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I think t his is Spotify sprinting full-out to stay in one place. People really, actually have been driven insane by Intersectionality/DEI/etc.
When 'Emo' first emerged in the early 90's, I recall being gobsmacked that some pretentious a-holes decided their music was 'emotional' as opposed to all of the other music that wasn't. Since then it's been one stupid made-up genre after another to the point that I hardly care. I only care because when I release a track myself, I want/need to tag it so that is ends up anywhere within the possible blast radius of people who might want to listen to it.
I once got a promo record, this was 2015, and the record said something like "file under trans-core." What? Trans is a type of art form? It's a genre? I suppose I believe it, but probably not in the way I was supposed to. Of course it was the same old bland techno music everyone else is making--nothing made it more trans than anything else except maybe the song titles and vibe? It was just a way for the artist to try and carve out some new category they could sit atop of.
And that's the game. There's no art here, no deeper meaning. It's all pandering it's all cynical attention grabbing. It's all a fad and always has been. It's all fake in the most blatantly Holden Caulfield kind of way. Spotify is merely trying to keep up with it, they decide nothing.
As for the overall terribleness that is DEI, there was a pretty good substack about how the NYT and Bloomberg buried a report that directly points at how these types of initiative boost racism, bigotry, Balkanization and authoritarianism. I enjoyed it and it should probably be a top-level post: https://substack.com/inbox/post/152110346
You really didn't see the obvious evolutionary difference between early emo bands and the hardcore punk scene they developed out of? There's a pretty clear difference that makes the name make sense.
No, I was a metal head...hardcore was not my thing (to put it lightly) so I didn't listen to it. I had heard of Fugazi (13 songs is ok) and I liked Bad Brains, but I didn't like the hardcore scene and avoided it. When I heard the term 'Emo' (in 1996?) for the first time it just seemed pretentious.
Makes sense and I get your point out of context. But when you listen to Minor Threat and then listen to Youth of Today and to Rites of Spring, it's reasonable to refer to the latter and its genetic descendants as Emotional.
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Interesting article! Thank you for linking it.
I expect for anyone who might not already be convinced, however, the study will not be compelling or alternative rationales will appear. For example:
The (pat?) response is to say "Thus we can see, there are in fact no neutral scenarios, nor any situations where bias does not exist." This is the end state of DEI: Racist/sexist turtles all the way down.
I am also skeptical of the study, but then I'm skeptical of most sociological and psychological studies. I'd need time to look at it for methodology issues (of which there are almost always a few, in addition to all the statistical noise in psychometrics). I am at first blush very willing to believe it at face value, but that's the still soft voice of the serpent.
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