Beyonce, Half time and the haters
First of all let me shout out my Baltimore Ravens for bringing home a title this year it was a great season and a great year for Baltimore Sports as a whole. But for a lot of people, the game is just a sideshow since they either aren't fans of football, or one of the teams playing, for them the game is totally about entertainment and that includes the half time show. Now we all remember the Janet Jackson nipple slip that caused the NFL to take over production from MTV and thus bored down the intermission period to a time when even the viewing audience at home could take a nap smoke break or whatever instead of being another reason to stayed glued to the tv for advertisers. Luckily, they have let the reigns get loose and we got a pretty good show from Beyonce.
I say pretty good but not great because I mean I'm not the biggest fan and thats what I'm here to talk about. The idea of fandom and what that means. You see, the one thing that irritates me is the people who feel as though everything their favorite artist does is ground-breaking, revolutionary, and subject to blind adulation and if you don't share those sentiments then you are a hater for no reason. Now, B puts on a good show but guess what, her moves are taken from legends like Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, and James Brown. Now, it's great company to be in, but to call her the greatest of all time is a bit presumptuous. Better than 99% of the acts of today, sure, but that isn't saying much in the music industry today.
This overstatement of one person's greatness causes someone like to me to pause and start to question everything that they do and bring them down a notch because the crowd noise has them elevated too high. I mean look at the twitter volume when Jay-z hugged his wife after her performance. It became such a "moment". Why? I hug my wife all of the time it's not that abnormal, but because they are celebrities, it becomes the benchmark for their fan's lives. I felt the same way when Blue ivy was born and the internet went wild over Jay-z's "open letter" to the newborn where he stated a bunch of obvious shit that any real parent feels. It's not that I'm knocking him for it, but I don't know all of the dick riders who hopped on it like he was the first father to ever kiss his daughter or something so I have to direct my commentary at him somewhat. It's actually unfortunate because I hope he can be a role model, as well as his relationship, but when something as simple as a hug becomes tmz front cover news, something is wrong with us as a collective. That should be the least of what we expect, and we shouldn't be giving him a cookie for something he suppose to do as Chris Rock would say.
At the end of the day, no celebrity walks on water, but when people turn into the ultimate fanatics and overstate every single action, there is a problem. If we all focused as much on being the best we can be as much as we invest time in defending our favorite personalities, we would be much better off and the positive things they do wouldn't seem so special.
I say pretty good but not great because I mean I'm not the biggest fan and thats what I'm here to talk about. The idea of fandom and what that means. You see, the one thing that irritates me is the people who feel as though everything their favorite artist does is ground-breaking, revolutionary, and subject to blind adulation and if you don't share those sentiments then you are a hater for no reason. Now, B puts on a good show but guess what, her moves are taken from legends like Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, and James Brown. Now, it's great company to be in, but to call her the greatest of all time is a bit presumptuous. Better than 99% of the acts of today, sure, but that isn't saying much in the music industry today.
This overstatement of one person's greatness causes someone like to me to pause and start to question everything that they do and bring them down a notch because the crowd noise has them elevated too high. I mean look at the twitter volume when Jay-z hugged his wife after her performance. It became such a "moment". Why? I hug my wife all of the time it's not that abnormal, but because they are celebrities, it becomes the benchmark for their fan's lives. I felt the same way when Blue ivy was born and the internet went wild over Jay-z's "open letter" to the newborn where he stated a bunch of obvious shit that any real parent feels. It's not that I'm knocking him for it, but I don't know all of the dick riders who hopped on it like he was the first father to ever kiss his daughter or something so I have to direct my commentary at him somewhat. It's actually unfortunate because I hope he can be a role model, as well as his relationship, but when something as simple as a hug becomes tmz front cover news, something is wrong with us as a collective. That should be the least of what we expect, and we shouldn't be giving him a cookie for something he suppose to do as Chris Rock would say.
At the end of the day, no celebrity walks on water, but when people turn into the ultimate fanatics and overstate every single action, there is a problem. If we all focused as much on being the best we can be as much as we invest time in defending our favorite personalities, we would be much better off and the positive things they do wouldn't seem so special.
Thank you so much for saying this!!! I personally believe that the term "hater" is overused. I'm a fan of Beyonce, but her performance on Sunday wasn't anything we've seen before.
ReplyDelete*Anything we haven't seen before.
ReplyDelete