Musical "White-Knighting"

Like, for genres of music instead of women.

Does anyone do this? Defend a genre they don't like, for the sake of protecting its fans from elitists and bullies?

I try to keep my nose out of other people's business, but I've found myself doing this anyway on occasion. I kind of think maybe I shouldn't, just to avoid the conflict (let people deal with their own problems).

Have you ever found yourself sticking up for an musical form when someone claimed it had no artistic merit?

edited 29th Nov '13 10:06:45 AM by Alucard

I've defended hip-hop in the past, even though I don't listen to it. It's a completely alien experience to me but I find that it's interesting and has a lot of nifty internal logic and songwriting approaches of its own.

edited 29th Nov '13 11:50:29 AM by StillbirthMachine

Yeah, I did it once that I can recall. Someone posted an article criticizing Trap Music (specifically the instrumental variety) and a bunch of posters, myself included, jumped all over it for its poor reasoning and snobby tone. And none of us liked trap.

Although our objections had to do with the original critic focusing on politics and not even touching on trap as music. If the argument had been "trap is terrible music" then we wouldn't have disagreed enough to respond—instead the argument was "instrumental trap is bad because it's cultural appropriation" which set off all our BS detectors.

I have defended country and rap music even though they are not my favourite genres. I cited the few songs that I liked from the genres and explained the huge diversity in the genres and said you cannot write off a whole genre of music because of a few bad songs/bands.

I listen to rap only sporadically, and even then only to a few artists, but I've defended it numerous times from people who seem to think it's all superficial garbage.

I can't say I'm a massive Dub Step fan, although I am by no means adverse to it, but people who criticise the entire genre simply because they dislike Skrillex annoy me.

This doesn't exactly seem like what "white knighting" is at all.

I've defended Metallica selling out.

yeah sure why not??

I'd defend Symphonic Metal had I the chance even though what few songs I heard from the genre don't do anything for me.

Defending a genre you don't like.

White knighting is a very specific term that doesn't exactly work in this context, and is also kind of a pejorative term anyway.

Well, I've made it clear in the OP that prefer not to stick my nose in other people's business if I can help it, and I hold others up to the same expectation. Portraying this phenomenon in a negative light isn't intentional, but I won't avoid doing so either.

Well, there's also that white knighting is also a term that specifically refers to social justice issues, so taking it out of that context (which, well, the term kinda inherently is tied to even in its name) kinda trivializes that.

Yeah, god forbid we trivialize some made-up internet term.

It works fine in this context. It's playing the hero, when a hero isn't really needed. White knighting.

edited 11th Dec '13 9:55:51 AM by kalel94

I'm not saying it trivializes the term (which, as I've mentioned, is a pejorative anyway)—it trivializes the context that the term comes out of. And, more importantly, it just doesn't at all make sense in this context. Why not just call it "defending genres you don't like"? "Musical white-knighting" just sounds like a word salad.

Nope. If I don't like something I'll cheerfully join in the kicking. White knights are tools. Black knighting is where it's at.

You sure are getting bent out of shape over a title (which I'd prefer not to turn into the mouthful you're suggesting). It's moot anyway, since a mod is needed to change the title, and you seem to be the only one who cares.

Anyway, I'd have to agree with on some level, mainly because the way I see it, people who do this are largely a bunch of hypocrites. Either they take it as an opportunity to dump on the offender's musical taste, use it to clear a guilty conscience of having been the offender in the past, or turn around in some different conversation, and become the offender there. For my part, I just can't stand to see a level of smugness over musical taste to the point of bullying others for theirs. My motivation for this hardly comes from some altruistic need to defend another person (it's elitism that really disgusts me).

Can anyone here say that they genuinely care about another person's right to enjoy a music without being bullied for it, to the point that they'd go out of their way to defend that right?

"Elitism" is little more than a subcultural boogeyman term for people upset that others are vocal about opinions they're uncomfortable with. Always was, always will be.

I don't exactly see how "Defending genres you don't like" is anymore a mouthful than "Musical white-knighting" is. Besides, a lot more people would understand that over some obscure internet slang, which I think is 0dd1's point. Jumping all over him and saying he's getting bent out of shape over it when he's very well within reason to suggest a more suitable title is pretty unfair of you guys.

Would I defend a genre I don't like? Why would I? I don't like the genre.

edited 12th Dec '13 11:10:10 AM by LightPhaser

Well, for some people there's a difference between "I can see the merits of this song but I don't enjoy listening to it" versus "Holy crap, I could fart a better song than this".

It's highly unlikely that I would defend a genre I don't like / dislike.

However, I would defend a genre which I wouldn't personally get into but it had its merits and good songs/albums/artists.

I guess on-topic, there aren't many genres I don't like—I can see merit in pretty much any form of music. I suppose stuff like BrokeNCYDE I don't like, but I don't really feel any reason to defend them.

edited 13th Dec '13 1:18:49 AM by Odd1

Skrillex is probably the only instance where I hate the haters of an artist I dislike more than the fans.