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On Radical Music Fandom

Over winter break, I met up with a couple of my friends from my high school newspaper over coffee, catching up on the latest in our lives and what we’d been up to in college.

We talked in particular about the famous “angry internet commenter” types all of us have seen on sites across the internet. While doing so, we came up with an idea for a future column I could potentially write: how Donald Trump and Lana Del Rey are similar.

On the surface, it was a silly idea meant to provoke both the far-right reactionary commenter base and the left-wing, young Tumblr-bred crowd, invoking the names of two of the most-frequently defended people on the internet. And it wasn’t meant to be especially provocative— I saw it as more silly and harmless than anything else— but from the way people reacted, it seemed like I dropped a bombshell.

I’m not one to intentionally make people angry. When I say something deliberately provocative, I say it because I think people can handle my snark, knowing it’s largely tongue-in-cheek in nature.

What I didn’t count on was just how many people I could anger with lightheartedly comparing the pop singer to a leading presidential candidate. Before this article I hardly had any comments or reactions on my articles at all. With this one, I received dozens of angry responses through comments, emails, tweets, and Facebook messages, calling me a terrible journalist, a horrible person, and telling me to quit while I’m ahead.

And these weren’t the stereotypical “Donald Trump white supremacist” type— the people sending these messages were young music fans, like you and me.

One American poet once called music “the universal language of mankind.” So let’s be clear about this once and for all: that’s just not true. People have different tastes, different preferences, and they’ve always been in a constant state of argument and agreement over them.

As much as we’d like to think otherwise, we’re not all defined by our favorite bands. We like to define ourselves by them by telling new people we meet about the concerts we’ve been to or showing off our favorite band t-shirts, but we all have lives beyond them anyway.

And, as such, we shouldn’t take personal offense when someone says something you don’t like about your favorite artist. I’m not the biggest Lana Del Rey fan, but plenty of my friends are. I don’t think less of them because of that, though, because we’re defined as more than just our favorite music.

The internet has bred a new kind of fandom, one centered on near-fanatic public obsession with one’s favorite artists, and a lynchmob-esque culture of hate towards those that the hivemind disapproves of. Look at any mainstream pop culture site’s pieces on Kanye West, and you’ll see a lot more negativity towards the artist and his fans than otherwise.

Social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Reddit that provide incentives to users for posting content that others approve has only fueled this culture. This has created an environment for music discussion that rewards people for hating artists like Nickelback and showing affection for, well, Lana Del Rey.

And when someone breaks from that crowd, all hell breaks loose.

My column wasn’t meant as a social experiment or barometer of any kind, but in retrospect, it’s become one to me. It’s proven my theory: some people will take offense when you present any critique of an artist one likes, taking it as a personal insult and going full-out crazy at the critic in question for daring to challenge their beliefs.

Like any other music fan, I defend my favorite artists to people that critique them. And that’s not wrong; that’s normal music discussion. But when you start criticizing people for their opinions on music, you’re just promoting divisiveness. I don’t think Lana would want her fans insulting random student journalists for writing a researched critique of her.

I love music and talking music with people because it has the power to unify. So let’s not let it divide us— let’s promote the togetherness that music can give us, and not stand behind combative fandoms in viciously defending the music we love to no end. Music’s a subjective medium, after all; people’s opinions differ, and so should yours.

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Keep the JEWISH in JEWISH CHRISTMAS

Is it February? Yes. Luckily, one of the great features of Tumblr is not having editorial standards to abide by, so I can write something on an outdated story and not have someone telling me “I don’t know how great of an idea it is to write an article about Christmas in February.”

(shout out to my great editors at the Daily Orange)

Even though I was born Jewish, raised Jewish, and surrounded by Jewish for all 20 years of my life, I feel I still have a pretty good understanding of certain aspects of Christian culture. One of them is the “Keep Christ in Christmas” movement, a bumper sticker-friendly catchphrase that’s just another way of saying “don’t turn one of our most important holidays into a corporate wet dream.” Some of my similarly secular/non-Christian friends oppose this because some people think any movement protecting the religious right is inherently bad, but I’m personally all for it.

