Imagine you’re in the car, music is bumping, vibes are high, and smiles are big. Then that one person — you know exactly who — starts talking about the aux. I know you know that specific annoyance that settles in your stomach the second they open their mouth. They’re the type to bash you if a TikTok song comes on, or — god forbid — you’re a Taylor Swift fan. They exclusively listen to the off-labels, the avant-garde, the counter-cultural, and find reward in being the only person who knows a given song, but let’s be honest, they know two genres, one of which should just be called “music I listen to so I seem mysterious.”
And here’s the thing — that person isn’t just annoying. They’re a symptom of something bigger. Our generation has developed a suffocating relationship with music where gatekeeping is second nature, discovering music through traditional mediums, like TikTok, is looked down on, and your playlist says more about your character than your actual taste. This closed-off culture is exactly why people stop discovering new music altogether — but sure, keep judging me for having Olivia Rodrigo on my aux. Somewhere along the way, we stopped listening to music and started wearing it — and the culture around it has never been more exhausting because of it.
And closed-off is no exaggeration — not just picky, but completely resistant to anything outside of what they already know.
I have experienced this oftentimes with country music. I will play a country song in my car, and I can think of a few people who groan and huff about it; ironically, they are also often the same people who claim to have such diverse musical tastes. The juxtaposition is almost impressive. The truth is, there is almost certainly a song in every genre that you would like. The problem isn’t the music — it’s the identity attached to it. The mentality becomes, “I don’t like this one country artist, so I don’t like any of it,” and that’s not taste, that’s laziness dressed up as an opinion.
And that ego has made us genuinely worse at experiencing music. I remember growing up taking road trips: everyone wanting to play a song, not fight over the aux, but actually share something. Or that feeling of finding out someone listens to the same artist as you, and suddenly the whole car ride becomes this unexpected, intimate moment over a shared song. I remember scrolling through someone else’s playlist and feeling like I was getting a little window into who they were.
Now it’s different. It’s not necessarily that we listen to less music — we probably listen to more than any generation before us. But somewhere along the way, the joy of sharing it got quietly suffocated. You think twice before putting a song on because you already know how some people might react. You hesitate to tell someone about an artist you love because you don’t want the eye roll or the judgment. Music used to be a conversation — something that happened between people. Now it feels like a performance where everyone is waiting to be critiqued. And nothing captures that judgment better than what happens when a TikTok song comes on.
Something I don’t believe I will ever understand about this generation is the hatred for songs that blew up on TikTok. All TikTok has done is open the music industry up for everyone — not just the people who already have a foot in the door. Before TikTok, breaking into music meant knowing the right people, being in the right city, or getting lucky enough to land a record deal. Now, a 15-year-old can post a song they sang in their bedroom on a whim and wake up famous. Isn’t that what music is supposed to be about? Creating something you are proud of and getting to see how much others relate to and love it. So why are we mad when someone who blew up on TikTok gets to go on tour? Just because they found their audience on an app doesn’t mean they worked any less hard or deserve it any less.
And yet somehow the judgment doesn’t stop at the artist — it follows the listener too. God forbid you have a song you found on TikTok in your playlist. Some people act like this is physically hurting them. But think about it — the entire point of posting something on social media is exposure. For others to hear it, see it, and feel it. So when an artist posts a song, and it reaches me through TikTok, isn’t that exactly what was supposed to happen? When did this stop being a good thing?
Because here is what the haters seem to be missing — a song going viral doesn’t make it bad. It means it connected with people on a massive scale. Sure, not every song is going to be your cup of tea, and that is completely fine. But what is the point of going out of your way to hate on it? The hate that artists receive simply for people genuinely loving their music has become absurd. Being mad that Sabrina Carpenter is popular doesn’t say anything about Sabrina Carpenter — it says everything about you.
Not liking an artist simply because they are popular is poor taste on your part — full stop. Bringing down an artist or their listeners because you can’t get over the fact that they are on the radio says more about your relationship with music than it does about theirs. It is okay to like things others like, and it is also okay to like things others don’t. Personally, I listen to everything from country to screamo, Korn to Olivia Rodrigo, Sombr and The Beatles — all in the same breath — and I refuse to apologize for any of it. Sticking exclusively to underground music or one artist doesn’t make you cooler or your taste more refined; it just makes you one-noted.
I resist the term “this generation” because I start to sound like my millennial sister complaining about Gen Z — but honestly, yes, we have a performativity problem. Building your entire personality around one artist to match an aesthetic is ironically one of the most unoriginal things you can do. Which brings me to my next point, gatekeeping. If you genuinely love an artist, wouldn’t you want others to hear them? Trying to keep them underground reveals exactly what this is really about — you don’t love the music, you love what listening to it says about you. You want to feel different. And nothing exposes that faster than someone walking up and saying, “I listened to them before they were big,” like it’s a flex, as if they deserve some credit for being there before it was hot
As much as I critique others in this article, I must add that it is about me too. I have done many of these things myself, and that is precisely why I am writing this: not to point fingers but to start a conversation about something I genuinely think we could all do better at.
Music is meant to be enjoyed and shared. It is one of the few languages we all speak — a way of showing others what we feel when words alone don’t cut it. So instead of using it as a costume, try listening without ego for once. Find a song that doesn’t match your usual vibe and sit with it. You might be surprised where it takes you and how many doors it opens. Let people play what they want in the car and use it as a chance to know them on a deeper level. And please, stop writing off the artist blowing up on TikTok. When we stop performing and start actually listening, we get to experience what music and art were always made for. Connection. Connection to the people around you, to yourself, to your memories and experiences — and most of all, to the pure happiness that finding something you truly love can bring. That is worth more than any aesthetic ever could be.