# varieties of excellence



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I'm thinking here of ways that a work of music or other art can be said to be good. One might or might not _like_ it, but that is a different question.

- virtuosity 
- emotional effect 
- emotional complexity or subtlety 
- originality - avoidance of cliche 
- influence 
- efficiency 
- fame or popularity

These are fairly abstract categories, but I'd be very interested if you can think of more of them.

These could apply to different aspects of a work: rhythm, harmony, counterpoint, timbre, use of metaphor, allusion, puns, characterization, etc. - though most that I mention here apply to music and literature because those are the fields I'm most familiar with. What other aspects of works could we mention? Of course there are aspects of cooking, interior design, fashion, mechanics, etc. as well as traditional arts like sculpture, architecture, or painting - if you know about that kind of thing please discuss it!

Edit for clarity: My intention is most certainly NOT to think of criteria by which we can objectively legislate taste or anything like that. If you know me at all you know I do not believe in that, for God's sake. My hope is MERELY that responses to this thread will make me aware of more ways that a work of art could be (considered) good. I don't intend to decide whether people are right or wrong to value originality or not to value it, but just to be aware that some people value it.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I have no idea what "efficiency" means in this context, and "fame or popularity" seems a very flimsy criterion. Then again, I don't believe in objective goodness in art so perhaps I shouldn't be here in the first place.


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## Chrythes (Oct 13, 2011)

I have no idea what "efficiency" is supposed to mean here as well. 
Is the purpose of this thread to find objective criteria to measure art? 
If so the "emotional" categories can't be valid in this context. About the "originality" - what if a piece is considered original in one cultural/regional context, but is a cliche elsewhere?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I personally didn't intend to dig too deeply into objectivity vs. subjectivity. If a listener or spectator says, "This really moves me" that's all I meant, not whether she ought to be moved or is right to be moved or whatever. I think we all understand that. When a person says, "This moves me," there's no arguing with it, even if it doesn't move you or me, and that is one sort of virtue a work could have. 

On the other hand, some people find some works emotionally naive, and they would value emotional subtlety or complexity as well. 

I wouldn't assume that each of these factors would be valued equally by everyone: there are people who don't care whether something is cliche, for example. I don't intend to say they're wrong for that; only that other people do care, and one kind of virtue that some art can possess for some people is to be original. 

Efficiency is an interesting thing to me. I think some people feel an aesthetic attraction to the fitting of form to function. It is certainly no more a sine qua non of art than anything else. 

Whether fame is flimsy or not, I won't say; I merely say that it is a value that some people have. 

No need to be defensive. I'm merely looking to make my awareness more catholic, inclusive, not to legislate taste. 

I should have anticipated hostility and clarified that in the first place. I will edit the OP to make this clear.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

science said:


> - virtuosity


Also a pleasing simplicity _if_ it still manages to satisfy some of the other criteria.



science said:


> - emotional effect


This is certainly true in general, but it could be broken down into many types, of course. I think two major sub-categories would be music that stirs human emotions to great depth (happiness, sadness, anger blah blah blah), and music that evokes feelings of transcendence and timelessness (that's obviously still an emotional response, but it is more detached from corporeal experience).



science said:


> - originality - avoidance of cliche


I would make a point of separating these, as the converse implies that _un_originality is equivalent to cliche, which it isn't.

Perhaps character would be another - specifically the feeling that you could only be listening to X composer with X piece because their style is so unique to them. They can still be composing within a broader style that many composers use, but would be unique in the same way that Brahms and Tchaikovsky were both Romantics but wouldn't be confused.

Also, with programme music, accuracy of depiction, and evocativeness of realistic scenery.

I think structure is an important aspect too, though not for everyone.


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

I probably have the wrong idea but efficiency could mean being able to work with limited sound hardware and produce good results.

For example the soundtrack to Final Fantasy VII could have been orchestral but they choose MIDI as it was more efficient.

This left space to create more story.

The composer really shows their ability to manipulate frequencies.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Polednice said:


> Also a pleasing simplicity _if_ it still manages to satisfy some of the other criteria.
> 
> This is certainly true in general, but it could be broken down into many types, of course. I think two major sub-categories would be music that stirs human emotions to great depth (happiness, sadness, anger blah blah blah), and music that evokes feelings of transcendence and timelessness (that's obviously still an emotional response, but it is more detached from corporeal experience).
> 
> ...


I was thinking about the issue of structure and wondering how to describe it, and hoping that someone would give me an idea...

Here's something like the road my thoughts travelled.

