Fact: Amber Doesn’t Actually Care About Lots Of Stuff.
Alright, guys, so I didn’t think it’d be necessary to say this but here it goes… Sometimes, when I write about something, it’s because it’s a noteworthy occurrence. This doesn’t mean I necessarily care about the item at hand. Take, oh, I don’t know, Zooey Deschanel’s recent divorce from Death Cab for Cutie front man Ben Gibbard. To be honest, I think Zooey Deschanel plays the exact same character (herself) in every movie she’s in and her singing voice is flat in the “devoid of emotion” sense. And I cannot stand Death Cab for Cutie! In the strange little hipster world I live in, those are what I like to call “Unpopular Opinions In Indie Rock”. I actually hold a few opinions that are pretty unpopular. For instance, I don’t care about Radiohead. There. I said it. I don’t really like them that much and I didn’t even listen to their past, like, three albums. When people say “Radiohead”, I don’t think about how great Kid A was or about that time all my friends and I started singing “Karma Police” because that never happened. Why? I just don’t care. That doesn’t mean that Radiohead isn’t great. I’m sure they are. I just don’t care.
I might not care about them as a band, but I do enjoy this Radiohead related bear graphic.
These unpopular opinions don’t always stick. I mean, Radiohead obviously did because I was fourteen the first time a good friend tried to convert me to the Church of Yorke and that was thirteen years ago! Which means that I am old, you guys! Old or not, I will admit that up until The Suburbs, I used to not care about Arcade Fire at all. Now I think they’re the greatest thing in the world. But so far as Ben Gibbard and Zooey Deschanel goes? I don’t care. I like M. Ward leaps and bounds better than his She & Him counterpart. Not all indie girls with bangs hold Deschanel as their style icon. And while we’re at it, I don’t dream about Gibbard’s suspect hairline but it was hilarious when my friend Braak said I did. Although I will admit that the resulting twitter conversation about indie rock themed sex toys was worth the flack I got for my faux-Gibbard-crush. #IndieRockSexToys. Let’s make it a trending topic, shall we?
Basically, what I’m saying here is that just because someone writes about it in the world of journalism and blogging, that doesn’t mean they care. Believe me – I did a crap ton of interviews with many bands that shall remain nameless that found me flattering people I didn’t care for and referencing specific songs that I didn’t even like. But I am going to level with you – Most of the bands I write about I do care about. Like Okkervil River. Man, they are great!
That Will Sheff is such a “thinking girl’s heart-throb”, you guys!
Oh, and speaking of “Unpopular Opinions In Indie Rock”, I’ve never heard Animal Collective, despite being made many-a-introductory-mix to their music and I don’t really care to. I just don’t think they’d be my thing. I’m okay with that and I hope you are too.
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Posted on November 9, 2011, in Music, Rant and tagged DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE, INDIE ADVENTURES, MUSIC, Okkervil River, RADIOHEAD, RANT, UGH, UNPOPULAR OPINIONS IN INDIE, ZOOEY DESCHANEL. Bookmark the permalink. 21 Comments.
Y you no like Radiohead? That’s insane! But their last album was kind of a “clean our our old files” thing. Little bit. So I wouldn’t blame you. At least you didn’t say “I don’t like Radiohead, but dammit I LOVE Nickelback!” Because orphans would cry.
I think Radiohead is okay. The Bends was good, OK Computer was great but they’re not a band I ever put on to listen to because I just don’t really enjoy them.
You just spoke all of my feelings. Thank you.
Anytime, pal!
I am confused by the statement: “just because someone writes about it in the world of journalism and blogging, that doesn’t mean they care.” Actually, that’s usually EXACTLY WHAT IT MEANS. Do you not pick your own blog topics? Were you out of things you cared about?
And if you don’t care about it, why the heck would your readers?
Because not everyone in the world cares about the things I want to write about. Yes, I pick what I write about but I average one post a day and let’s face it – As proven above – I don’t care about enough things to write an article every day about something I like. Most of my articles are stating an opinion. This can be a negative opinion, a positive opinion, or a completely apathetic one. Also, after years of working at various publications, both print and online, I can tell you that people don’t care about what they write about all the time. As I said, “I did a crap ton of interviews with many bands that shall remain nameless that found me flattering people I didn’t care for and referencing specific songs that I didn’t even like.” I’m not the only former journalist who thinks this way.
I totally understand in music journalism having to interview a band you don’t really give a crap about and talk about their songs and such. But here at Awechasm, you have complete creative freedom. Like you said what you write about here is opinion, “This can be a negative opinion, a positive opinion, or a completely apathetic one” That seems to cover the spectrum of how you truthfully feel about any topic
So why say you are sad about Zooey and Ben when you aren’t? Say you don’t give a rats ass first and then there will be no need for followup post explaining yourself. I write almost a post a day and I can truthfully say that everything I have written here expresses my actual opinions about something. I think your writing is much better when you are more truthful.
I have to agree with Dani here. I like truthful writing. I think that there was a lot in your marriage post that was truthful. I just think maybe my questions suggested some truths that you didn’t like, for whatever reason. I could be wrong though.
I don’t see why you’d write the above post for a site like this, which I assume you don’t do as a painstaking, boring day job. It’s almost like you’re saying you don’t care about your own opinions, but I think you do. I hope that you do.
