It's okay to like things that "suck"
You ever feel bad for liking something that it seems a lot of people don't? As a huge Green Day fan, I get this a surprising amount. You'll have people coming out of the woodworks saying "pop punk is cringe". Like okay goofball, go take a shower now.
I was on the Agora Road's forum once and mentioned I was a Green Day fan. Some dude replied going on a tirade about how "American Idiot is just the sad attempt at Green Day trying to recapture their punk roots". Which to anyone who actually listened to American Idiot (not just the tracks found on God's Favorite Band), AI took a WHOLE different direction than their previous albums. So, I think this guy just saw how the band dressed, and left it at that. One guy even made the comment saying something along the lines of "liking pop punk is false doctrine"... Motherfucker, it's music not Catholicism. What the hell are you on about?
Where am I going with this?
I feel like a lot of people today (especially my generation and younger) are super fixated on not being "cringe". Having XYZ hobby is cringe, liking XYZ genre is cringe, playing XYZ game is cringe. It always seems to come from people who are either the most obnoxious masturbatory fart-sniffers, people with a personality so shallow a baby couldn't even drown in it, or both.
So what if whatever song is "radio rock" or "radio metal" or whatever? If it's fun and you like the sound of it then enjoy it. People get so up their own ass about not being "mainstream" or genre elitism. I like pretty much all genres (some exceptions apply, sorry all you ambient black metal stans), from Nu Metal, to 1950s Doo Wop, to classical, to dubstep. My iPod on shuffle is the pure essence of ADHD in a soundtrack.
I also feel like critics/fans who comment on music have caught a case of CinemaSins-itis. Where nitpicking insignificant details get conflated with valid criticism.
If you don't get it or it's not your taste, that's fine, but don't go around self-aggrandizing your opinions as gospel. It's the rule of "don't yuck someone else's yum", but less kinky.
I'm tired of people only seeming to like things "ironically", whatever the hell that means these days. I like enjoying things unabashedly unironic. It just feels fake otherwise, like god forbid you're seen as gasp actually liking something.
I'm at the stage of my life where I don't care if some screwball on the internet thinks something I enjoy is cringe. Most people in the real world don't actually care, or are generally positive. I've gotten quite a few complements on my Green Day Saviors Tour 2024 shirt.
I think we get so wound up in what other people think about us, because we perhaps see ourselves as a "brand" that is scared of negative consumer attention. None of it really matters. You can choose to treat people's hot-air filled opinions as nothing more than white noise.
Don't let people who you don't even know or value the opinion of cramp your style. Unless you're being an actual dick, or your current path is making you miserable, there's nothing for you to really need to change.
Life's too short to try and appease people who probably won't like you anyway.
Pirate is wearing all-black converse, green chinos, plain black shirt
Pirate is feeling stoned
Pirate is listening to Metal Fingers Presents: Secret Herbs 9 & 0
Pirate is playing Stardew Valley
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