If a work has an a-b-a-b-c-b structure (to take something simple: a short pop song with a bridge), I'd be surprised if many people felt that in itself was inherently good or bad. I think it may be when we know a structure and find it changed in an interesting way. If the bridge went to a really surprising key, for instance, we might like the sound of it, even if we don't have the music-theory knowledge to describe what we're liking. My understanding is that Schubert did things like that a lot.

So that kind of thing can happen with chord progressions, harmonies, rhythms, perhaps anything. There is something we expect, perhaps subconsciously, the music does something else, and sometimes we like it.

There is another thing that "structure" could be: the knowledge that something has been well constructed. I think counterpoint often has a pleasure like that. It's kind of virtuosity, but of the composer rather than the performer. Another sort would be what I experience in Brahms' Handel Variations, when the final few variations roll around, I personally experience a sensation of pleasure at the awareness that I have been experiencing masterful craftsmanship: as if it were a demonstration of exactly how a theme and variations ought to be constructed. As if it were logical; a pleasure analogous to a really concise proof in geometry. The first movement of Mozart's 40th symphony has that too, for me. It's not a work where you wonder what the structure is; it's perfectly and obviously laid out, and at each stage of it you feel it's done precisely correctly. Even though the emotion that the movement makes me feel is disappointment (it seems to me that the music is calculated to express and communicate disappointment), yet I also experience a sensation of pleasure at the unarguable, simple correctness of the structure.

That is related to creativity or inventiveness.

Anyway, so I was thinking that, "structure" - whether we mean the way that themes and motifs are organized, or harmonies or whatever - kind of comes down to two things: evident mastery of a tradition, a kind of virtuosity on the composer's part; and variation on it, a kind of creativity. Sometimes you enjoy the feeling of, yes, this is exactly how it's supposed to be done; and, other times a surprise, wow, I didn't know it could be done this way.

Perhaps my thinking on this has been shaped more by jazz than by classical music though. And I think that could be the case with, say, cooking. Sometimes you eat (say) an apple pie and you feel like, my god, this is like an incarnation of the Platonic form of apple pie; other times you eat an apple pie and you're like, but wait a minute, what is _in_ this? _Bacon bits and kiwi?!?!_ I've never had anything like this before - and by god I wouldn't have believed it but it is _good_!

Does any of this resonate with what you had in mind? Or perhaps some of it strikes you as really off-base? I'm not married to any of these thoughts, this is all highly provisional, just a kind of brainstorming.

Finally, can you express to me the difference between unoriginality and cliche? I guess I feel that cliche is just an extreme unoriginality. Is there more to it than that?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

science said:


> There is another thing that "structure" could be: the knowledge that something has been well constructed. I think counterpoint often has a pleasure like that. It's kind of virtuosity, but of the composer rather than the performer. Another sort would be what I experience in Brahms' Handel Variations, when the final few variations roll around, I personally experience a sensation of pleasure at the awareness that I have been experiencing masterful craftsmanship: as if it were a demonstration of exactly how a theme and variations ought to be constructed. As if it were logical; a pleasure analogous to a really concise proof in geometry. The first movement of Mozart's 40th symphony has that too, for me. It's not a work where you wonder what the structure is; it's perfectly and obviously laid out, and at each stage of it you feel it's done precisely correctly. Even though the emotion that the movement makes me feel is disappointment (it seems to me that the music is calculated to express and communicate disappointment), yet I also experience a sensation of pleasure at the unarguable, simple correctness of the structure.


When I saw your original list, I immediately thought of something related to structure. I thought of it in music theory terms. Is the music theoretically beautiful? That of course is difficult to specify, but it has a similarity to the aesthetics in science and math to beautiful formalism (e.g. beautiful proofs in math as you suggested). Physicists _almost_ demand that their theory be beautiful. Unless one works deeply in physics, that statement has little meaning. Similarly, I can imagine composers or "music theorists", if such a term makes sense, find beauty in the theory. My daughter has taught me a bit about the theory of modulation and why some modulations are _beautiful_, and when I understand them, I agree - they are beautiful. Clearly few people would point to theoretical beauty as a reason why a particular work is great because very few people understand the theory.

