"For the Hate"
A popular hip-hop artist posts a video on their social media account, playing new music in the studio while wearing a considerable amount of jewelry. This elicits a wide variety of responses, mostly positive. However, the artist retweets a comment and responds to an internet troll with a snide remark and by proxy, unleashes his following upon the troll. Different versions of “hater” and other venomous comments are sent to the user, and we all believe that the offender got thier just due. The rapper later replies that they live to “shut the haters up.”
The previous example describes the last motivation – “for the hate.” It appears that our interconnectivity has made people more sensitive and more hardened at the same time. People give the perception that they are okay with positive and negative responses from the world. The negative attention shows up as a pushback from a popular position. Stars are built and then quickly torn down once something bad happens. It becomes the in-thing to hate on a subject. If it’s a company, then they may try to “lower the noise” by appeasing the detractors.
We’ve seen many athletes and entertainers feed off negative feedback to push themselves to higher levels.
Let’s look at some reasons that why hate is embraced within the culture. The older sneaker lovers tend to “hate” the new trends or re-constituted versions of shoes from the past. It reeks of a lack of creativity to make the next great shoe for a new era. As sports talk has chosen to “embrace debate,” we see talking heads taking angles that are so ridiculous that you could classify them as “hate.” The athletes can use that to gain pity from supporters. There are TV shows or movies that people “hate watch” so they have content and talking points on social media. The narratives that get built off hate creates a new wave of visibility in popular culture.
As people engage in different ways with culture, it can turn off people who have a longer stake in the game. Purists can be viewed as ‘haters’ when they feel the essence of why they got into sneakers has been altered. It has become more difficult to have a dissenting opinion about almost anything. Any critique can be considered hate, which stifles true opinion. People also use hate to create a false narrative of being right. They zig when others zag and perpetuate being ‘fake woke.’ People leverage the concept of hate as a currency that is comparable to fame. It’s a new phenomenon in this era of social media to keep an eye on.
I appreciate everyone who stopped by and checked out my thoughts regarding aspects of popular culture. I have had a lot of fun sharing my perspective and how I’ve experienced the changes. We looked at people engaging for the pure love. We observed why the fame and fortune are important. We also examined how embracing hate can be good for your brand. When you see things presenting to you in popular culture, understand that people/brands/companies are exploiting one of these levers to better their position within culture.
Until next time………
By: K Miles II