*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

[alias_sqbr]

So on the one hand I agree that this kind of argument is really obnoxious, but on the other I don't think it's entirely counterproductive, assuming you don't mind being a jerk.

As far as I can tell it's not primarily about persuading people, it's about feeling superior to those with mainstream tastes. If you actually persuaded everyone your tastes would become less niche and maybe even become the mainstream, which would defeat the point.

And it is a persuasive argument to those who are more invested in liking the Right Things than they are attached to any specific thing they like.

Also, while people who dislike the Beatles etc are a minority there's still a lot of them, and they're going to be really sick of the universal love thrown at their anti-fave, so may be an easy sell: "FINALLY SOMEONE WHO HATES THE BEATLES TOO. Clearly they have good tastes, let's check out this rec of theirs..."

But mainly I think it's about venting frustration and putting other people down to feel better about themselves.

[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.

[anghraine]

I've actually seen it a lot in persuasive—or at least ostensibly persuasive—posts, of the "if you watched ['overrated' thing], you better watch ['better' thing]." Of course, those can be fundamentally performative, too. I've even seen it where it's barely related to the actual argument at hand (x is overrated in much the same way as y).

It's def obnoxious in general—you can argue that something is overrated, sure, but it has to be its own argument and more than a flat assertion. Even as venting, it's grating, but when it's actually in the course of an argument, it's absurdly terrible rhetoric.

[alatefeline]

A sound point and one I had not previously considered. There are so many things out there that I mentally skip past that it is very easy to forget to wonder why, exactly, I got turned off from a particular piece. But I'm sure that sometimes it is how the clickbait is rhetorically structured. I know that things with an "infotainment" or "religious" feel are automatic "ignores" for me unless I have a strong reason to think otherwise.