Why Fanboy? or, My Obligations to The Funk

I have a lot to get off my chest at this very moment, most of it irrelevant to the usual topics of grandeur, space-crunk, sonic appreciation, and BrickSquad 1017 image memes. But this blog isn’t my psychiatrist nor my diary so I won’t subject any one perusing to what’s really fuckin up my head today. So instead I’ll try to get a thought less pressing (or depressing?) out into rich text and see if that sort of relieves some confusion up in me noggin. 

A fanboy, we might describe, as one who’s loyalty and passion for that thing, that person, that place that they love is unrelenting and unconditional. That most who come in to contact with said fanboy at a time when they are spouting diatribes of why the object of their fanboyism is so the greatest thing since the internet was crafted, will often times in a split-second discredit, tease and even slight them for being so enamored and star-eyed in their fandom. Common synonyms here; Dickrider, Stan, Homer, stalker, etc… 

And what’s bothering about this for me is how we as a culture got to the point where we turn an eye at people like this, and chide them for loving what they love. I never grew up in the 60s-80s, but my documentary/youtube instructed learning on those years have at least left me with the impression that people wore their fandom on their sleeves (think motley-crue patches on the whole backsides of ripped up jean jackets, punk rock kids dressing from head-to-toe in band-swag, and anything to imitate the look of their favorites while pissing off their parents simultaneously). And I wonder where in time did it become uncool to think something was cool.

But let’s not generalize here. There will always be fanboys, its only natural, and the musicians, filmmakers, creators, hell anyone with followings work very hard to ensure that they have a place in this world and to create a connection that manifests them in the first place. I’ll admit to being one of them. It’s just something that is unchecked in my personality that I try hard to not compromise no matter how many times my friends might take the piss out of my junior high-esque fancrushes on every single artist and band that I love. When I put hours and hours into this very blog just in the hopes that like 10 people will see a Mayer Hawthorne video that I am completely mental about, but am usually left with little no response at all. Or when I have just finished rambling incessantly to another car-ride passenger about all of the stories and greatness involved in the particular song I’ve overexcitedly played next and am looking at a completely blank expression that makes me wonder “does ANYONE give a shit really?” 

And that’s a problem. I don’t think its acceptable not to like what you like, with all of your heart. To be only passively involved and dip your toe in the water half-way. Granted I don’t mean that about what I specifically like, you don’t even have to like music very much at all (even though I’ll just assume you’re from the alien race that got here on L. Ron Hubbard’s spacecraft that I will never understand). But you have to like SOMETHING, ANYTHING, and like it and learn about it, and preach its gospel to others.

To shorten the scope of what I’m talking about to just our aforementioned musicians/artists, the #1 reason that I’ve internalized as to why I will never let up in my vocalizing of everything and anything I love to hear is because the music industry as a business has gone to complete shit in just the last 10 years. Its problems are obvious and well documented, so I don’t need to go into a whole thing about the RIAA, and copyright wars, plummeting record sales, and the ADHD induced instant-gratification/on-to-the-next-one style listening of today’s youth. But with all of that in mind, it is so very important to spread the word because that is the real power (outside of purchasing their music) you have to keep these people’s livelihood central around their music.

IF you want that little indie band you love to ever have a chance of putting out not only consistently good, evolving music, but to put out music at all, people have to know about them! And they should, because you love them, so why shouldn’t at least some of the people you’ve surrounded yourself love them too? Why is it such a problem to go oh so hard when liking something that I can tell you everything you need to know to get started, and badger you about it endlessly. 

I think this is a symptom of the “don’t try too hard” conforming attitude that ironically is attributed to “hipsters”. The stereotype being that they’re too cool to really like anything truly, unless ironically, and as soon as it is accepted by many others it suddenly loses any shred of coolness that they might have associated with. And I find that attitude to be complete bullshit, and moreover, I don’t even really believe this attitude exists in what people portray as a “hipster”. After recently spending 2 months in Williamsburg. Brooklyn, for all intensive purposes our hipster ground-zero, I came across many people who look, and spoke much like the hipsters you see on TV and Internet Memes, but they were devoid of any of this disgusting jaded apathy that I’m complaining about on a blog post that has run on way too long and would be pleasantly surprised if anyone was reading the very sentence I’m punching out.

Just to sum up, people, learn to love something, besides yourself (which comes first), your family (2nd), and your partner/friends (3rd), and share your love with those last 2 or else your just going to be average to shitty human being that I don’t want to know. 

Sidebar: that’s Riff Raff pictured above, you should get up on him in all his glory.