I Aspire To Have An Original Thought... One Day



Posts tagged its just another one of those stupid fucking tumblr mentalities that makes no damn sense:

star-rice reblogged babushka
babushka -

the only reason i don't listen to Queen a lot is because the amount of raw power in its songs is enough to incinerate me on spot

babushka -


i just kinda saw a variety of posts (or just one viral post in different screenshots) saying i can NEVER undestand queen if i haven't experienced the specific gay struggle that shows in his songs... the post was aimed at straight people but i... i can just say that my experiences are different from what most lgbt+ community goes to for a variety of reasons (maybe its passing privilige or whatever, maybe its maybelinne) so i was just like "ok, i won't be appropiating stuff then :( "

star-rice -

So, I will agree there are multiple songs that hit way different when considered from a queer perspective (We Will Rock You, Somebody to Love, etc) but that should in no way exclude people from listening to it???? It fucking infuriates me when people claim someone cannot experience a thing (a thing that was made to be experienced by a larger, huge audience) because they are not X, Y, Z. Thats like saying I cant listen to all of System of a Down because I've never experienced the American prison system or had substance abuse problems or experienced Tiennamen Square?

And what of it? Fuck loads of people experience media made to critique or expand upon a experience all the time without having any context for said experience. People sure as hell did it with Queen, but it happens with nearly every artist out there. Rage Against the Machine has, for some reason, been taken up by right-wing asshole the whole world wide because they like how angry it sounds, never fucking realizing what the music is angry at and who "the machine" is (god forid anyone ever tell them the background of the band members).

Is there a narative to point out that those people, who usually are defending "the system" at every turn either directly or through their privilages? Sure. But can anyone take that music from them??? Fuck no. I wouldn't even dream of it. Art is made for thousands upon millions of different reasons. No one, not even the artist can restrict who uses their media and for what. But sometimes that music is made to relay experience and thoughts to people who would have never had them otherwise (lots of SoaD). Sometimes its to connect people who have different lifestyles but we still all have some basic human experiences regardless of how different we maybe (Queen). And then sometimes people don't fucking get your music at all and they listen to it because it sounds cool without taking a deeper, critical look at it (RAtM). You do not and should not be required to have all the context for the media you consume.

Is it important to me to have more context to a thing I consume? Yeah, but it is toxic to imply that everyone needs to know all the context 100% of the time or theyre not allowed to enjoy that content regularly. That's a near impossible level of stringency at best and incredibly harmful to culture and the spread of diversity at worst.