Op-Ed Piece: Hateful Behavior of Older Classic Rock Fans I See on Facebook

I've been doing Young Ears, Fresh Perspective for a while now. I think this May will make three full years since I started writing this blog on a regular basis. Over that amount of time I have frequently gone back to the same few sources to get my news for me to write about - usually the Facebook pages of some well known and reputable classic rock and metal publications. Naturally that affords me the opportunity to peer over the comments section of each article posted. Often times what I see quite frankly appalls me.

Now I know what you're going to say: "But Josh, of course the comments section is full of garbage!". Be that as it may, some of the things said still kind of make me shake my head. For example, whenever a rockstar/band expresses their views on something political many people (usually old stuck in their backwards mindset conservatives who somehow like the most rebellious form of music there is) will say things like: "Oh, these guys are just a bunch of whiny pussy babies! They should just stick to entertaining and not bother us with their views!" or "These guys suck!". The insults just keep coming and coming.

In terms of rockstars expressing their political views via spoken word or often times song, people who make the awful comments that I mentioned above are exactly why we need the rockstars and people with a soapbox to say something. Rock n' roll is all about speaking up for those who don't have a voice (or at least not much of one in the grand scheme of things) and speaking out against such backwards and hateful mind sets.

Rock n' roll has been one of the major forces in speaking out against political tyranny since the 60's, which is something you would think a lot of these people would remember. I don't seem to recall anyone of the generation who loved the Beatles - one of the HUGEST protesting bands of the late 60's - calling them a bunch of whiny leftist fags who need to go to their safe space. In addition, just because you disagree with a rockstar's political views it doesn't mean that they suck as a performer or writer. You just don't see eye to eye and that's ok.

I just find it a shame that even in the 21st century so much of our nation still has such a hateful, cruel, and backwards mind set that leads them to doing and saying such nasty things. We ALL need to learn a bit more peace and love and practice a lot less bigotry and cruelty towards one another. That includes the things we say on the internet. Until that day however, I will support every rockstar (whether I'm a fan or not) who wants to speak their mind to promote the good things we need to be focused on right now as well as expressing how many people feel about the not so good. We're entering a new dark era where we're going to need all of the light we can get.