Came up with the question after an interaction that happened a few weeks ago. Long story short I said circumcision is bad but female genital mutilation is traditionally much worse. A user went through my comment history. They replied to one stating that I was as evil as the BTK killer and champion child abuse.
Years ago when I was a music grad student I used to participate in several forums for sharing and discussing music. I regularly posted recordings of my work.
One morning I woke up to discover that some gentleman thought enough of me to invest what must have been considerable time and energy composing a several pages-long dissertation on how much he hated my music. I don’t remember the exact language, but I remember that it wasn’t particularly imaginative. Lots of references to garbage and shit I guess. I mean, if you’re going to put that much effort into lambasting someone, at least come up with a couple original metaphors. But apparently my music filled him with so much rage he couldn’t bring himself to do so.
In retrospect though, that music was, objectively, pretty bad. But I haven’t give up. I’m still out there making shitty music.
I would say your music was a true success then, it made them feel intense emotion. That emotion was pure rage but still, it was emotion.
Jeez what a hateful dickhead.
I learned very quickly that there are people in music academia who will very loudly and obnoxiously state their very sound reasons why Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is a pile of hot garbage. And from that I learned to just make whatever’s in me to make, and the best possible outcome is that it gets attention.