There are so many ways that these freaks don’t make sense. They hate profit, nominally at least, and so while it’s okay that the band supports “education,” they usually hate it when a band does a commercial for any for-profit company (and in this case the “education” was apparently U of Phoenix, which IS for-profit…oops). But, of course, they don’t have a problem with the band making a profit for the work THEY do, by selling music, shirts, concert tix, and other merch.

One kind of profit supports a group of guys who play some nice music; the other kind supports a company that employs millions of people, helps develop the economies of poor countries, and puts cheap goods in the hands of poor Americans who would otherwise have never been able to afford that stuff. Yet the first one sounds more noble and worthwhile to these jackasses.

The Wal-Mart haters also decry Wal-Mart for putting mom & pop stores out of business. What they really mean is that the customers put mom & pop stores out of business, because no one shops there anymore, because mom & pop have high prices and low selection. But in typical fashion, they blame the competing company, which without consumer approval can’t harm the small stores whatsoever. The bankruptcy of small shops in addition shows that these indie people are not just in the minority, but in so small a minority that they can’t even combine their forces well enough to keep mom & pop afloat (part of which is because a good number of them don’t have the courage of their convictions when it comes time to divvy up those paltry art commissions). You would think that the people’s choice alone would be enough to make them shut up, given their often overtly populist and democratic sensibilities, but not so much in this case.

And then there’s the eternal question of when mom & pop become too big and corporate to be loved anymore. Is it when it’s a chain? When it puts another company out of business? The same goes with indie bands and how they’re too big to be hip beyond a certain point. Maybe the Wal-Mart thing is selfishness just like the band thing is: Once a store is big enough that everyone seems to know about it and shop there, they have to react against it. They want their own little secret place that’s a little bit better and more refined than where the unwashed masses shop, just like New Yorkers who love their little hidden-away “best pizza joint in NY” kinda places. Indie music is defined by being different: sonically, artistically, politically, socially, and commercially. As soon as everyone likes it, it falls out of that category.

So they hate profit, kinda. They hate companies, maybe. They support the poor, sometimes. They revere education, only in the abstract.

They’re a study in mental confusion and feeling over thought. They’re small-minded, spiteful, selfish, and immature, and their context of the world is so narrow as to be laughable. I’m amazed they make it through the day.