Bad Music

“Listen to 70s and 80s stuff, not this garbage.”

“Is that even real music? It’s electronic, it doesn’t even have any emotion.”

“My god, another mainstream idiot! The underground djs are so much better.”

Have you ever wondered why completely anonymous people might seem friendlier than even your friends in real life? It’s probably because they don’t know anything about you. The more they get to know that you’re not 100% like them, the more they hate you. Whether you like ‘bad music’ or not is one of their favorite tools to use to reveal their victim. One of their favorite excuses to satisfy their hunger for hate. To them you’re either black or white. There is no grey. So, like any regular unconfident teenager, I tried to fit in.

What music do you like?

“Oh, Queen.”

“Slayer.”

“Michael Jackson.”

“Beethoven.”

“An underground band you’ve never heard of before.”

Whatever you want me to like, basically.

I carried on telling the internet what the internet liked to hear... and what I didn’t. I tried to like that music, though, several times. Instead of listening to my favorite house tracks, I tried out 90s techno. Instead of making electronic music on my production software, I picked up my guitar and played some power chords. After all, I didn’t want to be one of those people that listened to ‘bad music’. To my dismay, I just didn’t like the music I was forced to listen to. I didn’t like the ‘good music’. Sure, I respected the artists and bands, but most weren’t really my taste. They may have had a place in the hall of fame, but does that mean they should have had one on my iPod as well?

My music was what I loved most in life, and now that was taken away from me and replaced with something else I didn’t want anything to do with. My denial of my musical taste led to a denial of other things, like my dressing sense, my favorite movies, my inspirations, and many more. I grew depressed soon after. I started cutting myself and drinking heavily. I even thought of attempting suicide a couple times, and I almost did, once.

After that night, when my brother pulled me away from that balcony, I rethought my life. Eventually, I realized that I wasn’t sick and tired of myself, but of people who I didn’t even know telling me what to do. What business did they have to interfere with my life? What right did they have to put themselves up on a pedestal and preach their opinion as if it were fact? I soon went back to the ‘bad music’ that I loved, and I was happy. I felt as if the loyal pet dog I had once decided to abandon still loved me when I came back. Wait… so I was happy with ‘bad music’? Why did ‘bad music’ make me feel good? Then I asked myself a question I had asked the internet a long time ago.

“What is ‘bad music’, anyways?”

There is no such thing as ‘bad music’. Of course there are bad reasons to like the music, but the music itself is never bad. Music is a form of art, like painting and literature. There’s music you like and music you don’t, but that does not determine how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ it is. If a man sees another man enjoying a meal that doesn’t look so succulent, who is he to criticize? If he has his own plate of food that he wants to finish, he should pay attention to that. At a young age, we were all taught to judge people from the inside. I say that we shouldn’t judge a person at all. It was quite shameful, really, that in an age when sexism, racism, and even homophobia were declining, people were still being judged on their personal tastes. The only thing worse than not recognizing a problem is trying to fix something that isn’t even a problem to begin with - like ‘bad music’.

But here we are today, in 2028! Ever since the World Peace Treaty was established in 2018, ten years ago, reports of suicide due to cyber-bullying have gone down by approximately 86%! The massive recession of religious hate crimes and the resource-driven wars have been followed by that of the infamous elitist views of the internet’s anonymous. This may not seem like a big achievement compared to the other social problems we have overcome in the past, but when you think about it, the internet’s current state is telling us that the average human being today chooses to set a good example despite his anonymity, rather than have fun by insulting and putting down others without facing consequences. This is a huge step for humanity, in my opinion. And so, TED Talks Mini, I conclude my story from the 2010s, that has hopefully changed your view of the seemingly ‘minor’ social problems of yesterday. Now I will let your next guest come on up. Thank you all!

Neilson, Larry. "Get Informed on Teen Cyber Bullying and How to Help Prevent It." Caitlin-Morgan. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.