Your taste is a mess

In the last six months, I’ve noticed a trend: no one likes Ed Sheeran anymore. And I say anymore, because as much as you may believe otherwise, there was a time when he was a popular, emerging figure in music. His albums broke records, his tours sold out, and yet all of a sudden the internet turned against him. Hate, after all, proliferates online these days. If I didn’t regularly scroll through my social media feeds, I would have no idea I’m supposed to hate Ed Sheeran now.

The only reasons I can surmise this hate was born is because Sheeran is not conventionally attractive (he has the sort of face that is begging to be punched), and because, despite the angry mobs, he remains very, very popular. He just released a new album, is on another massive tour and you can’t get through a grocery store checkout line or surf through the relic that is radio without hearing his voice and the same ballad again and again. You could say he’s long been on the verge of overexposure.

It’s that same insidious teenage attitude, often spread these days online, that first takes root in high school hallways, right around the time we fall into types and distinguish ourselves from others based on our interests. And that makes sense, because in a lot of ways, Twitter is very much high school, with its herd mentality and subtweet-style bullying.

It doesn’t make anyone remotely better by simply going against the pop culture grain for the sake of going against it. And yet there are always those bragging about how they have never watched an episode of Game of Thrones; or have not once heard “Despacito,” the most streamed song of all time; or to not have a single Britney Spears playlist on your phone. Some of these things are so ubiquitous, it probably takes a very concerted effort to avoid them and maintain your purity as if you might catch a disease if you so much as hear a single note uttered by the likes of Justin Bieber.

This tired hipster mentality is just another way of stomping on what others love. It’s okay for people to enjoy what’s popular; it doesn’t make them less or you superior in any way. But if you feel the need to proudly declare each year that you still don’t know “what a Khaleesi is,” let me extend my congratulations. You avoided falling for something that appeals to the vast majority of people around you. You truly are a punk rocking rebel.

Let me guess, you don’t own a television set either?