Goulding wrote about Mozart that "the music gurus wrote that there are things in Beethoven, in Brahms, and in Wagner that some might wish had been written differently, but not in Mozart." The music is _formulated beautifully_.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> When I saw your original list, I immediately thought of something related to structure. I thought of it in music theory terms. Is the music theoretically beautiful? That of course is difficult to specify, but it has a similarity to the aesthetics in science and math to beautiful formalism (e.g. beautiful proofs in math as you suggested). Physicists _almost_ demand that their theory be beautiful. Unless one works deeply in physics, that statement has little meaning. Similarly, I can imagine composers or "music theorists", if such a term makes sense, find beauty in the theory. My daughter has taught me a bit about the theory of modulation and why some modulations are _beautiful_, and when I understand them, I agree - they are beautiful. Clearly few people would point to theoretical beauty as a reason why a particular work is great because very few people understand the theory.
> 
> Goulding wrote about Mozart that "the music gurus wrote that there are things in Beethoven, in Brahms, and in Wagner that some might wish had been written differently, but not in Mozart." The music is _formulated beautifully_.


I can imagine that very easily. Although I haven't studied math beyond a couple semesters of calculus, I always loved it and am very familiar with beauty in mathematics (pure mathematics only: applied math always gave me the willies; as soon as we start rounding things off, it's very much like pollution).

Also, the fact that music sometimes has a sort of mathematical logic has also impressed me. Not so much the Pythagorean stuff about ratios and the notes, but keys, the circle of fifths, and so on. But I don't know enough to understand that. In other ways, music seems more analogous to grammar.

I have a friend who insists that Schoenberg's music is mathematically beautiful, and he knows music a lot better than I do and math at least a little better. I don't personally know, of course, but he should.

The beauty of at least some mathematical works (and perhaps of physics as well) has something to do with efficiency as well.

Is the Goulding quote from _The Classical Style_?


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

So, if a piece knowingly ignores common conceptions of these things, is it good or not? If you enjoy something, but can find no semblance of those qualities in the piece, does that mean you have to re-evaluate your criteria for "goodness" or do you simply dismiss it as trash because it doesn't fit the bill?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Crudblud said:


> So, if a piece knowingly ignores common conceptions of these things, is it good or not? If you enjoy something, but can find no semblance of those qualities in the piece, does that mean you have to re-evaluate your criteria for "goodness" or do you simply dismiss it as trash because it doesn't fit the bill?


Well, obviously, you like it for different reasons, and hopefully it's clear that I'm not trying to talk or shame you out of it. But if you can describe what it is that you like about it, I'd be interested.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I should add that in the history of all kinds of arts, creativity has often taken the form of deliberately flouting the "established" rules of aesthetics and yet producing undeniably wonderful works. Often the great successes in this endeavor are the great works - Debussy's music ignoring the French authorities may be an easy example, though I don't actually know the details of that.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Crudblud said:


> So, if a piece knowingly ignores common conceptions of these things, is it good or not? If you enjoy something, but can find no semblance of those qualities in the piece, does that mean you have to re-evaluate your criteria for "goodness" or do you simply dismiss it as trash because it doesn't fit the bill?


I think you'd be hard pushed to find a piece you enjoy that doesn't fit any of the criteria.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

science said:


> - emotional effect


The same happens with listening. Consider two people listening to a
grossly sentimental song, one naively enjoying it, the other turning up
his nose. The ﬁrst says to the second: 'you just don't understand this
music'. 'On the contrary,' the second replies, 'I do understand it. And
that is why I hate it.' Do we say that they have both understood the
music, but understood it differently? Or that one has misunderstood it,
since he has not seen what it means?


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

science said:


> Well, obviously, you like it for different reasons, and hopefully it's clear that I'm not trying to talk or shame you out of it. But if you can describe what it is that you like about it, I'd be interested.


I was actually just posing a hypothetical question, not talking about a piece or composer in particular.

Sorry, I should really elaborate more when I join these discussions.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

brianwalker said:


> The same happens with listening. Consider two people listening to a
> grossly sentimental song, one naively enjoying it, the other turning up
> his nose. The ﬁrst says to the second: 'you just don't understand this
> music'. 'On the contrary,' the second replies, 'I do understand it. And
> ...


We say that both of them have probably understood it in the same way but - surprise, surprise - have different tastes.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Polednice said:


> We say that both of them have probably understood it in the same way but - surprise, surprise - have different tastes.


So the girl whose favorite film is "Twilight" and you are only different in "taste"?

And let's not deflect by question by claiming that this hypothetical girl would change her mind once she watched your favorite film. It could be that she has watched it before and hates it.

I was reminded of the time a reader called me to ask about an Ingmar Bergman film. "I think it's the best film of the year," I said. "Oh," she said, "that doesn't sound like anything we'd like to see."

