On 10/19/2010 1:34 PM, Warp wrote:
>    Could someone explain to me something that I really can't understand:
>
>    Why do so many people hate Justin Bieber? (Well, here "people" would
> mostly consist of males.)
>
>    So he sings and he is popular. So what? There have been hundreds of
> teen idols before and after him. What has he done to deserve the general
> ire of the male populace? Don't tell me men are actually jealous of a
> teenager boy.
>

I hate to tell you this, but it probably is jealousy. Or it's just the 
internet; Penny Arcade explained it well (nsfw language in comic form) 
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/

Constructive criticism isn't something that people expect from the 
internet, either. No one who matters is going to hear a rant that the 
lyrics are what you expect from a teenager, or that the over use of 
autotune wrecks the singers voice; and that applies to just about all 
pop music, not just this guy. There isn't much to discuss about that. 
You might try to quote the lyrics or find references to literature, or 
discuss the merits of autotune. But the forums where this is usually 
centered are not often about expressing deep thoughts, they are for one 
off gags and memes. Hate is an easy meme to follow along with.

>    And on a similar note: Why do so many people (again, mostly males)
> hate Leonardo DiCaprio? If you look at the movies he has made, they
> are actually pretty damn good, and he makes a pretty decent job at
> acting in them. I really can't understand what the problem is people
> are seeing.
>

He's an easy target. If you want to appear macho, Titanic is a great 
movie to publicly hate. Safe drama with special effects, not many people 
are going to jump up and defend the movie as defining an era or style. 
Or maybe someone will, now that I've said that. Before that, the guy had 
some alright movies, and since then he has grown into being a really 
good actor, making him money which is easy to rant about. He also said 
some things about environmentalism, which is another easy scapegoat on 
the internet.


I guess it depends where on the internet you go. Troll centers, like 
fark, the chans, something awful, and I suspect even digg, reddit, /. 
and similar, are all going to be quite vocal about certain topics. Any 
one who doesn't have an opinion is going to avoid those threads. So all 
you hear in the threads is an echo chamber effect of "I hate so-and-so" 
and "I do too, lets compare things we hate". Small personal blogs have 
the opposite, but still extreme, effect that you get more replies from 
people who agree with you. Not many people will keep reading posts of "I 
hate this new stuff" unless they agree with the person.

Really, it's just the internet. All actors suck, all actresses are ugly, 
all movies are awful, and your favorite music is the worst ever made.

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