So what if it's 'too mainsteam'?

[IOwnTheSpire]

I watched a new lyric video released by the band Walk Off The Earth today, and in the comments are a lot of people complaining that the band is becoming 'too mainstream', a phrase I see often, and I'm fed up.

Seriously, all these people seem to care so much that their precious thing not appeal to the masses. Why is mainstream/popular a bad thing? To me, this is one of the problems with the hipster mentality: so many people are desperate to stand out that they've created a whole sub-culture, which kind of goes against this whole non-conformity thing people have.

It's okay to like what you like and whatnot, but people need to stop trying so hard to be different and just be themselves. You don't have to stop listening to that unknown band you like because you discover someone else likes them too. Being part of the majority isn't always a bad thing.

So... what do you guys think?

 

[Evonisia]

I imagine it's due to the common connection between being designed for mass appeal and being more simplistic or basic. Plus elitism, obviously, it always feel good to be part of the "better" group.

I do think that it's silly to stop listening to something on the principal of "they've become more mainstream".

That attitude also exists within the mainstream as well which is weird. Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift were both in the mainstream, and they managed to become even more mainstream with their later music, to much dismay from some fans.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

Ask hipsters.

They are the true expert in the area.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Well, 'the mainstream' is 'everyone', or 'the majority'. And if you make a movie/game/song that tries to appeal to everyone you risk the final product not having a real identity of its own.

That's different though from everyone simply taking a liking to something. Something isn't necessarily lame if it's liked by the majority, but it has a higher risk of ending up lame should it be designed to apeal to the majority.

Also, everyone likes to fancy themselves a rebel.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Also, everyone likes to fancy themselves a rebel.

If everyone's a rebel, fuck that noise.

I mean, look at how cool the leader is! I can blindly follow and defend him irrationally no matter what he does wrong!

 

[IndianaJonny]

Depends if the artist/band/whatever have tried to (or appeared to) make some capital specifically out of being 'indie'.

Case in point: Notch eventually selling Minecraft to Microsoft.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Plus elitism, obviously, it always feel good to be part of the "better" group.

This is probably a big part of it. How do you get to do the whole "you've probably never heard of them, they're not mainstream" thing to fluff up your ego when all of a sudden, the group is mainstream?

 

[Cowabungaa]

For music it's pretty simple. A band starts out with a very distinctive sound of it's own. The more popular they became they more they played it safe and created music that sounds like half of the Top 20 on the radio, which in turn alienates fans that loved them for their original sound. That I get.

That's what I usually refer to, yeah. And I don't blame them for it, mind you. I always liked a food analogy. Imagine you have to make a dish for 5 people. With just 5 people you can be relatively specific with your ingredients and flavour combinations, making it pretty distinctive and complex. Now do it for 5000 people, and you suddenly loose a lot of that common ground in flavours you can have with just 5 people. Gone is the distinctiveness, the complexity, sadly out of necessity to make everyone like their food.

And it's a little like that with everything. Honestly, I'm a pretty specific person with well-defined tastes, I think a lot about the media I consume and why I like what I like. Sometimes popular things are among those, but usually not. And I've noticed that people who don't at all have well-defined tastes, who never think about what they consume, often go with the common stuff. I must admit that such people often bore me, I can hardly talk with them outside of superficial chit-chat.

That's as far as my options on mainstream things go, I think.

 

[omega 616]

My only real gripe with stuff being too mainstream is when nobody will shut up about it, game of thrones is a perfect example... as a person who doesn't watch, I can't escape it.

If others want to miss out on stuff 'cos the mainstream like it, that is their loss, which is especially true if they used to like that thing but believe it's gone mainstream and no longer enjoy it.

 

[Zeraki]

I remember when Valve used 'Electric Worry' by Clutch to advertise Left 4 Dead 2 and people were bitching that the band suddenly got a bunch of new fans.

It's tribalism mostly.

 

[Nazulu]

Well, it depends. If 'mainstream' is being said because the artist lost something unique and become simplified to hell and back, then it's disappointing to the old fans who believe the bands done better before.

The most common use when seeing that response, but I have seen people just complain about it becoming more popular because it's more popular, which is just stupid.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Well, I'm not saying that hipsterism isn't usually bullshit, but I think it makes sense sometimes. Take this band, for example- Lower Than Atlantis:

Spoiler: Five years ago, they sounded like this.

Spoiler: Now they sound like fucking Ed Sheeran.

It's hard not to be cynical about it. It's not about getting more popular or even just being catchier, it's blatantly tailoring your sound for Radio 1.

In contrast, Mastodon put a load more pretty vocal melodies on Once More 'Round The Sun and it was a bit less heavy- Plenty of people said it was more mainstream- but it doesn't bother me. If Mastodon wanted to just make money they could make albums that sound like Crack The Skye forever, and it's not like OMRTS isn't a complex album either. They still sound like no one else and they're still pushing themselves musically (probably more, considering none of the band used to be able to sing well at all).

 

[Thaluikhain]

As mentioned, if the appeal was being different or original, getting rid of those differences in order to reach a wider audience can alienate lots of people.

For example, Call of Duty is very popular. So, to make my existing game franchise popular, I'll change it into Call of Duty. Now, that makes some logical sense, only, if people want to buy Call of Duty, there is a popular franchise called Call of Duty for them to buy instead of my franchise anyway.

Alternatively, when they take a popular franchise and tone down the gory or scary or violent bits so that a younger audience can watch it.

