Fanboys Anonymous

So, Avril Lavigne's latest video release for "Hello Kitty" has caused all sorts of mixed (mostly degrading) commentary from the anonymous culture that festers the Internet. The video is weird, bizarre, very pseudo-Japanese, and an ode to J-Pop/Otaku culture. Avril Lavigne abandoned rock long ago for more profitable teen-pop with the release of her third album The Best Damn Thing in 2007. So what's terribly new about this?


The same would happen with Britney Spears some time ago. Any release was the object of scorn and mockery from a demographic quite oblivious to the deity-status these artists hold among the average adolescent teenage girl (and, I'm not admitting anything, but some guys appreciate the looks). I suppose it becomes easier to just pick one out and call it a bad seed than to admit the whole basket is rotten.

The negativity that Avril, the dancer/singer (or whatever she might be) received is uncalled for. I'll say it, write it, I really don't care—I stand by it. The video is annoying, the music even more, and I don't like anything about this single. What about the rest of the top 40s? Don't they deserve some backlash?


This episode reminds me of when Rebecca Black released "Friday," her "hit" YouTube single. A flurry of foul-mouthed anecdotes and commentaries best described the video, in short, as "total shit," which is insane. I cannot understand the difference between a Rebecca Black song and a Kesha tune, as it is all the same processed, canned junk food, although one sings of fruity cereal and the other begs for cock.

Avril's Hello Kitty is garbage.. what about stuff like this?

Some will call me elitist, but I can't help it if I grew up in a time when pop music had Michael Jackson, Queen, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey on top of the charts. There was a standard then, and 12-year-old kids were not necessarily the target audience (until The Backstreet Boys came around). Music was still music, not a product to be sold.

What was sad is that although there always were mall-music singles in any given point of pop history, a lot of artists were accused of "selling out." One example I can think of is the Red Hot Chili Peppers when Californication and By the Way found their place in the market in the early 21st century. "Too commercial," fans would say. Don't expect 40-year-olds to jump around and sing about crushing pussy like they used to. Besides, once you sign with a label, it's selling out no matter how you look at it. Trust me, I'm an engineer; the music biz is dirtier than you think.

Fast forward to present day, and I can't even distinguish singers from one another anymore, it's all robotized, "melodyned," "autotuned," and "vocodered" to the point where I have to keep traveling back in time to discover new music, regardless of genre. I know there are some bands out there that deserve recognition, like The Black Keys and such. However, they are a minority when in fact a song like "Hello Kitty" would have been a minority until around 15 years ago.

Lolz whatever, I'm bored 21st-century style of this ridiculous gossip-jabbering when we should be engaged in an all-out war against mediocrity. I guess I'll leave it to Avril to close this off with her reply to the "Hello Kitty" video being racist. Has anyone criticizing ever seen Japanese pop culture? Like, comment, ばか.