On the Jewish end of things, American Jews have embraced their own holiday they like to call “Jewish Christmas” (admittedly a slight appropriation of the holiday as well, but, hey, we’re a minority-- who cares). The holiday consists of three main tenets: going to the movies, eating Chinese food, and letting ourselves do our own thing while 83% of the rest of America celebrates their holiday.

This year, though, I noticed a disturbing trend: an overlap of sorts, between “Jewish Christmas” and “Christmas Christmas,” has emerged. Gone are the days of spying on the Goldenbaums from across the room at your local China Garden, wondering whether they’re more a Revenant or Sisters type of family.

In the same way that the Christian holiday has been turned into a cultural event, this Jewish cultural event has been turned into-- well, I guess a Christian cultural event too.

Keep the Jewish in Jewish Christmas, Trademark that shit.

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Day 0 - Brett Goes Rose Gold

About four years ago, I retired my two-year-old Samsung Intensity from everyday use. 

For those unfamiliar with late-oughts messaging phones, the intensity was a pill-shaped phone with a number pad underneath a 2-inch LCD screen, with a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard for texting.

For reference: 

Though the smartphone craze had already begun to sweep over the wealthy masses at Livingston’s Heritage Middle School, I was stuck without a data plan, and therefore restricted to non-smartphones.

In 2012, however, I got my wish; my dad decided it was a fine time for me to upgrade to a smartphone-- as long as it was free. I scoured the web for deals on phones, finding $0 Verizon phones like the DROID Incredible, Xperia Play, and the Palm Pre 2. Through meticulous research, I finally settled on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Google’s third iteration in its flagship Nexus line, and what most Android nerds agreed was the “purest” non-iOS smartphone experience.

I loved my Galaxy Nexus. And boy, did I flaunt that thing.

After over a year and a half of initial Android fanboy training, my family switched from Verizon to T-Mobile in January 2014. Away from the restrictions of Verizon’s smartphone options, I chose to continue the Android purist’s way of life and get a Nexus 5 on one of T-Mobile’s two-year payment plan.

Between my Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 5, I’ve gotten close to four years now of experience with Android. And despite minor issues, complaints, and factory resets here and there, I’ve been pretty satisfied with my time on both phones.

But with the new year, I’m trying something new: I’m getting an iPhone.

I was inspired to do this last summer. My sister, an iPhone 5S owner, heard me telling my youngest sister why she shouldn’t bother switching to iPhone from her Nexus 5. “How can you even say this stuff about iPhone if you haven’t had an Apple device since your iPod Touch?”

And, well, she had a point. My personal impressions of iOS were based on a non-smartphone device I got five years ago and ruined in a few months with stupid modifications. I enjoyed iOS on there, though, but I felt held down by the operating system, which helped motivate me to give Android a try.

But Apple’s become a much different company since 2010. Besides the obvious (Steve Jobs dying sticks out), a lot of people tell me that the iPhone of 2015/16 is nothing like the iPhone of 2010.

Starting this month, I’m using a rose gold iPhone 6S as my daily driver for a full week.

With caveats, of course. For one, the iPhone I’m getting will become my sister’s after a week of me using it, leaving me a week to use it and customize it to my liking, and get acquainted with iOS as it stands today, to make my final decision on whether it’s worth sticking with or not.

For every day of that week I will post impressions and experiences I’ve had, and by the end I’ll make the ultimate decision-- to switch, or not to switch?

A few thoughts I have heading in:

Screen size: at 4.7 inches, the size of the iPhone 6S’s screen is smaller than my Nexus 5′s and about the same as my Galaxy Nexus’s. I’m curious whether or not I’ll miss the extra real estate

Modifications: modding my phone isn’t as necessary as it used to be for me. As I’ve gotten older I’ve appreciated default software on my phones a lot more, and stopped rooting (jailbreaking an Android phone) my Nexus 5 altogether with my last reset. Besides using Nova Launcher on my phone to give me extra width and move a few extra things around, I don’t have any modifications on my phone anymore. I’m curious as to what I’ve taken for granted on Android (custom default apps, for example) that I’ll miss when I try iOS, though.

