other bones I’ve recently seen picked, that feels misdirected, and takes me back to a cultural mood I’m all-too-familiar-with.
I was actually JUST having similar thoughts about the dialogue around Coachella. Again, something we can mostly all agree is lame, a corporate money-grab (MUCH more so than RSD), and, most often, overhyped. But I almost feel like the commentary I’ve seen on Twitter and in articles—and even in conversations about like, festival style and influencer trends being cringe—is disproportionately vicious. The common factor between Record Store Day and Coachella commentaries, for me, is that both feel snobby.
When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with the concept of authenticity. I fixated on the pursuit of moral purity in my media consumption, which mostly played out as shunning bands and artists I perceived as too mainstream—too easy to enjoy—too accessible. The irony is that in chasing what I interpreted as a true north standard in punk/independent/underground art, I was doing just that—interpreting. While my teenage quests for Authentic Art definitely led me to a ton of the music, movies, and books that I now cherish, and expanded my horizons, they also often strangled any joy I could have genuinely gotten from, idk, pop music! Hit TV shows! Marvel movies! All these things that I really, truly, down to the tips of my toes, enjoy, despite being lowbrow. And really, it was a sign of the times, too—the Aughts were fraught with “you probably haven’t heard of them”-itis.
I remember getting in someone’s car my senior year of high school and “Tik Tok” by Kesha was blasting and I was trying so so so so hard to pretend to myself that I wasn’t loving it. And like………..WHY????? Contrary to what I believed at the time, no one was going to hand me a blue ribbon for having Most Pitchforky Taste. And, ironically, a decade and a half later, I’ve seen Kesha gain relative respect in the music world that I never could’ve imagined she’d have had in 2009—and I’ve watched artists that were super hot in 2009 fall irredeemably out of favor, or simply become cringe. Truly, in the end, it DOES.NOT.MATTER, and I learned the long, hard way that the attempt to gatekeep cool stuff/reject uncool stuff is an absolute waste of time.
Festivals. Streaming. TikTok. Record Store Day. Music is arguably more accessible than it’s ever been, and to be quite honest, I think that a lot of Music People don’t love that. Caveat, once again, that not all of this stuff is Good and some of it actually has very bad/annoying/nefarious aspects. Obviously. We’re all grownups here. But the criticisms I’m seeing of some of this stuff isn’t JUST about those flaws, or the greed of the actual corporations—it seems directed AT the normies enjoying things. And that’s what makes me mad.
I know actual, real humans—ones who really really love music, actually!—who went to Coachella and had an amazing time. I know real people who waited in line at record stores (who still desperately need our support to stay afloat, by the way?!?! When did this get lost in translation?!?!?!) to buy a Taylor Swift album and were stoked when they got it. I don’t see ANY dialogue that acknowledges any of this. Instead, it just feels to me like a tired resurgence of the Aughts’ hipster snobbery. Real tiny-brain shit, truly.
Participating in things, enjoying things, will always be cringe, I’m afraid—but you know what’s worse than being cringe? Not enjoying anything. Life is fucking hard, man. Let the little guys (including yourself) enjoy things, and save your vitriol for the shit that matters.
Specifically, the Record Store Day stuff I saw set me off because like, big picture, it’s actually good, I think, that buying records has become more mainstream, and that people are doing it in person at independent shops. Maybe that’s really what pnw wholesale memefuck, or whatever his name is, is actually mad about—the democratization of something he likes. And if that’s the case, then he needs to make like all the Portlanders are so good at preaching about, and touch some fucking grass.