Because I am over thirty and a female I have been accused in public by several different parties on several different occasions of being:
- A fawning middle-aged woman.
- Bedazzled, glitter-encrusted, and a wearer of outfits decorated with such, all proclaiming my allegiance to the Soul Patrol.
- Overweight and unattractive.
- A smitten grandma from Omaha.
- Rabid.
- Delusional.
- Wrong for voting for my favorite (and winning) contestant in a reality show competition – and this coming from one of the producers of said show.
- Someone who wants to alternately mother, smother, micro-manage, masturbate to, or fuck a certain gray-haired bar singer from Alabama.
-A drinker of kool-aide.
- Insane. Or bat-shit crazy, whichever term you prefer.
Nice, huh?
In reality, I am none of those things, except for the part about being over thirty and a woman. What I am is a fan of a Taylor Hicks and his music. And I’m here to ask why I can’t just be that.
Up until today I think I’ve been pretty good about letting things roll off my back. I’ve tried to keep my distance when the bad press pops up, or when folks try to provoke me by making fun of how I choose to spend my free time and disposable income. I’ve created a safe and cozy haven for like-minded folks and turned it into a real home – a place where people feel free to be themselves and not have to worry about being attacked for our shared admiration and appreciation for Taylor and his music.
No one can accuse me of burying my head in the sand, because I leave my safe home and venture out into the wastelands often enough to encounter the nastiness that lies outside my door. I know there be dragons and I know exactly where they live. But before today I guess it hadn’t really dawned on me just how destructive the combined weight of all that negativity could be on me.
Today, because of a snarky, dismissive and caustic blurb on an online ragmag, I find myself, for the first time ever, feeling miserable about being a fan of Taylor Hicks. And it’s not because of anything I have or haven’t done. But because some people, for lack of functioning souls, have taken it upon themselves to try to destroy everything good about Taylor’s fan base. And the worst part is, some of the fans themselves have unwittingly helped.
Why is it that we can’t just shut the fuck up?
Why is it that every time something even slightly negative is written about Taylor that some feel they have to take up arms and defend him to the death? Why do some of us gather like vultures around web sites like TMZ or Splash, or the hate blogs, or the new kid in town, Radar, just waiting for (and baiting) those who couldn’t care less about Taylor but love a good fight? And who’ll then turn around, point fingers at the collective fan base and say, “See? We told you they were all nuts!”
Don’t those fans realize what they’re doing? Didn’t they ever learn that sometimes the best thing you can do is just keep your mouth shut and walk away? Do they really think that they’ll ever convince the other side that they’re right and the other guys are wrong? I thought – I’d hoped – we were smarter than that. I guess I was wrong.
And so it seems that the few will spoil it for the many, as so often happens. Instead of following Taylor’s lead, which all along has been to address the negativity by not addressing it, they’ve gained all of us a reputation. One that has left me feeling shame, anger, embarrassment and humiliation. More than anything, I feel ashamed.
This is not the kind of fan base I want Taylor to be known for. He deserves better than that. So much good has been done in his name, and because of him and the gift of his music. So many lives have been changed for the better. And yet he seems doomed to bear the tarnished mantle that our collective public actions have created.
If this is what it means to be a Taylor Hicks fan, then I think it’s time for me to turn in my membership card. I came to love this man and his music alone, in the quiet confines of my heart and my small home, all by myself. Maybe it’s time I go back there for awhile.