And don't avoid the question, PLEASE. This evasion is killing me.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

brianwalker said:


> So the girl whose favorite film is "Twilight" and you are only different in "taste"?


What else is there? "Taste" is underpinned by differences in brain chemistry, but, whoops, there I go sounding all tyrannical again, trying to understand human behaviour through science. I'm such a doofus!


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Polednice said:


> What else is there? "Taste" is underpinned by differences in brain chemistry, but, whoops, there I go sounding all tyrannical again, trying to understand human behaviour through science. I'm such a doofus!


"Brain chemistry". 
So why haven't the brain chemists teamed up together and make the greatest film of all time? If they know that film X is "popular" and is considered "good" because of attributes, aspects "x, y, z", why don't they team up and make a really popular film that makes billions of dollars?

I never said you were a doofus. However, you did say that I'm a sorry excuse for a human being. I'm very hurt, actually.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

brianwalker said:


> So why haven't the brain chemists teamed up together and make the greatest film of all time? If they know that film X is "popular" and is considered "good" because of attributes, aspects "x, y, z", why don't they team up and make a really popular film that makes billions of dollars?


It is clear why you struggled with the other thread given your woeful understanding of science.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Polednice said:


> It is clear why you struggled with the other thread given your woeful understanding of science.


Every conversation ends in either 1. you insulting me. or 2. you criticizing my knowledge of something and you asserting that I cannot understand something.

I can answer all of your questions, but you cannot answer mine, yet you still are convinced that you are right.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

science said:


> Is the Goulding quote from _The Classical Style_?


The quote is from _Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers..._.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

brianwalker said:


> So why haven't the brain chemists teamed up together and make the greatest film of all time? If they know that film X is "popular" and is considered "good" because of attributes, aspects "x, y, z", why don't they team up and make a really popular film that makes billions of dollars?


Are you out of your ******* mind?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

brianwalker said:


> Every conversation ends in either 1. you insulting me. or 2. you criticizing my knowledge of something and you asserting that I cannot understand something.
> 
> I can answer all of your questions, but you cannot answer mine, yet you still are convinced that you are right.


Every conversation begins with either: 1) you being an unbelievably perfect caricature of a mindless conservative or 2) you being an unbelievably perfect caricature of a mindless conservative.

I can answer all of your questions, but you wouldn't pay any attention because you are convinced beyond reason that your world-view is irrefutable.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I'm thinking here of ways that a work of music or other art can be said to be good. One might or might not like it, but that is a different question.

- virtuosity 
- emotional effect 
- emotional complexity or subtlety 
- originality - avoidance of cliche 
- influence 
- efficiency 
- fame or popularity

These are fairly abstract categories, but I'd be very interested if you can think of more of them.

Back in the 18th and 19th centuries the French Academy tried to create such a criteria upon which one might objectively judge artists. categories included: Mastery of Color, Mastery of Line, Mastery of Form, Mastery of Value (Chiaroscuro), Mastery of Anatomy, Facial Expression, Expression through the Body, Manipulation of Paint (painterliness), Forcefulness/Power, Elegance, Delicacy, Brilliance of landscape, Composition, etc... The attempt was perhaps absurd... and the results predictably skewed toward the icons of French painting (Poussin comically rated higher than Michelangelo, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, Leonardo, etc...). Yet at the same time I found this ideal rubric acknowledged that there was no single ideal standard by which all art was to be measured. An artist like Michelangelo might be acknowledged as a master of the human figure and of expression through the figure... of line, form, forcefulness... even color... but he would falter in his facial expression (at least in comparison to Rembrandt), in his use of landscape and in his elegance or delicacy.

I think that a good many here who fall into the trap of supporting one composer (Beethoven or Mahler, etc...) above all others forget that there is no single agreed upon standard or ideal toward which all art strives. Mozart is not inferior to Beethoven because Beethoven's symphonies are larger, employ more musicians, and play more upon the emotions any more than is Mozart superior to Beethoven because his music is more elegant and witty. The composers are striving toward different goals and working within different traditions and at different time in history. Every composer has strengths and weaknesses... or areas where others delve far deeper. In the game of comparison (X vs Y) it is good the remember that one cannot make a fair assessment of X if his work is judged solely upon the terms of what is important to Y.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

brianwalker said:


> The same happens with listening. Consider two people listening to a
> grossly sentimental song, one naively enjoying it, the other turning up
> his nose. The ﬁrst says to the second: 'you just don't understand this
> music'. 'On the contrary,' the second replies, 'I do understand it. And
> ...


