A Note on Negative Feedback

I've seen a lot of anger from fans lately about bad reviews, incorrect articles in the media, and unfounded insults in the comments sections.

Here's an analogy about why I don't let bad publicity and negative feedback about my favorite band bother me so much:

We were in New Haven, CT, some time in the early afternoon during the Musical Ride tour. My friends and I were sitting on the sidewalk with 50 or so other people, all waiting in line for the show later that night. We got plenty of the usual "What are you guys in line for?" "Hanson? Like MMMBop Hanson?" "Who?" "Is it sold out?" etc. We answered quickly, budged people along, and didn't bother arguing with every single person that gave us weird looks, because who wants to spend all of their free time arguing with the kind of people that give you weird looks anyway? Then all of a sudden, this girl in a banana suit walks up. True story. We're minding our own business, it's the middle of the day and weeks away from Halloween, and this girl wanders up all alone, completely wasted, wearing a giant banana. (It was the Yale campus. I don't know if that explains anything in this situation). And do you know what she says?

"OH MY GOD! Are you guys seriously sitting out here for Hanson?" She added a maniacal laugh and sounded as condescending as one possibly can while drunk in a banana suit.

So my friends and I looked at each other, and I said what I know we were all thinking:

"OH MY GOD! Are you seriously wearing a giant banana?"

/end scene.

There will always be the hecklers wanting to know what on God's green earth would make someone sit on a sidewalk for hours and wait for a band whose most negative attribute they can come up with is the fact that they were teenagers 15 years ago. And lately, there's been an influx of cookie-cutter poorly researched articles from various media outlets, labeling Hanson as "one-hit-wonders" and citing the "comeback" we inevitably read about with every new album release. They use apostrophe's to pluralize words (see what I did there?), they spell names wrong, and sometimes they just make crap up because it's easier than doing any research. And the reader comments? I can't even begin to tackle the level of crazy inaccurate insults that happen there. Plenty are just trolling for a reaction anyway.

There are a few ways to respond. You can read every single one of them and get really riled up and head a small online lynch mob to berate them with equally bad insults. You can go all Rodney Dangerfield and feel victimized and misunderstood and like nobody gives your favorite band the respect they deserve.

Or you can remember that you need only take the opinion of a drunken banana so seriously.


*Disclaimer- I'm talking specifically about the type of insult/article that is factually incorrect or without background research. If you've listened to the newer music and dislike it for reasons other than hair length/color, age, and what you thought in the 6th grade, I can totally respect that opinion.