Snobbery

Ten years ago I was kind of a douche about comic books. I had decided, thanks to various voices on the internet, that super hero had choked all the potential out of the medium. It was a popular opinion on certain websites, and not altogether untrue. So I put away the majority of super hero comics and only read indie stuff; crime stories, slice of life stuff, auto-biographies. I discovered a lot of great comics during that phase; unfortunately, it was at the cost of some good super hero comics, no doubt.

Super heroes do indeed have a peculiar choke hold on the comics industry and recognizing that, in and of itself, isn’t particularly douchey. It was my looking down my nose at the capes and super-powers set that strikes me now as unnecessarily snobby.

I’ve done the same thing with music. I’ve scoffed at mainstream, popular music and felt a smug sense of self-satisfaction over the fact that my favorite bands would never be heard on most radio stations. I’ve even professed to like bands that I knew were popular even though, in my heart of hearts, I didn’t like their music. Like Sigor Ros. I know they’re a talented band. I know their fans are hard won and by no means indicative of the attitude I’m discussing here. I simply never could get into them. But when asked? “Oh yeah, love ‘em.”

So, I’m trying to get past that kind of thing. For one thing, as I said above, it’s a douchey attitude. It’s also, I’m sure rooted in vanity or, more likely, insecurity. Those aren’t things I want to drive my personality.

I was recently accused of hating everything until it proves to me that it’s worthy of my affection. There’s probably some truth to that, bad as it sounds. I was also recently accused of only liking something until it becomes popular and then suddenly hating it. I don’t want there to be any truth to that. If something is good it should be good whether 5 people like it, or 5 million.

So here’s to saying goodbye to comic book and music snobbery and being open to whatever’s out there. It’s not that my taste is changing, it’s just that I’m going to be more concerned with what I actually like instead of what some people think I should like.

Luckily when it comes to movies and television I’ve always watched crap, so no change there.