The Realm Of The Proud Bedwetter

Strap in friends, we're gettin' in the Wayback Machine. Back when I was working for a mall-based chain of record stores (Tim Karan knows what I'm talking about), I had the great misfortune of waiting on one of the most heinous forms of music consumer: the audiophile. In a universe of computer-based entertainment, I don't even know if these kind of people still exist (Wait: They do! Beware The Raiders of the FLAC File Ark). But the audiophile fancies himself as an enthusiast of "true sound," therefore he will buy all of the most expensive pieces of gear to achieve "perfect sound forever." I'm talkin' stupid shit like turntables with five-figure price tags or limited-run stereo receivers made by boutique electronics companies in Japan or Russia. But it's not enough for these d-bags to just OWN this stuff; they have to TELL somebody all about it. They brag about everything from "phase correction" to "crossover slopes" to people who don't have any clue what the hell they are going on about.

In my case, this particular customer was going on about how expensive and pristine his stereo was. After 10 minutes of brand-name-dropping and meaningless hertz-response figures, I asked him if he needed any help finding something. He nodded his head and told me he was good. "I heard this was really well-recorded so I'm going to check it out." He was holding a copy of the debut album from ill-fated, manufactured musical duo, Milli Vanilli. "So," I responded, barely able to control my temper, yet putting on a jokey game-face, "what you've been telling me is that you have a solid gold septic tank at home. I mean, sure, you own a lot of precious gold, but you're covering it in crap." This resulted in the guy dropping the disc and leaving the store immediately. The next day, I got a call from the home office, reprimanding me about my "inappropriate customer interaction." I told my boss the guy was a tool, and I'll gladly buy $60 worth of stuff to make up the $15.99 the company lost to that idiot.

Fast-forward to this century, and the same kind of boorish behavior is even more rampant, thanks to the internet. Fortunately, I don't have to deal with audiophile vermin anymore. But they've been replaced by other kinds of folks. I guess the catch-all term would be "trolling," but the kind of nimrods I'm thinking about aren't in it to stir the fecal stew and log out of the kitchen fast. Nope. They just lurk in places where they feel they have some kind of moral or aesthetic superiority, when the truth of the matter is that they're just as lame as the stuff they put down. Like an old punk dude who holds court on message boards bragging about how all of the ethnic-infused rock music he's collected is vastly superior to whatever emo/screamo/pop-punk fave the community is embracing. Dude's gonna be heard, though: He's made over 5000 posts discussing his superiority, despite the fact the stuff he champions is really bad. Like dentist-office, new-age, bumper-music-between-segments-on-NPR BAD. Yet he'll tell you that you suck because you dare to profess your liking of Fall Out Boy's "I Don't Care." (5000 posts? You think somebody who claims to be into music would spend that kind of time LISTENING to the stuff, than preaching about it.)

The thing that usually draws these people out is our yearly 100 Bands issue. Most detractors get on their ideological hobby-horse because (everybody all at once, join me), "all the bands you put in there sound the same." The operative word in that sentence is "all." It's readily apparent to me they haven't heard every band on that list, because there's some pretty crazy shit in that issue. What makes me laugh (and want to set fire to said posters' homes) is when they write something like, "Whenever people get sick of this nu-hair band era crap, this band is going to be ready to blow up," and the stuff that they recommend is tragically generic. Most of your AP-sucks posters on other message boards are prone to this. AP blows for, say, putting the Maine on the cover, yet the people doing the bitching are the ones whose last.fm lists are riddled with bands cut from the exact same kind of pop-punk cloth. Sometimes, we get our wrists slapped by some harpy with limited cognitive skills whose self-proclaimed "fave band" is gaining notoriety with a "novelty" cover version a la Attack Attack or I Set My Friends On Fire. (Note to Connie: Go eat a cheesesteak and wise up, but not in that order, mmmkay?)

I refer to this social condition as PBS or the Proud Bedwetter Syndrome: The person who has an incontinence problem thinks YOU are a loser because you DON'T have one. What can be done about it? Depends...