Scenesterism

Picture the following : You attend a gig you have been eagerly anticipating, perhaps of one of your favorite musicians/bands. You go down to the venue that is hosting the event to witness the concert and enjoy the music you love. So far, so good. However, some of you will have noticed that if you get there in time for the warm-up act, (normally not at full capacity at this stage) you will usually be able to spot the curse of 21st Century music : the scenester.

This person often has very little interest in the music on display (and sometimes music in general) and will attend the venue/gig for purposes of popularity and *sighs* 'coolness'.
Yes, this is going to be a rant, and rightly so. As an (admittedly hardcore) music lover, I have no time for folk who go places merely to get props from the cool crew. I view it as leeching upon the culture and having no positive/constructive contribution. Even a passive listener contributes something!
I am going to the concert to see the musicians/DJ's/performers, and I expect to be able to enjoy that without coming across these shallow sentinels du jour.

Let me make it clear that I am not talking about someone who goes to a gig on the hunch that it might be good and is looking a little lost, (I actually applaud that attitude) or that guy who went to the gig to accompany his friend (no one likes rolling solo).
I am directing this at that guy/girl who shows up, perhaps overdressed; and pays little to no attention to the music. And you can see them looking around at other cats to see if people are noticing their attendance!!!

While it annoys me on a personal level, to be somewhat more objective about the matter, I am bewildered by the mindset of those who go to an event, but not for the event itself...instead they are more concerned with being 'at the spot' because someone/something told them that its 'where its at'.
While I feel this is evermore present with the current vomit-inducing 'indie' scene (which bears no resemblance to the original 'Indie rock' boom...cause its NOT INDEPENDENTLY RUN!) I am perfectly aware that it has plagued music events for decades.
For example, the psychedelic movement of the late 1960's attracted an enormous amount of people who got caught up in the whole circus of social (and anti-social) activities that revolved around the music, BUT not the actual music.
Any of the music festival footage of the time attests to this, with several people too smashed out of their brains on various substances and completely missing the message and angle of the music they were witnessing. If anything, their faux-pas is all the more criminal because of the volume of great musicians that were performing during this era.

What is truly worrying and obviously annoying about scenesterism now, is that it is somewhat promoted through various media sources. MTV's broadcasting has lost all & any measure of quality control, even the once-trustworthy MTV2 has descended to showing footage of nothing but bands such as the Killers, the Fillers and the other Twiddlers.
With impressionable young people being the core demographic of MTV, this results in waves of kids and teenagers thinking they need to mimic these groups behavior right down to the dress sense.
This does nothing but help create newer waves of scenesters, who are inherently shallow and prime targets for any marketing companies flogging products that dictate the "scene", as they snap it all up immediately, desperate to not be negatively judged by their equally shallow peers.
Like I said before, this phenomenon affects all genres of music, but from my personal experience, it seems that rock-based music is the main victim. I suppose one could get much deeper into it and start to question the self-esteem and confidence of the scenester, but Ill leave that to the psych-students.
It just goes to show the radical difference in mindsets of those who go because they love the music and those who go because of the social status it will afford them.
Some will say I have been harsh in my judgment of scenesters but those who take a moment to flip through their mental Rolodex of recent gigs-to-posers ratio will feel me on this one.


Love, Peace & Fuck the Police


"Im waiting for the day she strolls through muddy waters & slaughters, sons & daughters, & bloodies mothers & fathers; lovely little case study cast-away cutie, masturbating in the back of that matinee movie..." - Slug