Curb Your Enthusiasm – Adults Need to Stop Acting Like Teenagers in Their Fandom

When we were young, and we had a favorite singer, or band, we bought all their albums, plastered our bedroom walls with their posters, and continually made them the topic of conversation to the point where people wondered if there was anything else we could talk about.

After a certain age, however, while the albums may have stayed in rotation, we expanded the number of topics we like to talk about, the posters came down, the walls were repainted, and perhaps some artwork was hung.

It was proof that not everything about youth is wasted on the young, some of it is simply an aspect of being young.

That said, over the past decade, or so, there’s been a troubling trend in music where full grown adults have been acting more and more like teenagers in their fandom.

It’s totally cool to be enthusiastic about your favorite artists, but as an adult that enthusiasm shouldn’t look the same way it did when you were 14.

Some truly terrible offenses – that are wrong at any age, mind you – can be found on social media, where fans can have an almost demonic devotion to artists, to the point where they take any slight against their favorites so personally that they seek out, and verbally attack the people who don’t show what they deem to be the proper amount of admiration.

I think these folks need to heed the advice of Kelly Rowland’s mom, who, when it comes to insulting people on the internet, taught her better than that.

The artist devotion thing has gotten so out of hand that I’ve even seen people on dating apps say their match has to be a Swiftie.

My reaction to that is – are you high?

The only act in music for which I would consider that sort of “you must love my favorite artist” qualification necessary would be the Insane Clown Posse, and that’s because with the Juggalos they’ve created a legitimate subculture.

With that noted exception, liking an artist shouldn’t be a personality trait.

Remember the episode of Friends where Phoebe’s doctor randomly offered up that he loved Fonzie, and wouldn’t stop talking about Happy Days? That’s the territory some folks are in.

On the flip side of that, disliking an artist also shouldn’t be a personality trait, and this has become another major issue with adult fandom.

I see it every time a new Greatest Singers, or Greatest Rappers of All-Time list, comes out.

When an artist some folks don’t care for appears on one of those lists there’s a reaction like someone just committed a war crime.

Chill, it’s just a list

In fact, lists like those are created for one reason – engagement. The publications want you to get upset. It’s intentional. The more you rage, the more clicks they receive, and the more ad dollars they rack up.

All you need to do is move on. It doesn’t even require a comment.

You like who you like, they like who they like, it’s all music, it should connect us, not divide us.

We can’t connect on anything, however, if we’re just screaming at each other that everyone has to like the exact same artists we like.

We aren’t teenagers anymore, we should have this magical thing called rationality now. It’s one of the really good things about being an adult, so don’t let it slip away because of fandom run amok.