[me] Judgments

Ok I am ON FIRE right now, thus the topic of this rant. I haven't done this in a while, so give me a minute to dust off my shoes.

So I was talking to a friend today about musical preferences. She tried (and desperately failed) to convince me that Lady Gaga is original and deserves the extensive accolades she receives. So I addressed that claim as it should've been addressed, in 2 parts.

1) Lady Gaga is this generation's Madonna. Notice how I said "this generation"? That was intentional, because, unfortunately for me, Generation Y as a whole is significantly more superficial and lacks the attention span to dig deeper into ANYTHING, be it music, politics, or society. Lady Gaga's clothing choices and song lyrics cater to this type of individual. Now let's talk about this Madonna thing. Let me just say that I am NOT a Madonna fan. I don't love her voice or her style or her song lyrics, but I cannot deny the fact that Madonna is raw and Madonna is honest and Madonna has a purpose and a plan behind everything she does. I know Lady Gaga has spoken openly and often about how she's "doing it for the gays" but I have yet to see her do anything truly significant for the cause. Yes, she's had a lipstick for the MAC AIDS Fund that donated her profits, but Nicki Minaj has a lipstick at MAC. So let's not act like she's curing cancer here.
2) Lady Gaga's voice and song lyrics are nothing more than mediocre. A typical bridge in a Gaga tune goes something like this "Stop telephonin' me. I'm busy. Stop telephonin' me. Call all you want but there's no one home and you're not gonna reach my telephone. Out in the club and I'm sipping that bubb and you're not gonna reach my telephone." Prolific. Profound. I see why she has so many fans on Facebook (because that's the ultimate test of popularity/importance). Now to her voice. Yes, she can hit her notes, but they aren't amazing. She doesn't have an abnormally expansive range, as compared to Beyonce, P!nk, or Xtina. *

*Despite her rebuttal, I won this fight.

But now to our next point. A different friend is writing a story about a school official that is misunderstood, to say the least. Many students find the man rude and abrupt, but others don't like him simply because a) he is an authority figure and b) everyone else hates him. So I began reading a bit of her story on him, and somewhere between finding out about his 2 year old child who died in his arms of a virus and his devout faith in Christianity, I realized you can't judge a book by its cover. After understanding a little more about who he was and what he went through as a person, I couldn't help but feel for him. So if he wants to get adament with a couple of snarky teenagers who parade around the halls with a chip on their shoulders oblivious to reality, I approve of that. In fact, I wholeheartedly applaud him.

My "friend", beyond disagreeing with me, refused to acknowledge the validity of any of my points (which I absolutely HATE) and continued to express her hatred for him.

I don't care what happened, there is never a justified reason to hate anyBODY (hating an inanimate object like food is okay because neither the food nor you is hurt by the hatred). Beyond the fact that it's excessive, it only hurts the person doing the hating. And perhaps I care too much about people in general to let any one person, let alone a friend, do that to themselves. In essence, you cannot hurt anyone besides yourself when you use hate to express an emotion.

So now about judging. When is it appropriate, and when is it not? I believe that judging a person for the product they create is very different from judging the actual person. I can hate Lady Gaga, Madonna, and whoever else I please's MUSIC, because they are artists and can be judged on their art. I cannot say, however, that I hate Lady Gaga or Madonna as people because I've a) never met them, b) never got to know them, and c) cannot make an educated desicion about them without knowing everything about them, including their innermost thoughts and desires (which, as of now, is impossible.....for everyone but me, of course). Judging OTHERS only reflects on you, and if you do that consciously without remorse, you're absolutely pathetic. You're close-minded, shut off, and just plain screwed and I'd prefer not to associate with that hollow, black-hole of a person like you in the future.





Judging ain't so pretty when someone's doing it to you, eh? So stop.
Camille