the Tommy|Zor era

I will be the first to admit that I, too, am guilty of blind hate. I’ve been trying my best to avoid it recently, but it is a difficult thing to avoid.

I can’t stand when someone uses prejudice to determine their opinion. No, forget prejudice, this is postjudice! One need not look any further than the media or politics for proof.

Let’s take a quick example. When we are young and things are new, we tend to be the most honest with ourselves. With no preconceived notions and no social factors, we tend to make up our own opinion. Things like favourite colour, time of year, night/day, these types of things we choose without anyone’s intervention. All of a sudden, things get more complex as peer pressure and outside factors start determining our opinions. Here’s that quick example that took forever to get to: Coke vs. Pepsi. It’s hard not to get bombarded by the advertising, constant product placement, contests, etc. One can get pretty mental trying to figure out all the ways you’d determine which is better without even drinking any:

-Coke is more popular, by far. Why? More advertising, bigger install base in vending machines (“Everyone’s only got Coke, so it must be better/more popular/whatever,” advertising that doesn’t mention the competition, a longer history, a more distinct bottle, a more constant appearance (Coke can looks more similar to original product, Pepsi has been every colour but neon clear), etc, etc. One important factor is semi-hereditary: Your family drinks/buys Coke, you so will, too. If your friends do, you will, too. You tend to trust the opinions of such people, right? Coke even used to use the slogan “Taste the REAL thing”, meaning that anything other than Coke was a piece of shit imitation and not worth your time. Just TASTE THE REAL THING, GODDAMNIT.

Pop starts schilling for pop. Pop goes my erection

You know what? With no pressure of any kind and no former experience or exposure, I’m not sure how one would possibly choose Coke over Pepsi. Anyway, that’s besides the point. All of a sudden, you choose one cola over the other. All of a sudden, you fucking hate the other one. You ask for one at a restaurant and act disgusted if they only have one over the other. Like, who the fuck are you? You piece of shit, you are nothing compared to delicious, ice-cold cola.

More importantly, now that you’re older and things have changed, you hate so much you loved as a kid. Music is the most obvious one. I will say, on record, that I like 100% of the music I listened to as a kid. All of it. I haven’t changed my opinion on a single artist or song. I may not listen to it out of sheer boredom or familiarity, but I will never bash it. Then there’s your – you were rocking out with your cock out to Limp Bizkit in the late 90s. You fucking LOVED the Bizkit. You were headbanging, jumping up and down, shouting…and now, you fucking HATE it. You HATE Fred Durst for what he did to you. (provided a good time and good memories) That FUCKING ASSHOLE. WHAT A LOSER. POSER NU-METAL POP TRASH PIECE OF SHIT MUSIC you claim. But hey, you loved it when you were honest and weren’t judging someone in retrospect.  I can’t explain how mad it makes to to listen to this shit every day (on the Internet).

It’s amazing how 10 years later everyone you know looks and dresses like Fred. That’s right, assholes.

When something comes out, everyone worships it. Then, as soon as it’s super-popular, it’s fashionable to hate it in every way imaginable. Everyone’s like a sheep in both directions and it’s disgusting. Just recently I’ve begun to listen to Marilyn Manson (curious, looking for some hard rock) and everyone I’ve mentioned it to is like, “are you fucking kidding me? That’s shit, blah blah blah. He’s a crazy guy, pervert, devil-worshipping m@%#&!fucker.” It’s funny that they would even know that, since you’ve probably never listened to it outside a song in a commercial. To be honest, I don’t really like it much, but at least I listened to it. All of it. Every single album track released.

Beyond prejudice is just plain bias. Let’s take Britney Spears. She has a song called “Out from Under.” Because it’s Britney Spears, it must suck and she can’t sing and the song sucks. If the exact same track was Alicia Keys, it’d win a Grammy and be a #1 smash hit. People have become so biased and their opinions so distorted, and it’s no wonder why the music industry is failing. Hell, it’s even racist to a point. Destiny’s Child/TLC/Whatever was all sorts of praised and wins awards but as soon as white girls sing in a pop group it’s ‘bubble-gum pop bullshit mindless trash.’ Hell, Michael Jackson didn’t get any hate until he became white. And a woman. Who molested boys. But that Billie Jean, holy fucking shit what incredible rhythm. I know radio stations that stopped playing his music during the whole scandal. Yes, he’s a freak, so that makes his music of 20 years ago BAD? (pun semi-intentional after I saw it, now fully intentional).

