You Keep Using That Word, by Riley Breckenridge

Against my better judgment, I occasionally spend time reading the comments section on music blogs and select online music forums. While the initial purpose of my visits to these blogs and forums is to gather information and to keep myself in the loop regarding the happenings in my trade (music), I, more often than I care to admit, end up getting sucked into the vortex of negativity and dick-swinging¹ disguised as “discussion.” Over the years (13 of them so far) I’ve learned to treat said vortex as a read-only disaster, regardless of how much I disagree with what is being said, how it’s being said, and how misinformed those of whom are saying what’s being said might be. The Internet is too big to play Captain Correcto and run around the web putting out fires. These days, I read, and laugh, and shake my head, and draft angry responses before I wise up, delete them, and move along.

The element of these informational train wrecks that I have the most difficulty ignoring is how often and lazily the word “suck” is bandied about in lieu of meaningful discussion. In the Breckenridgian Dictionary, the word “suck” has come to mean “inadequate”, as in:

“I suck at hitting split-fingered fastballs.”

Or…

“I suck at the piano.”²

Not…

“This band/song/genre sucks.”

More often than not, the comment sections and message board discussions on music-themed web sites are teeming with the latter and it drives me crazy. I can’t plead innocent in regard to that semantic crime (no matter how much I wish I could), but I am making a concerted effort keep from committing it again. And I’m asking you to join me.

Let’s get one thing straight; most often, things like a band or a song or a genre don’t “suck” just because you don’t like them.³ You just don’t like them. And there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you’re willing to justify that opinion with something like, “I don’t care for this, because…x, y, and/or z.” Sure, there will be rare occasions in which the distaste you have for something is due in large part to an ineptitude or inadequacy of some sort (e.g.- A ham-fisted, tone-deaf singer-songwriter at a local open mic night that sounds he’s being stabbed to death while he tries to punch a hole in the body of his acoustic guitar) but what is most often being discussed on these open music forums or blogs is being performed by musicians with a modicum of proficiency at their craft, and what is actually being discussed is less about inadequacy and more about personal taste. If you don’t like something, I would hope that there are valid reasons.  And if you’re passionate (or bored) enough to post about something you don’t care for, or have an opinion that seems worthy of the keystrokes that it would take to post it in an open forum, can you take the few extra minutes it might take to make those keystrokes count? If you’re too lazy to express those reasons, then maybe you should step off of your soapbox.⁴

What does, “Meh. That (song/band) sucks.” add to a discussion? (Aside from proving that the person sharing such an undeveloped and lazy opinion is worth as little or less attention than the thing they’re commenting on). In my experience, it takes a hell of a lot of time and effort to make a record. Even if a band that “sucks” put months and months energy into writing, arranging, demoing, revising, recording, and mixing into “sucking”, don’t you think that effort in itself is worth more than a monosyllabic judgment as to their worth? I realize that this is probably an uphill battle (as most battles worth fighting are), because what I’m addressing is, at its core, laziness; a laziness that is being shared via a medium with an appeal largely rooted in convenience and speed, which is responsible, in part, for a collective laziness. And now I’m addressing my discontent with said laziness via that very same medium.⁵ But we’ve got to start somewhere. All I ask is that we try.

And if something “sucks” enough to make you dislike it so much that you feel the need to “warn the others”, why not warn them of what they’re about to subject themselves to? There’s a Louis CK bit in which he talks about seeing a guy on a bike who is about to be hit by a car, and at the uncontrollable speed that this inevitable disaster is happening in front of him, there just isn’t enough time for Louis to properly warn they guy on the bike of his impending doom. All Louis can manage to as a cautionary yell to this guy is, “BAD THING!” He cares enough to say something, but he doesn’t have time to make a difference. We’re not dealing with life or death or personal injury in these music forums. We’re just sharing opinions and we’ve got time. I hope we can stop being so lazy and make it count.

***

¹The author is curious as to the proper terminology for the female equivalent of dick-swinging.

²The author wishes both statements were untrue about himself, but they are not.

³The author already knows that the first comment at the end of this piece will be, “This sucks.” so save it.

⁴The author realizes that he’s on an internet soapbox at this very moment, but would like to share that he once envisioned an internet in which any commenter posting misinformation as fact, lazy opinions, and/or spam would have his or her text appear as wingdings for a full calendar year, thus losing his or her ability to communicate online, but quickly realized that roughly 87% of the internet would become wingdings and he’s not sure he could look at that font for more than ten seconds without having an aneurysm.

⁵The author realizes that he’s just thought himself in a circle, as he is wont to do, which is why he often shies away from writing pieces like the one he’s writing at the moment.

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