Camera: I’m sick of my phone taking mediocre pictures. It’s hard arguing with the fact that Apple makes the most consistently fantastic smartphone cameras out there. I’m excited to have that to mess around with.

Battery: My Nexus’s battery has always been mediocre, but it’s taken a steep dropoff lately as it’s neared the two-year mark. (The conspiracy theorist in me thinks this might be intentional.) Seeing my friends with even the oldest iPhones with devices that run all day makes me jealous, and I’m eager to see what it’s like to have a phone that won’t die by lunchtime on a regular day.

Texting/messaging: I’ve figured out recently that the only reason all my friends exclusively use Facebook Messenger to talk to me is because I don’t have an iPhone. I think iMessage is possibly the iPhone’s greatest selling point: it’s a messaging app disguised as a texting app that makes it ridiculously inconvenient to use with anybody that isn’t using iMessage. The “green bubble” mentality is real. But I’ve heard so many nice things about iMessage that maybe I won’t have trouble putting Facebook Messenger to rest after all. Maybe life as a blue bubble really is better.

As I’ve become more and more of an average phone consumer, I’ve realized that the little things I’ve argued that are “wrong” with iPhones aren’t really as big as I thought they were. There’s a recent idea that the smartphone has now “matured,” since the technology is now evolving at a slower pace than ever. Will the iPhone 6S really feel that much better than my aging Nexus 5? Are iOS and Android even that different from each other anymore? Is the “smartphone war” even still a thing?

It’s 2016, and I’m going rose gold-- and hell, maybe I’ll stick with it, too.

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white culture is SO 2002

Since I began my tenure at The Daily Orange this fall as music columnist, I’ve been telling people I wouldn’t start taking my position too seriously until I started getting critical comments on my articles.

Well, under that logic, I guess I’ve made it.

This week I wrote a short, fast reaction-style post in response to the announcement of Luke Bryan performing at The Carrier Dome this coming spring. The content boiled down to “I can’t get excited about this show because I’m not in the target audience and don’t relate to the themes of bro-country,” but to be perfectly honest I wrote it realizing I might (hopefully) rile up a few opinionated country music fan readers. Which is fine-- the last sentence of the article was “I don’t hate people that like country music, nor do I wish it would go away or anything like that. I’m just not into country,” which I threw in as a last minute attempt at saving my own ass.

Though it got cut from the final version of the post, my original draft of this had a line about “Being a Jewish kid born and raised in the suburbs of northern New Jersey” keeping me from caring much for country.

With all this in play, though, imagine my surprise/shock/delight at seeing this comment on the article!

Unless this guy went to look for my Twitter account and saw the “jersey boy. jew. gem.” filling my bio section (which I’m rather proud of), I’m guessing he inferred I was Jewish from my moderately Jewish-sounding last name. (The hyphenation doesn’t help my case much.) So he used that, along with the assumption that I’m college-aged liberal scum from the fact that I bothered to say I don’t like country music, to make a one-sentence internet comment profile about me.

So, Mr. College Newspaper Website Commenter, you’ve got me down pat. I’m a white man, just like you! And my sole purpose on this website/campus/earth is to tell you-- you non-Jewish, goy scum-- how wrong you are about your tastes, how utterly wrong you are in every aspect in your life, and how you might as well be living in a world from thirteen years ago where everything was still white and happy and stuff.

As a columnist for a small but (somewhat) tangible audience, I don’t look to write about music to make people angry or to change their tastes or preferences in any way. I write to share my own takes on my favorite entertainment medium, to give one perspective from a campus of thousands, and to maybe better inform people to events, issues, and other things worth keeping track of. But I’m hardly here to tell anyone that they’re wrong for liking anything-- I’d say I try to do the complete opposite, if anything!

So in the spirit of this guy profiling me off of one <400 word article he read, I’ll do something similar with him to try to maybe better understand his point of view:

Maybe he Googled “luke bryan syracuse,” found my article, and, reading it quickly, only assumed I was some dumb suburban kid that didn’t know jack about his favorite singer. Maybe this guy felt like making a mini-rant about how sick he is of “political correctness” these days taking away our opportunities to talk about our lost American values. Maybe he saw my name in the headline and felt like spreading some good-old-fashioned Jew hate. I don’t know.

