Most of us can remember a time in our life when we desperately longed to be part of the "in" crowd, sitting at the cool kids' table. Maybe some of you got there. I never did. I don't know about the rest of you rejects, but it wasn't always easy to accept my lower social standing and I coped with it in any number of ways. One of my favorites was to outflank the cool kids and try to be too cool for the cool.
I'm 36 years old and ashamed to admit I worried about social acceptance and conformity a lot more and a lot longer than I should have and I haven't completely eradicated it from my mind, even now. As a result, yeah, I still sometimes reach for some of those crutches when I sense I've fallen short.
I know what you're thinking and you're right. It's scary to think I could have any consideration for getting along with people and still act the way I do. It's scarier still to think what I'd be like if I truly didn't give a shit.
Getting back on track, though, I've seen the error of my way and tried to step out of that kind of shallow, sheltered thinking. I'm trying to learn to better accept me for me and not worry about what one group or another is going to think. I'm trying to find the right balance that allows me to navigate the world in harmony with the voices in my head and the people around me. It's a work in progress.
One step in that direction? I went out and bought the new Vampire Weekend record today. I started to hear some hype about the record from certain corners of the web and blogosphere and got my hackles up, thinking this was another one of those bands you're "supposed" to like. My kneejerk reaction was to not like them without hearing them, making myself cooler than the cool kids. I realized that was a legally retarded and criminally lazy way to approach music. Why deny myself something I might like because of trendiness. Maybe the music is actually good. Wouldn't that be horrible? To buy a CD and later have to admit I liked it? Oh, God, give me a bullet.
Article comments
1 - Tom Johnson
I'm glad you're giving it a chance. Check out their Takeaway Show and maybe they will click for you like they did for me because of this extremely stripped-down set. They also just did MTV Unplugged which I think is available on the MTV site, and it was pretty impressive.
2 - Mark Saleski
oh gawd, those Blogoteque shows are great! that's how i got sucked in to the Fleet Foxes.