… in which our heroine compares Creed to American Idol and, indirectly, monster-truck rallies.

So it’s like this… this one time, I bought a Creed cd. I’m not going to bother defending this action, since the crux of my argument kind of lies in the ephemeral, simple beauty of not having to. A few weeks after several spins in my D-battery operated boombox, I began to notice that I was skipping over a lot of songs. It eventually petered down to one or two, and finally I came to the realization at a young age, that I did not, actually, like Creed. Actually, I kind of hated Creed. Let me be clear: I am not bragging about how I hated Creed before everybody else hated Creed, blah blah blah. That’s not my point. I bought the cd in the first place, remember? My point is, I wanted to like that cd. I really did. There is this paradox of cool wherein you’re defined by the things that you like (see: High Fidelity), while being simultaneously vilified for liking something because it’s popular and for disliking something because it’s popular. Liking something for the sake of irony adds an extra level of complexity to the mix.

I’d like to say that I’m comfortable expressing my personal tastes because I usually try to judge things with an eye towards the objectivity of my own enjoyment, but that wouldn’t be true. I listen to NPR, I read a lot of books, and I really, really don’t like American Idol; I constantly worry about the smug label that comes with those preferences. I’ve tried to watch American Idol, I really have. I just… don’t like it. That’s all. But then, things start spinning out of control, because in addition to worrying about people judging me for not liking American Idol, I also worry about people judging me for explaining why I worry about people judging me for not liking American Idol. Because there’s nothing more smug and elitist than defending your preferences by saying that you “just like it.” Or defining what constitutes smug and elitist, for that matter.

Dammit. This is why the bums will always lose.