That’s one hot bitch, goddamn it. Rich + hot + crazy = boner

Anyway, back to Britney Spears. She is so awesome as a human being. Being shit on so much, being laughed at, being humiliated – and guess what? Albums keep coming out, assholes! Instead of being hurt and being abusive back, she just does what she does: She is a pop star that makes pop music. Continuously. You gotta admire that. You don’t have to like it, but you have to be impressed with her ability to rebound from your emptied jugs of haterade. Her appearance at the MVAs, where everyone made fun of her being out-of-shape (for Britney, not like the rest of you fat fucks who couldn’t get a girl 40% as sexy), was famously humiliating for her. Next video, she’s hot again and keeps pumping out music and performances. Eat shit, haters. I love that. Not only is she hard-working, she’s consistent. Now she’s got yet another #1 smash hit worldwide, because you just can’t ignore catchy pop music performed by a true professional. You may now all fuck off and continue worshipping her.

Let’s talk about my man Tom Cruise. A superb actor. All bullshit aside, has he ever been in a ‘bad’ movie? Probably not. You may not like MI:3 or War of the Worlds, but they are by no means shitty movies. Because of his wacky antics in his personal media life and him being a scientist or whatever, now when they release a movie of his, they try to distance themselves from him in the marketing. DON’T FOCUS ON TOM CRUISE ON THIS TOM CRUISE MOVIE POSTER. Fucking assholes.

The man is a god amongst scientists (or whatever)

The same people making fun of him were absolutely thrilled by his previous movies. How can people carry such stigma for so long? I don’t even have to mention Mel Gibson at this point, do I? Stop changing your fucking mind to often, people, it makes you look weak. John Travolta. Tara Reid. Michael Richards. Pauly Shore. I mean if all these people get shit on and Adam Sandler doesn’t, then what kind of world do we live in?

The idea of boycotting is generally pretty stupid. People turn their disappointment into rage for whatever reason. Nintendo, who you grew up with, now makes fucking shitty games and it’s embarrassing and sad. Perfect. Don’t buy them. Instead, people sign petitions, post hate articles about Nintendo (hehe…) and sell their old Nintendo stuff for the last Sega Dreamcast games or some shit. Oh, Sega Dreamcast. It’s amazing HOW FUCKING MANY people are now obsessed with the Dreamcast. Those idiots never even owned one when it came out. They made fun of the controller (and its fucking short and wrongly-positioned cord), the disc drive, everything. Now they praise it. Nostalgia is one thing (Dreamcast had less than 10 good games, get over it. I owned it on 9/9/99 and I don’t give a shit about it then or now) but using it to prove how ‘hardcore’ you are is laughable. Now everyone loves Sega but didn’t when it counted. All this flip-flopping is just sad.

“…that the fucking cord was longer and came out of the top of the controller. Oh, and that that VMU didn’t eat batteries so quickly. CR-2032 batteries aren’t fucking cheap.”

Some things are just like that. The Dark Knight comes out. Everyone is just fucking blown away. Now, there’s all sorts of people (the same ones that loved it and saw it 7 times at the movies) that think it’s a piece of shit and “it’s just not faithful to the comics…blah blah bla I’m a fat piece of shit nerd, blah blah blah.” Going against the grain on public opinion is a good feeling (the new lazy version of true rebellion) but to just want to do it to be annoying, well, get bent. The feeling of fitting in, and THEN the feeling of being different and special over the same subject must be too hard to ignore, huh? What a horrible way to live life.

It takes a strong person to reach deep inside and say, “I enjoy something. Always,” without worrying about someone’s reaction. I rock out to Ace of Base today the same as I did in 1994. While drinking a Pepsi. They haven’t made a better mint chewing gum than Excel original blue (nor will they) and I’m OK with admitting I’ve tried every fucking gum I’ve ever came across to prove it. It doesn’t mean I go out and hate Excel purple (it’s shit and I hate it) I just won’t buy it again.

So everyone, stop hating on things because it’s fashionable. Go back to the good old ways of hating something because it sucks, because you’re jealous, because it’s different. Make up your mind and stick with it. I’ve hated all of you for years and that’s never going to change.