It’s cheesy. It’s cliche.’ It’s old fashioned. It’s not “cool.”
Still, I’m really starting to believe that John Lennon was right and “all you need is love.”
As I get older, I’ve started to become more sensitive to my own and my peers hatred toward any and all ideas. We’re all becoming “haters.” The thought of anyone doing anything upsets us.
“I hate the new Madonna song”
“Did you see what Katy Perry was wearing?” “She so dumb!” “I hate her!”
“I hate the new music scene” “Justin Beiber is talentless, he got everything by doing nothing!”
Hate, hate, hate HATE! - It’s starting to become nauseating.
A sad thing is that it’s far more prevalent in my community of fellow artists and musicians. These are my friends, and people who wear the self-procalimed “liberal” banner.
It’s sometimes disguised as a joke. More common now, hate itself is the punchline (i.e. “I’m allowed to hate this, haha” sort material). How is hating on other people’s creativity and art any different from hating people for their race/religion/sexuality? Doesn’t really seem to be much different.
So why all of this hate? Why do we all feel the need to bring people down?
I’ve noticed that, for my part, I tend to “hate” because I feel like I’m being abrasively assaulted by these ideas. The entertainment industry has a bad habit of pushing their product to the point of constant over exposure.
When that happens, my default reaction is to shut out the idea because it’s trying so hard to get my attention. It’s a turn off. Still, why should I hate it? Why let that frustration and anger consume my mind?
Lately, I’ve tried to accept the ideas on their own and ignore the over saturation. This has allowed for some of my new favorite songs coming from the top 40 charts. There are some truly well written songs with thoughtful lyrics in there, it’d be a shame to miss out because of an unwillingness to let myself accept them. There’s a lot of room for listening, so why not enjoy all there is to hear?
Also, when it comes to new musicians who are younger than me, there’s always that sting to my pride. It makes me feel the whole “I’ve been working hard, and make better music, it’s not fair!” sort of thing.
But how true is that?
I feel like Justin Beiber was kicking his ass working on those music videos that launched his career. I have personally been a part of 2 1/2 music videos and am 25, so no, I didn’t work that hard as a teen. I feel that many of my artists friends haven’t really either. I’m not trying to say they don’t work hard, but sometimes we could all do more. Maybe if we spent more time working and creating art than hating, we could all be successful too?
I’m beginning to ramble…
My point is I’m realizing that with age and experience we have 2 ways to go: Bitter and Old, or Loving and Accepting.
Unfortunately, I feel that the artist community is dangerously close to becoming over-run with the former of the options. I hope I’m wrong, and will personally try my best to end hate in my life.
