*grumble*

[anghraine]

“The Beatles aren’t even that good” posts are such a terrible idea.

Er, I don’t mean posts specifically about the Beatles. Those are just the Ur-example: 'X rock group is great and underappreciated while the Beatles have Ultimate Fame—and they aren't even that good.'

The issue isn't the respective musical qualities of X vs the Beatles. The issue is that everyone who loves the Beatles just stopped listening. And ... uh, that's most rock fans.

I see these all the time on Tumblr; e.g., "everyone went to see mediocre shit in Frozen so they'd better go see Moana." Aaaand most of the target audience is gone. And from the LJ days on, there have been prequel defending posts with "ESB isn't even that good," which naturally alienates a huge portion of SW fans, even ones who like the prequels. But also I see it everywhere; it's not remotely a Tumblr-specific thing.

And it's really not productive, because it instantly distracts from the real argument onto a largely irrelevant tangent. Instead of being derailed, you're derailing yourself. Specifically, you're derailing your own argument in opposition to near-consensus, ensuring that nearly everyone can dismiss you out of hand. No matter how overrated X may be, this is a terrible, terrible rhetorical tactic.

Comments

[rj_anderson]

Yep. Anytime somebody begins their defence of a thing they like putting down something I or other people love, I'm out. I get the temptation to elevate your particular musical / aesthetic / political / what-have-you tastes above everybody else's, but it's a base impulse that needs to be resisted, because the whole point of it is to make other people feel small and stupid while making yourself look Better Than, and that's never pretty.

[anghraine]

Right? It's so alienating to anyone who doesn't already agree with you.