What I do know: I’m a walking, talking liberal Jewish stereotype, according to some random college newspaper reader.

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Oscars 2015 - The Day After

As you may or may not have noticed, the Oscars happened last night. Some movies and actors won, some movies and actors lost, and plenty of the rest of us are talking a pretty good amount about them today. I figured I'd take a stab at looking back at the ridiculousness and sticking in a few thoughts of my own.

Beginning with last year, I decided before and after the Oscars to actively search out and watch films nominated for the good awards. Basically, I wanted more to say about my predictions and thoughts on each winner besides "Oh, I heard he/she/it was pretty good." I had seen every Best Picture nominee by the end of January and every screenplay nominee sans Foxcatcher by the time of the ceremony, so for the first time, I felt adequately prepared to comment and critique the entire ceremony. It was a somewhat ambitious goal, but thanks to tools like Letterboxd, IMDb, and a few really passionate friends to guide me along the way, I more or less got to where I hoped to be by February 22nd.

Firstly, this was probably the first year in recent memory that my favorite film of the year won the award for Best Picture. Birdman narrowly beat Boyhood on my final rankings of the films of 2014, so naturally, I was more than satisfied with its victory on Sunday night. The cynic in me, though, is pretty certain that this victory was nothing more than the result of months of campaigning, and Hollywood people inevitably voting for a movie they see as about themselves (see The Artist, Argo, et al.) Boyhood may in all likelihood be the film taught in college courses and studied for centuries to come. The simpler, subtler films with heftier ambitions unrecognized by The Academy at the time have had a stellar track record with future critics and analysts, and I have no doubt that Linklater's film will do just as well.

And we had quite the racially-charged Oscars this year, huh? From the nominations to the ceremony itself, racial politics was everywhere this year. Selma, having only received two nominations despite its near-universal critical acclaim (Best Picture and Best Original Song, since I guess "Glory" really carried the whole film on its own), received an unusual amount of attention at the ceremony last night. The performance of "Glory" by John Legend and Common was one of the biggest Oscar musical spectacles I can remember this side of "Jai Ho". And sure, I didn't really want or expect Selma to win Best Picture. But seeing every other Best Picture nominee recognized for achievements in film production and performance, while it walked away with an award for a song played over the film's credits (though a pretty damn good song) does reasonably make one wonder about the Academy and their voting habits.

But, hey, my favorite movie won Best Picture! Heck, even Whiplash walked away with three awards! Sure, the Oscars are still far from perfect, and British World War II Biopic #41523 walked away with the award for Adapted Screenplay, but this was also a year where five of the eight Best Picture nominees were independent; as far as I can tell, that's the first time that's happened in the era of big studios and production companies. The Academy might be at its old habits as always-- but, hey, it's progress, right?

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Campus In-Activism: A Culture of Apathy at Syracuse University

Seeing my beloved Syracuse University in the news has been a point of pride for me in my few months on-campus. Recently, our district’s closely-contested Congressional race between Dan Maffei and John Katko made national news, bringing visits from Joe Biden (SU alum!) and Bill Clinton to the area. As a city, Syracuse might be relatively isolated— four hours from New York City, four hours from Toronto, two and half hours from Buffalo— so anything of note happening around here can be pretty exciting.

As I began to walk back from my sociology class this past Monday, I noticed a group of students gathered near the steps of Hendricks Chapel (the religious and activist up of SU’s main campus). Figuring I had the next half hour or so to burn, I thought, hey, what better way to spend some free time than with a good old fashioned campus rally? A series of speakers came to speak on the steps, discussing issues on campus from the closing of the Sexual Advocacy Center and reduction of on-campus mental and psychological care, to reduced funding for scholarships and lack of student input on changes like these. Signs were interspersed among the crowd, with messages like “IS THIS A COLLEGE OR A CORPORATION?” or “BRING DEMOCRACY BACK TO SU!” My dream of seeing active, passionate college students fighting for what they believe in finally came true.

This group of students that gathered after the chapel, after I had left the rally to go to work, had marched together to Chancellor Kent Syverud’s office to wait for his arrival and agreement to their 40+ page list of demands. Finally, it seemed, Syracuse University could unite over an issue other than partying.