This is something people try doing a lot, and it often ends up as something that rhymes with...what's something that rhymes with "dismal failure"?

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

What? No one informed me that Walk of the Earth is now mainstream. Damnit. I used to enjoy listening to them, now everyone will judge me poorly for being a mindless mediocre, blindly following sheeperson. Wait, no...did I do that wrong?
Ok, it is more of a young teenage thing (or adult who hasn't surpassed any higher level of maturity) to hate mainstream entertainment, music mainly. There are good reasons for it of course, but they are rarely the reasons that fuel the youth. Sounds like you get a lot of angsty youth commenting on youtube. I daren't look as it's like looking down the toilet bowl when nobody flushed.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Well the general idea if a product/ band etc is too "mainstream" is the person saying that was supposely supported the product/ band etc from the very beginning. The crowd that then supported the product/ band etc when it became more popular don't really know the hardship the person had to endure when supporting it from the start.

I mean sure people should celebrate that there are more fandom toward the product/ band they loved but I can guess they prefer it more as a "private club" of some kind.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Then you're a filthy normie who is responsible for ruining the music industry.

EUGH! DON'T TOUCH ME OR MY VINYL RECORDS![footnote]I don't have any nor know of any bad-facial-hair hispters who do[/footnote]

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I imagine it's due to the common connection between being designed for mass appeal and being more simplistic or basic.

Basically this.

If something "caters to the masses" then it's seen as being so tame and afraid to take risks that it manages to appeal to the morass of people who are like "meh, I just want to vegetate for a bit"

It's this erroneous belief that for something to appeal to everyone it must be bland and not unique at all. Essentially that the only way for something to be worthwhile is as a niche thing that focuses only on doing one thing well.

Which isn't always true. Often, but not always.

 

[renegade7]

Well, if it's mainstream, I can't feel like I'm smarter, more knowledgeable, and more worldly by being the one to introduce it to you.

On the other hand, if it's not mainstream, then I can be the edgy rebel who stood up to what all the posers and sellouts tell you to think is good, while at the same time creating for myself the thrill (however imaginary) of discovering something new. In so doing, I fulfill a deeply-rooted need to feel important.

Being serious, there's a kernel of truth to being frustrated when a product goes from targeting a small, niche audience to targeting a larger one. With the music industry specifically, it comes down to the demands of studios and record labels. The fact is that if you're going to be a career musician, you need the money, and that's true whether you're an upstart indie garage band or a classical violinist fresh out of Julliard. At a certain point, living off the revenue from show to show just can't cut it anymore, so you need to court a label, but the labels are a business and that means that they're not as willing to risk money on experimental styles of music, they want you to do what they know sells.

This inevitably means that a few people who were attracted to the originality of the group might end up disappointed because they're no longer the target audience.

And that applies to every industry. As your market increases in size, your overhead increases, and as a result your ability to take risks decreases because of the risk of losing more money. We see this in video games too, with the largest companies having little variability in the games they produce year to year. And we've also seen some of the same frustrations, with some people feeling disillusioned that the industry is in some ways becoming more casual and mass-market-friendly to the exclusion of some things that have always been appealing to them.

 

[happyninja42]

I watched a new lyric video released by the band Walk Off The Earth today, and in the comments are a lot of people complaining that the band is becoming 'too mainstream', a phrase I see often, and I'm fed up.

Seriously, all these people seem to care so much that their precious thing not appeal to the masses. Why is mainstream/popular a bad thing? To me, this is one of the problems with the hipster mentality: so many people are desperate to stand out that they've created a whole sub-culture, which kind of goes against this whole non-conformity thing people have.

Bolded for emphasis. This is not a hipster-specific trait. This has been going on very every genre of music. In the 90's, (which is when I experienced this the most) it was happening with the Grunge scene. Later it was with bands like TOOL and 311, as they became more popular. It's just something fans do. They don't like seeing people say they like something too, if they feel the group isn't the right group for it. They didn't like them from the start, and thus they are unworthy to like this band. The other side of this, is that the quality of music from a band can significantly change when they become "radio friendly". My personal example of this would be 311. I loved the hell out of those guys, and followed them on tour for an entire summer. It was great. But then, around their 3rd album, (the blue one), the music style changed a lot. It wasn't as good (in my opinion), but it had a lot more songs that were getting airplay on the radio. They had become "popular". And personally, I didn't like them much anymore. I didn't rant and rave, and ***** at anyone who did. I just stopped buying their stuff, and stopped seeing their concerts. But I also understand that no band stays the same over time. The members age, get wiser, and change, and this is reflected in their music. Hell I'm not the same person I was in my teens, and I can barely listen to the music I did back then, because I'm just not in the same mental place I was back then. So I don't mind if bands change over time.

The part that really puzzles me, is when they get mad at bands for being popular enough to make a living at this, or getting mad at people for learning about the band through some promotional thing. A perfect example here:


This song, by If These Trees Could Talk. It's fucking awesome. I never heard of it until I saw this trailer for inFamous, and I loved it. It had this awesome rock flavor to it, with a hint of longing that just really struck a chord with me. So I looked them up directly, and the posts in the youtube channel were LOADED with haters about those who came to know of the band by the commercial. And all I can say is:
"Do you think the band gives a shit where you heard of them? They want to be known and listened to. The promotion got them tons of more fans, who likely bought their music, which supports the band. So you can bet that the band is happy as hell that they were approached by Sucker Punch to get some new fans. So why are you bitching then? If the band themselves are happy with this? Shut the hell up."

Fans are weird, just disregard them.