If the only difference the two of them have about the song is its emotional affect, I'd suspect neither of them understood much about it. However, in that case, yep, taste appears to be all there is.

Regardless, the one turning his nose up needs to be slapped for the good of humanity.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

science said:


> I'm thinking here of ways that a work of music or other art can be said to be good. One might or might not _like_ it, but that is a different question.
> 
> - virtuosity
> - emotional effect
> ...


Some more I can think of are -

- Craftsmanship
- imaginativeness, creativity - eg. coming up with interesting solutions to difficult problems (an example is a concerto for two instruments that traditionally aren't used together, are seen to not go well together, etc.)
- ability to synthesise and refine earlier or current techniques/innovations/ideas, etc.

...and so on, many more.

This is falls into the area of musicology. I think the musicologists (or writers on music) that I find to be useful in increasing my appreciation of music are those that give both the baseline or consensus opinions and their own opinion. If their opinion conflicts with the consensus one, they say it does (in other words, admit it). There are many opinions out there, the best writers try to bring them all together and make their own conclusions, observations, etc. on these things, both objective and subjective (I see these more as a being along a spectrum than absolutes)...


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

science said:


> If the only difference the two of them have about the song is its emotional affect, I'd suspect neither of them understood much about it. However, in that case, yep, taste appears to be all there is.
> 
> Regardless, the one turning his nose up needs to be slapped for the good of humanity.


So what about all the hate for Rebecca Black?

http://scoop.today.msnbc.msn.com/_n...reats-take-rebecca-black-bashing-to-new-level

http://dothedevo.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/the-rebecca-black-fiasco/

If the person turning up his nose needs "be slapped for the good of humanity", then does everyone who sneered at Rebecca Black need to be slapped or punished to the degree of their sneering?

Because she was not only almost universally sneered at, but she also received inhuman insults, endless parodies, the harshest condescension, and in the end, death threats.

So does humanity need to be humanized?

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/rebecca-black?before=1329164374



> rebecca black
> 
> REBECCA BLACK WAS AT THE GRAMMYS. WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO.
> *screamsmsmsms, flips over table and runs out into the endless night*
> ...


http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/rebecca-black?before=1329097500

And these are just the reactions for her going to the grammys. You missed out on the initial reactions to her songs and the youtube comments, negative, furious comments numbering in the millions.

Those millions (literally) of comments were all deleted. What a waste.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/12807953

Is she overreacting? No. I read loads of comments at the height of Friday's fame in mid-March, where the video was so popular you were getting 7 new comments per second. Per second.

http://scorpionofscofflaw.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/youtube-comments-on-rebecca-blacks-friday/

This is not even the tip of the iceberg.

If the punishment for "turning up one's nose" should be a slap on the face, how should these commentators be punished?

Before your tribunal I ask you to put these haters on trial.



> This is clearly﻿ an epigrammatical virtuosic study of the divertissemental aspects of the fifth day of the week.
> 
> looks﻿ like *****
> 
> ...


There were so many comments people made a video of the comments.











And the cherry on top.

http://www.tmz.com/2011/08/10/rebec...ment-ark-music-youtube-pop-star/#.TzwbHF3VEfw

http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f48/rebecca-blacks-friday-surpasses-1-million-comments-1612063/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/mar/21/rebecca-black-friday

Where is "death threat" on the scale of "turning up your nose"? To what degree do these inhuman people need to be punished for the sake of humanity?


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

People overreacting to something on the internet?! Truly, the end times are upon us!

You take things too seriously for your own good. Rebecca Black herself took it in her stride and made fun of it.

Edit: Must apologise for some spelling mistakes in the initial version of this post. I feel very tired, but I can't go to sleep.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Back in the days of Florence Foster Jenkins, "bad" singing was considered to be "good." Well, in some respects at least...


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Crudblud said:


> People overreacting to something on the internet?! Truly, the end times are upon us!
> 
> You take things too seriously for your own good. Rebecca Black herself took it in her stride and made fun of it.
> 
> Edit: Must apologise for some spelling mistakes in the initial version of this post. I feel very tired, but I can't go to sleep.


I never said that the end time was upon us, nor did I say that there was anything unusual or inexplicable about the phenomenon.

That is not the point I'm trying to make; attacking a strawman won't do anything.

The world is just fine, it's always been this fine. There's nothing essentially new about these reactions.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

brianwalker said:


> So what about all the hate for Rebecca Black?


I already said that stuff was ridiculous.


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