I returned to sociology class, eager to hear what my passionate and politically-active professor would have to say about the situation with this group of students. Indeed, it was the first topic of discussion on Wednesday, but in discussing it, the room was unusually quiet. One student claimed they had no idea about the rally or building occupation because, “Nobody told me this was happening.” Yet this group was standing in front of the main campus’s quad for much of the afternoon, made repeated posts on class Facebook groups, and were prominently featured in multiple sections of our school newspaper, The Daily Orange.

My professor took a quick poll of the class, and just me and three other students claimed to read The Daily Orange at least a few times per week.

So I brought up an interesting theory: so few people knew about the rally and building occupation both before and during its proceedings, and the SU student body, generally speaking, was completely unaware of their cause, because students chose to stay uninformed.

Both my professor and a classmate (a senior, and a regular contributor to the Daily Orange) agreed that Syracuse University has “one of the most apathetic student bodies.” My professor, having gone through UC Berkeley with daily rallies and near monthly occupations, was severely disappointed to see just how few students really cared about these issues.

While it’s only been just over two months since I’ve begun my studies at SU, I feel I can safely say that any and all stereotypes about Syracuse University have continually proven true to me. The “#1 Party School” ranking that came out this past summer was quickly dismissed by many affiliated with the school, but, truthfully, I can’t see any reason how this representation is the least bit inaccurate. A lazy student body? I can personally attest to this being true. And the culture of apathy supposedly running rampant among our student body? Absolutely true.

Students here often have no desire to inform themselves on current events, despite the school’s reputation in journalism and communications. The complimentary New York Times and USA Today in every campus building are only picked up by Newhouse students with no interest in current events, who are usually cramming for quizzes by scanning the headlines in the five minutes before class. On Election Day this past Tuesday, my dining hall was not showing primetime election coverage— they showed ESPN and Untold Stories from the ER. (On mute.) I had more than a few responses to my question of “did you send in an absentee ballot” with “what’s that?” In a city so heavily surrounded by pressing political issues, it’s appalling to me to see so few students actually interested in those issues.

Want to know what unites Syracuse students? Partying. When pre-game party venue Castle Court was shut down this past August, the outrage was overwhelming: videos, hashtags, and loud disagreement was everywhere, to the point where it became laughable. You don’t get the SU student body’s attention with issues like scholarship cuts, health care cuts, and sexual discrimination— you get their attention by taking away their parties.

Whether you’re in favor of Syverud’s changes or against them, it’s an objective fact that Syracuse students simply don’t care enough. Everyone else is right; we are, more or less, a group of jappy, alcoholic, lazy assholes. For this to change would mean a fundamental shift of our campus’s culture. Or, shutting down more parties, I guess.

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Congrats on the Senate win, Republicans... but enough with the "referendum" bullshit

Here's a Civics 101 lesson for you all:

The federal government has three branches. There's the judicial, which is led by the Supreme Court. There's the executive, which is headed by the office of the President. And there's the legislative, which has the two houses of Congress in the House of Representatives and Senate.

Hey, notice that the President and Congress are different things? Oh yeah, and we've got a Democrat in the White House and a Republican majority in Congress!

So obviously, since the President hasn't been elected in two years and the country clearly voted in favor of Republicans tonight, combined with the President's low-to-mid-40s approval rating, this country's sick of Obama's socialist leadership! The American People are tired of inaction on hot topics like Ebola and ISIS and unemployment by this backwards administration! Right?

Well, not exactly. Sure, the Senate flipping Republican is a huge deal for the next two years of legislation, and any future that issues like public health care or immigration reform hold on a national level will change dramatically for the next two years because of this.

But here's something way too many news outlets are ignoring-- in fact, the only one I've seen to even mention it was a guest correspondent on Stephen Colbert's live election coverage tonight. It's that no two-plus-term President in the last 100 years has gained seats in the Senate for his party in his 6th-year midterm elections. Ronald Reagan, the conservative hero himself, went into his midterm election night with a 64% Gallup approval rating, but the Republican Party still went on to lose eight red seats that night. Even FDR, who was a popular enough guy to get elected four times, lost Democratic seats in his second and third midterm elections, with seven and eight flipped seats, respectively.

