Vacation II: Day 6 - You're driving me insane

It’s human nature to evangelize on behalf on the things we enjoy. A certain thing will strike a chord with us, and we feel the urge to rush off and share the experience with others, whose reactions may or may not match our own. You can lead a horse to water, but often enough the horse is too busy eyeing the low hanging apples in the orchard across the way to care.

And that’s fine, even if there are fewer things more frustrating than when one of the initially nonplussed becomes a convert later on, and attempts to proselytize you with the same damn thing they ignored your original recommendation about previously:

“You’ve got to hear this band. They’re awesome!”

“You mean the band whose CD I gave you as a birthday present last year?”

“Did you? I don’t remem-GAK! Why…are…you…strangling…me?”

Again, it’s all part of the game of social relationships, and not a big deal. Taste is a very personal and a very mutable thing, and responds erratically to the hard sell technique. Individuals enjoy what they enjoy, and despite the best efforts of marketing departments, there are no infallible predictors on what will click with people. As the old saying goes, there is no accounting for taste, and it’s to one’s benefit socially to keep that in mind, even if the various manifestations of the principle are baffling in the extreme.

There are limits to my vive le difference attitude, however, and they mostly center around the ennoblement of one’s personal tastes. It’s been pointed out time and again that just because you like something doesn’t mean that it’s good. I’m willing cut a little slack regarding that, if only because “good” is an entirely subjective term. I can accept that there are people who think Love Story or The Da Vinci Code are “good” for reasons other than their relative quality vis a vis other books, but I draw the line at beatification, where the descriptor takes on an almost religious significance.

There’s a difference between enjoying The Doors’ music (or even holding up Jim Morrison as an important figure in the history of pop music) and treating the band’s music and mythology as the Word Incarnate. I use The Doors as an example because the absurdly hagiographical tenor of No One Here Gets Out Alive, read while I was a teenager, that first brought this phenomenon to my attention. Examples abound, though, including the cults that have sprung up around two of my favorite bands, The Clash and The Pogues, which I believe diminish their legacies through unquestioned superlatives and platitudes.

Apart from the pop music sphere, these attitudes are also distressingly common in the many permutations of the nerd-o-sphere: comics, gaming, sci-fi and fantasy literature. Nerd behavior (and I say this as one of the herd) trends towards the obsessive end of the spectrum to start. The leap from fan to cultist is not an especially long one, but it is discernable. One telltale sign is a reliance on received wisdom over personal insight:

“The Watchmen is the greatest comic ever.”
“Why?”
“Because of Alan Moore.”
“I’m not seeing the logic there.”
“Everyone says it’s the best.”
“Still not seeing your argument.”
“Entertainment Weekly said it was the best comic ever.”

The last bit of that fictional, but reality-based, exchange brings up another factor into the sanctification process: the need of certain nerd-types for outside validation of their interests.

Years of operating at the fringes of “mundane” (and, oh, do I despise that term) society has led to a particular, vulgar iteration of what has been called the “superior virtue of the oppressed.” In the common usage of the term, it applies to the dominant culture’s paternalist romanticization of an oppressed group. “Women are too virtuous by nature to deal with politics, thus we cannot allow them the vote,” and so forth and so on. In nerd culture, it’s applied by the fringe to itself, a consensual self-image mirroring that of the X-Men, super-cool outcasts hated and feared by a jealous world.

Yet for all this pretence of setting themselves apart, there need for validation remains strong, and things like a mention on ET of Nick Cage’s comics collection or some mediocre comedian dropping a nerdy inside reference into his routine gain a disproportionate level of significance. Liking something is not enough, that THEY like it too is what matters, as THEY (be it Wil Wheaton or Vin Diesel) then equal US.

I find this marginalization of a work’s or creative force’s very personal appeal in favor of a declared significance deeply depressing. There should be no shame in just liking -- or even loving something -- for what it is, rather than as a magic mirror by which to define one’s self though reflected light. Or to be comfortable in one’s own skin, rather than living vicariously as an acolyte in a mystery religion dedicated to an entertaining diversion, be it London Calling, Ender’s Game, The Great Gatsby, “How Soon Is Now?” or what have you.

Gerry & The Pacemakers – I Like It (from The Definitive Collection, 1995) – Like eating a large bag of mini-marshmallows and washing it down with a quart bottle of chocolate syrup. So just another typical day round these parts, then. The Rezillos did a scathing, yet no less syrupy, cover of the song on 1978’s Can’t Stand The Rezillos LP.

Gloria Jones – Tainted Love (from a 1964 single; collected on Rude Boy Revival, 2002) – Sometimes, it pays to go back to the source. No bloops, no bleeps, no nasally British vocalist, just pure, uncut Northern Soul.