//real life or forums?
both for me. It's too hard to seperate for me now. I find the Internet negative at times. Forums always go that way - which surely reflects on human nature? pfft i dunno? humour is good, and people will give me a hard time for saying this here but fuck it you know?

dunno about self-examination on a forum, but there must be people that feel way worse than me. it seems negative culture is the default, and you must fight to swim above it. how the hell did that happen?

i despise what newsboy did to mike king. i hate what mike did back, and so on. what a crap peice of life energy that is.

swim Dust. I wish I knew the right words that would be like flippers on your feet

//I find the Internet negative at times. Forums always go that way
Yeah, that's why I asked. I've gotten pretty thick-skinned now, at least virtually, but some days it still grinds me down. Some days I'll just start reading and be stressed or depressed for the rest of the day.

I think it says more about communication than human nature though. People, in general, know how to communicate in person. You've got immediate real-time response, body language... I think forums are ultra-negative because people's communication skills haven't developed to make up for the loss of those subconscious methods and protocols of communication. It's easier to write something nasty when you don't have to face the person you're slagging off...but now I digress.

Also, argument makes more stimulating discussion than a lot of people sitting around agreeing with each other. Again, people talking in person (for example in social situations) are focussing on finding common ground, even when they disagree. People are more likely to respond to web-based forum discussion (not chat) if they disagree with what's been written already.

I know disagreement is different to negativity, but in general I reckon a combination of both these is how you end up with so much shit-slinging in the forums, at least.

...but I digress...just thinking on the run...

Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me...

That is probabaly how my cousin felt before he went solo.

it is these times that I don't really recover till I notice the small things in life, as cliched as it seems. Such as wandering down a street, the sun shining, casually studying the flow of people. Wondering what is making them smile or seeing someone I haven't in a while. Or just not thinking at all, just relaxing in a moment unexplainable where the world makes sense if just for a second.
Sometimes it is a matter of placing too much weight on someone's opinion when it is yours that should matter more. Not everyone is right all of the time and yes that still applies to you but in the end you are all you have, you live and learn.
I also like it when music connects with me in that mood, sure usually a lyric will piss me off "I should have come up with that", so perfect but it reminds that there are others in the same boat, comfort.
I think I am rambling now.
We take ourselves too seriously sometimes.
We take others too seriously sometimes.
Perhaps doubt creates more doubt to the point where that is all we see.
Perhaps life has to be in certain parts of the spectrum. Positive, Balanced and Negative. Our minds need to occupy each at certain times in order to cope.
Or we are so quick to dismiss that which irks us that we lose sight of the reason. The effort.
Our egos are too fucking fragile. In a book I am reading, a british historian began to hate a french historian for his gorund-breaking progress on the Egyptian hieroglyphs which he believed to be greatly in part to his previous work. However this is all from the author's point of view who also has vendetta's at stake. It is hardly ever so clear cut, so correct.

//a fair share of shit
sorry just another point to make. There are a gazillion people who get more than a fair share of shit. If shit was fair in how it was dealt out you would suffering more than you think you are now.

Bless you, blowfinger. Dust and Teina are the reason this site exists.

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Well then dust I appreciate what you do. It fills in my boring moments at work and gives me a chuckle to read what people write when I'm having a frustrated moment.

cheers to youse.

um but, its mainly the bands i feel for. so sick of emails, and calls and forums and stuff telling me about what people don't like. i don't like it. (hehehe)

Interesting you should say that Stu - it's just what I was thinking.
You don't say someone's crap - unless you are comparing them to some one else.

It's a strange thing to say - but don't feel sorry for the bands. For every negative whingey post, there is someone out there - in the case of some of the bands slagged here, many thousand someones - who care about them and the music they make. When I read forums about the bands I like and someone is being tosser, it just makes me think that their little icon is the representation of - well - a tosser.

I don't think it is human nature that we bag others and be nasty, it's just being angry or frustrated gives you that specific kind of energy that makes you want to do something about whatever has got yr proverbial goat ... Being happy, thinking the world is all good - it's one of the weirder parts of our psyche that these are the things make you complacent and inactive.

You know what - you only feel bad about everything / people / posts being negative because you actually give a fuck. And that, Sir Dust, is not a bad place to be.

//when it's written down it looks more meaningful than it often really was intended to be.

nice call

i read an article in the paper about that eh and mike king was saying something about how it was a joke back..? or something random like that... that it was done in the style that newsboy had presented him as in the cartoony thing... then i read what he said... hmmm

Yeah dust, I was a bit shocked that it made the front page just a day after it happened, but in general for me it had just been a kind of "ho ho, another celebrity deathmatch" moment. When you said that I took a step back and realised just how offensive and embarrassing the whole debacle is.

No, no...found the info. I gets it now. Agreed, it was pretty low on both sides... King was obviously quite hurt by it. Ouch.

//No, no...found the info.
Dang, whiplash. After I went to all that trouble to explain it and all.

I fuckin rate your hat.

//negative is good. as long as you are being honest. //

Yes and no ... I certainly wouldn't want people to hold back on honestly held views ... it is just that there seems to be a significant number of people on these here forums who do nothing other than put down bands, genre or individuals.

And if you honestly think a band is crap ... then fine, say so ... but justify your call ... turn your "negativity" into a genuine criticism ...

Too often I see "such and such a band is crap!" End of story ... no reasoning, nothing. On the other hand I see people gushing over the latest thing with no reasoning either ... this is no better in my view.

As I understand it the primary purpose of this site is to support NZ Music ... to me that means all music/musicians no matter how good or bad. Hopefully, if we support the good ones they will go on to "make it" and if we support the bad ones then they may improve and turn into good ones. And by support I don't mean sycophancy and general back slapping ... I mean well reasoned comment positive and negative ...

Being a 95% negative fuckhead myself I'd have to say that Dusts probelm may be associated with general depression not nzmusic trolling. Criticism can be good fun but slagging without expalanation (lena o style) and insults are really pathetic.

stu i'm not going to support something just because it's from new zealand. do you honestly believe that if we all get in behind the feelers and zed that they will become better bands? dude this music is fucking killing us, i will hate it with a passion thank you very much, i don't need to go telling everyone this all the time, but if someone asks me then i will tell them what i think, and if someone jumps up on a soap box and starts bleating about how great the latest bullshit zm jingle is then i'll do my best to shoot it down.

i've told one of my favorite new zealand musicians that his band was sucking at the time and he said "thanks bro, we need to hear that sometimes" as long as you are honest people will generally respect what you say.

my ears are ringing tonight i'm pretty stoked.

//dude this music is fucking killing us, i will hate it with a passion //

So it is less about the bands than it is about the type of music ... fair enough ... not everyone is going to like the same stuff. But if sufficient numbers of people like a particular song or genre then it will become popular ... McDonalds may not be the best food in the world, but it tasted good to enough people to allow a guy to build the company to what it is today. But no-one is forcing it down your throat. Same with music ... if you don't like it don't listen ... but leave others to their own taste ...

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of either of the bands you mention ... but I can understand why others may enjoy their music ... good beat and rythm ... catchy hooks ... works 90% of the time.

I've said it before there's criticism and there's cynicism. There's a hell of a lot of cynics on here who go around calling themselves critics. if they're only expressing the negative how the hell are we to believe otherwise?