Jack Averty: The worst thing about social media? It’s not what you think

They know who we’ve spoken to, where we’ve been and what we’ve done.

But so what? How exactly are they going to hold the fact that you like going to McDonalds at 2am in the morning for a double cheeseburger against you?

See all the data we’re giving away isn’t the worst thing about social media, nor is the left and right-wing loons who ram their extremist views down your throat at every possible opportunity.

No – by far the worst thing about social media is the music snobs.

This week I stumbled across a fairly average Twitter post with some absolute nobody asking what people consider to be the worst song of all time. They also stipulated that you couldn’t think about your answer – you just had to write the first one that popped into your head.

There was the funny replies, the trying-to-be funny replies and then in waded the snobs.

“Anything by Ed Sheeran.”

“Anything by that Direction One or whatever they call themselves.”

“Can’t wait for Oasis to reform, proper music from proper men.”

Ruddy music snobs, we all know what they are like, unfortunately you’re never more than 10 feet away from one. These are the people who, if you ask for their favourite song, they will list you a B-sider from a Smiths album that was never released.

Or, perhaps worse, they’ll start talking about Vivaldi and how ‘real music’ doesn’t contain any words.

Now there is no doubt there are people out there who do love obscure hits from the 80s, and those whose ears are only fined tuned to instrumental pieces. But these are not the people who shove this fact down your throat, they just peacefully go about their lives avoiding the music they don’t like. These people will give new songs and artists a go. They won’t say whether they like something or not unless they’ve given it a listen. How else can you pass judgement or form an opinion of a song if you haven’t even heard of it?

Well step forward the music snobs, the people who will dismiss whole swathes of a discography purely based on who sung it.

“Coldplay? Nah they’re s*** mate.”

“Shawn Mendes? No thanks I’m not 14.”

If this is how they want to live your musical existence, then that’s their prerogative. But constantly bragging and harping on about it? Really?

There seems to be a growing trend to stand out from the crowd and be different from everyone else.

People eat deconstructed food, wear plastic dresses, and listen to obscure tracks, all for the sake of standing out.

But why?

‘Popular music’ is given that exact name for a reason, because it is universally enjoyable. Of course it’s not to everyone under the sun’s taste but it’s close enough.

It just makes the need to fight against it and brag about how different you are quite trifling. One of the worst crimes music snobs commit is trying to tell others that certain scores simply aren’t ‘good’.

We all have varied taste – I can’t confess to being a fan of reggae and my partner nearly has a meltdown every time I try to put anything on that features an electric guitar.

But just because we don’t indulge in those particular genres, doesn’t mean they’re not any good, they’re just not for us.

However, when the music snobs preach it’s not about taste, it’s about good or bad, which means lumping a whole load of talented, popular artists into the ‘bad’ category.

Perhaps we should bow down to these all-knowing music gods and listen to every one of their recommendations – even though they probably haven’t even heard half of them.

Of course the snobs will argue that writing off songs as ‘terrible’ is just them expressing their opinion and in a country of free speech, that is something they are free to do.

But consider the following: Everyone’s favourite politician Tony Blair was on Newsnight this week talking Brexit, in which he said: “I have the right to speak and you have the right to listen. I don’t have the right to make you listen and you don’t have the right to stop me speaking. If people don’t want to listen because of the messenger, I understand that, but I feel very strongly.”

This is about as strong an argument for being able to voice your opinion that you’re going to get.

But the difference between war apologist Blair and the music snobs is that one has a well-informed opinion, the other only shares Spotify songs with less than 1,000 plays.

Blair has worked in politics for decades and knows the intricacies of the EU inside out, so he’s fairly qualified to give his opinion on that very subject.

But the snobs’ opinions have been purely formed by a desperation to stand out and be different.

Do they really feel that strongly about the subject? Or are they just forming opinions and expressing them out of some form of desperation? They know music is a popular but touchy subject so by going against the grain everybody will be able to see how fresh and original they are. . . or not.

To quote the best TV show of all time: “Whatever happened to the strong, silent type?”

But perhaps a better quote to use would be from one of the UK’s most popular rappers at the moment, Stormzy – or to quote music snobs ‘that rapper with an annoying name who I pretend to dislike even though I never turn the radio station over when his songs come on’.

As he so succinctly put it in his breakout track, when he could easily have been addressing music snobs across the globe: “Shut up.”