My point in the first place wasn’t about Zooey and Ben so much as it was about divorce in general. Just because I don’t like Zooey Deschanel and Ben Gibbard shouldn’t mean that I’m glad they’re miserable. Divorce sucks and I think that people should be more level headed in general when they choose to get married, instead of just living in a whirlwind of ill-thought out passion that ends in divorce. I have never not expressed an “actual opinion” here. Divorce makes me sad, that’s the point. Do I care about Zooey and Ben? No.
I don’t know. I think the following comment kind of negates that statement:
“…I wasn’t really phased at all when Kimmy K. split from whatever poor sucker she roped into joining her E! endorsed family freak show. This week, however, when it was announced that Zooey Deschanel was splitting from Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard, I was actually kind of sad. They were only married two years! Shame on you, Zooey. You should respect the sanctity of marriage more than that!”
I don’t see the difference between your “not caring” about Kim Kardashian and your current insistence that you also don’t care about Zooey and Ben. Because it seemed in that post that you do care about Zooey and Ben…or at least thought that they should have better values than a Kardashian?
I’m not sure. It’s all very confusing at this point, but I do think that we’re getting to some more truth here now that we’re discussing it all further.
Never do I say in that sentence that I’m sad because I care about Zooey Deschanel.
I realize that. But there must have been some kind of difference between how you felt about Kim Kardashian and Zooey Deschanel, and how they should handle marriage/divorce, or you wouldn’t have used two examples? Also, it’s as if you’re saying that Zooey should have the type of morals, values, and marriage that someone like Kim Kardashian doesn’t have/deserve to have. “I mean, it’s at least more sad that Kim Kardashian’s divorce.”
I’m reading that you’re sad because you care about divorce, but then you say you’re MORE sad about one divorce than another…so you’ve lost me there. I don’t see why we’ve spun off into a conversation about whether you care about Zooey Deschanel as a person. It’s clear that you don’t: “my personal feelings for the couple are beside the point because it’s actually really sad that they’re getting divorced.” In my initial comment, I was suggesting that maybe divorce bums people out because they’re afraid of what it means for them personally. And I think the conversation could have been handled in the comments section for that post. Instead, we got a whole new post about why you don’t really care. It seems like you just want to say things because they sound cool, and you don’t want to be bothered to really think about what they mean.
I guess the lesson here is about clarity in writing then, taking just a little more time to make sure our meaning is conveyed in our words. The best thing about blogging for writers is that practice makes perfect. It is an experiment in growth.
Writing about anything means a certain amount of dues paying, interviewing people you aren’t interested in, preparing for the interview, wrestling the result into something usable. Its the journalism thing. What people want to read, or publish, isn’t always what appeals to the writer. Blog long enough and you’ll run into it. When I was a kid I read a book introduction by Harlan Ellison in which he said there wee two different sources of the written word: Authors, and writers. Authors are people who have their names on books. They may be good, they may be bad, but they can detach. They are not ‘confessional’. Its a job and they’re good enough to be published.
Then there are writers. Writers would work out essays in their heads if they were trapped on a desert island. They would write on bark and bubblegum wrappers with charcoal and packaged condiments from a takeout place. They can’t detach. They can’t really stop themselves. They are not egomaniacs, but when they find or see or live with a fact, an experience, an opinion, a synthesis, a vision of hell or glimpse of heaven, they write about it.
And they write because they mean for others to read it, even if only a small number (ah, but the hope is always more…) Writers write essays, letters to the editor, poems, plays, short stories, novels, instruction manuals, memoirs and articles for the newsletter. They treasure examples of good writing. They try what Jessica Mitford recommended- take your best sentence out of the piece and see if it really still works. Because its not about your best sentence. Its about the subject, even if that subject is your own ideas. Writers are acutely aware that what they think and what readers get are two different, if related, things.
Writing an essay about writing about things you don’t personally care about is a canonical, writerly, act. The contradiction doesn’t occur to an author. Writers are compulsive communicators. I’ve seen the effect in other people, as well as myself.
I wish I could “like” everything you just said. I mean, I like it in my mind but I wish this was like facebook where I could just “like” this because, sir, you have basically encapsulated every one of the thoughts I was too lazy to write… Because, as I said above… Apathy.
This is an interesting sentiment. I can’t say I agree that writers “write because they mean for others to read it.” I’ve been writing for years and most of it is just for me. I don’t think “writers” and “authors” are just black and white like that, I think there’s tons of gray area.
But I think that the writer of this blog post, and the ones before it, definitely falls in what you’ve described as the “author” category. From what I’ve seen here, the opinions expressed are not of any substance: they’re just meant to be there without any meaning. They’re packaged and pushed out for entertainment purposes, and then the “author” sits back and remains apathetic.
Also, I don’t think this writer is “acutely aware that what they think and what readers get are two different, if related, things.” I seemed to unwillingly cause a rift in the writer’s psyche by attempting to spark a discussion based on her words. Simple discussion quickly devolved into a perceived personal attack. If that’s a “writer,” then I don’t ever want to be one.
Ah, yes. Dribbling out every little thing going on in your head as a “writerly act.” That is called “journaling,” and it is better reserved for the years between 14 and 17, and confined to a notebook sporting your crush’s initials in ballpoint pen.
I would say that rather than removing your best sentence, try condensing everything you just wrote down into a single phrase. Does it make sense? Would anybody other than your mama give one half of a shit about it? Do you still give a shit about it? If the answer to any of these questions is “No,” then don’t waste anybody’s time with it, especially not your own.
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