So, compared to history, Obama's Democrats losing eight net Democratic incumbents to the GOP doesn't seem too out of the ordinary, right?

So enough with your "referendum" bullshit, Republicans. The President's approval might be low right now, but Congress is sitting at around a 13% estimated average approval, per RealClearPolitics's estimations. Your new leadership has been pushing these great new ideas like "eliminating gridlock" and "putting this country on the right track," but in reality, nothing's going to change. No Republican candidate is going to come into the 2016 election and proclaim, "These last two years of a Republican Congress have been so productive with President Obama's bipartisan leadership!" No, they're going to want more. In 2016, you'll have a Republican Party hungry for more.

So, guess what, America? This next two years will be pretty damn unproductive. President Obama, the lame duck that he is, will push on with executive orders fearlessly. And both parties will get fired up. Both parties will complain about the "gridlock" and "lack of bipartisan leadership" that's plagued these awful Obama years. And it's pretty safe to assume that you'll have a pretty exciting election year.

To say the Republican gains today are a "referendum" on Obama or the prospects of another Democrat President two years before that election is like declaring Hillary Clinton's universally decisive lead over any Republican challenger in today's polls a certainty for 2016. Two years ago, Barack Obama was elected to his second term as President by a clear margin-- and, two years before that, his party lost 63 House seats and 6 Senate seats. Two years is a long time, and far too early to declare anything a "certainty". Republicans can walk home with their victory today, but 2016 has Republican Senate seats in Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin up for grabs-- not to mention, the presidency. 

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The biggest problem with gaming that (nearly) nobody is talking about-- yeah, you probably guessed it

If you count the nearly-unreadable game reviews and opinion pieces I made at the age of thirteen as legitimate writing, then I guess you could say I've been doing what some people call "gaming journalism" (I hate that phrase) for about five years now, on and off. In that time I've experienced games with themes from suicide to afterlife, birth to death, war to utopia, passion to emotional disconnect. Once in a while, I'd run into a game with a female protagonist or romantic/sexual partner thrown in either as an afterthought or just a simple plot device.

When I've been asked what I think the biggest issues plaguing the gaming industry are at the moment in the past, I've usually said, "shallow themes," "too many shooters," "too much focus on adrenaline-driven violence," no gripping story," or concerns along those lines. And while I still agree that these all remain legitimate concerns for the future of gaming, one that's been relatively ignored until recently is-- yup, you guessed it-- misogyny.

I understand that talking about gender issues on Tumblr is the journalistic equivalent to offering free beer to a group of Syracuse University freshmen, but contrary to what some groups on various media outlets might have you thinking, it's possibly one of the most pressing social issues of our time. As a straight, white, upper-middle-class male in America attending one of the most expensive educational institutions in the nation, I'll admit I might not be the ideal voice to speak out on the issue. I'm not trying to be Macklemore here. As someone familiar with all the tropes and repeated stereotypes in video games, though, I feel I'm as qualified as any to call out the AAA gaming industry for not taking more action on this issue.

I'm sick of playing a so-called "mindless" games like Grand Theft Auto and being forced into story plots involving women exclusively in roles of prostitution and/or as sex objects. Excusing such writing as the "nature" of such simple stories is a lazy excuse for this. I'm no expert story writer or anything, but I'm sure it's not that difficult to make a game about stealing cars and running over people for fun without sticking scantily-clad women in along the way.

As Adi Robertson of The Verge put it in her editorial that was, admittedly, a pretty big inspiration for writing this, "I want AAA games... to change because I love them, and I want to be able to keep loving them. I want to be a character in my own escapist fantasy, not a prop in somebody else’s." Gaming has become one of the greatest escapes of this generation. If we want gaming to reflect the modern, increasingly progressive culture around us, why not update it to do exactly that?

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Welcome to Weiser-Schlesinger Writes!

Hey, everyone. I'm Brett. I already have a Tumblr set up for general matters (weiserschlesinger.tumblr.com, if you will), but I wanted a separate account set up for long rants, reviews, think pieces, and longform writing. I'll post things as I write them.

Hope somebody's reading.