Passion for the with-it and hip

On the way home today, an Evanescence song came on the radio, which generally makes me feel about like this:

Evanescence was one of those unfortunate bands who: 1. did not have very good music to begin with and 2. had an incredibly annoying fan base among some of the people around me when the band first started getting popular.

I mention the second thing because I want to illustrate that I already didn't like some of these people to begin with, and their exuberance over Evanescence was the final nail in the coffin. Those who I sort of got along with got a temporary pass for liking Evanescence as long as we still got along on some other fundamental likes and dislikes.

When it comes to things that people are into, I'm a very live-and-let-live sort of individual. Which is not to say that I never disagree with anybody. I'm just more the type of person to let people have their own opinions about things unless it's in some way directly threatening me or those I care about. Maybe it's a bit because I'm fairly hard-headed myself, and dislike people trying to "sell" me on their interpretation of things. So if I have a differing opinion from somebody else, I approach it by rolling my eyes and internally monologize about how  they're wrong because x, y, and z.

When I was in college, there was an individual we called the "Wells Hall Preacher," and he was the best version of a literalist I have ever seen. Everybody was going to hell according to this guy, and it was fucking hilarious. Some people would try to stand up to him and argue points, and I always just thought what a fantastic waste of breath. Now, the girl who I happened to be sitting next to one day listening to the Preacher who told me that homosexuality was just a challenge God gave people. Like, everyone has challenges. Her challenge was that she doesn't trust people enough. Her I snapped at. "So you can't trust people and I want to bury my face in other women's labia? That seems equitable." It wasn't like what she was saying was hurting my feelings or physicality in any way, it was just obnoxiously cliche, and she wasn't backing it up with the completely insane vigor that the Preacher had behind his arguments.

I feel similarly when meeting new people now. Either they're completely nuts-o Wells Hall Preacher, in which case I can usually just avoid them. Or they're at least knowledgeable about the things they like and can speak intelligently about them; then we might get along to some degree. But the Evanescence people who are all, "durr it's like any other shit pop-rock band except with a hot chick for a singer, so that's why I like it." Or the people who are going to get a little sound byte of quotable information ("it's just the challenge God's given you") and then throw it around like it's fucking truth. That's not a justification for anything. That's just a buy-in to why they think they should like something. And it means absolutely nothing as far as actual personality is concerned.