Are we more than a simple collection of likes and dislikes?
I have three teenagers, and each one of them recoils with disgust every time I sing along to a Justin Bieber song.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that my singing voice isn’t the greatest, but I don’t think it has the power to make someone “actually, like, vomit.” At least, I’ve seen no evidence that I hold this superpower as of yet. And having the power to make people vomit with your song seems like the kind of thing a person would pick up on pretty young in life.
So, if it’s not my terribly out-of-tune voice, then why the adverse reaction? It could just be that I’m “cringey.” Straddling the cusp of the GenX / Millenial divide will do that to a person. I was born in 1979, so I’m just old enough to have grown up an angry and neglected latch-key kid at the height of the grunge era, and just young enough to be thrown into a helpless panic when I momentarily lose internet access.
Or is it that Justin Bieber is cringey? Is he just another vapid pop singer with a bad attitude and no actual talent? No, that’s not it. He’s a Canadian treasure. Like maple syrup and fresh water and free health care. He’s a prolific and celebrated recording artist with fans all over the world. I’m not alone in liking some of his music.
But to my teenagers, admitting to liking a Justin Bieber song is akin to professing love for him, to being labelled a “Belieber.” At their age, there is no separation between the art and the artist. They are one and the same. The art has no autonomy, it cannot be taken as a singular object for consideration, divorced from its creator. So no matter how much they might like one Bieber song, admitting to liking one would be the same as liking them all in the eyes of their peers.
It’s a tricky situation to be in.
At that age, you have to carefully curate your tastes. Being careful not to align yourself with the wrong type of media or risk being labelled. Your identity is built, largely by others, based on what you publicly profess to like and dislike.
It was the same when I was a kid — in the early 90s, you were either on the side that liked groups like The Backstreet Boys, or Nirvana. The dichotomy helped us define who we were.
But here’s the thing, what you like changes. What you dislike changes. It’s all relative, it’s all contextual. It’s all fleeting.
If you’re at home in your jam-jams, your public-facing identity isn’t threatened by an impromptu karaoke session involving the Biebs. And you can sing along with Redbone’s “Come and Get your Love” in the car on the way to the grocery store with your mom. That’s context. In front of your peers? It’s a different story. Like a form of cultural code-switching that allows you to fit into a given situation. But those the likes that you’ll admit to are a mask that you wear in public. Are they true? Maybe. Maybe not. Identity isn’t a fixed thing, it’s completely relative to the situation you’re in and the sense of “youness” that you’re trying to project and impart on other people.
So, if you’ve grown accustom to building your identity based on what you purportedly like, I think it’s worthwhile to ask yourself, who am I liking this for? Do I like Justin Bieber in service of some fixed or external perception of myself? Or do I like it because it brings me joy on some fundamental level? And if something brings me joy at this time, in this moment, does that mean that I will like it forever? Or that I’m obliged to?
I mean, how many songs on your playlist do you skip? You put the little heart next to it at some point, Spotify’s got your number. But when the playlist is playing, how quickly do you burn through all your skips? I’m on the free plan as you can tell. #broke.
Music is a big one in the lives of the teens, but you could apply the same thought process to anything. When you like something, who are you liking it for? And what does that mean?
I’m afraid I can’t answer that question definitively, not for myself or for anyone else. But I think it is interesting food for thought, and worthwhile to consider who you are apart from the collection of likes and dislikes you hold in your head at any given time.