"Stop calling Japanese rock "J-Rock", you genre-ignorant dumbasses!"
Last.fm is a "social music" site, where by downloading a plugin for your music player of choice, a record of what you listen to will be sent to your profile, and the site can issue you recommendations for new artists based on this information. It also provides journals, wherein you can talk about music. So of course, like any site that has more than one person on it and allows them to talk to one another, it has its share of wank.

Last.fm also allows you to "tag" artists; these tags will be visible to anyone who views the artist's page. Unsurprisingly, these tags are an ongoing source of wank, as people are constantly telling others to stop tagging artists -- any artist! -- with terms such as "indie," "alternative," "anime," or, as in the case of this particular wank, "J-rock."

It all begins back in May of last year, when an_ill_omen makes a post telling "Japanese music only fans" to stop tagging artists as "j-rock", because apparently there is "nothing J-rock" about bands like MUCC and Dir en Grey. No, really.

In fact, there is "no such thing as J-rock," because it's too broad a term and not a genre. Calling these bands J-rock "puts them down" and "gives people who like music from Japan a bad name." Also, he wants you to stop listening to only Japanese music, you musically ignorant losers.

Surprisingly, the wank doesn't start here in earnest. Several people make the point that the Japanese also label their music as J-pop, J-rock, etc. (leading the OP to say "why the Japanese call their own bands 'j-rock' is beyond me, but I guess maybe they wanna be 'special' so fuck them for that, because they're not special or more unique than western bands") and several go "well excuuuuse me for being musically ignorant then!!!", but it doesn't really explode. Towards the end, however, vordul jumps in with a rather tl;dr comment which basically boils down to "It's a descriptor, not a genre, dammit! No one said the tags have to be genres!"


Fast-forward to a few weeks ago, when scarredworld345 makes a post with the same intent, bearing the somewhat confusing title of The "J-rock" tagging will have to STOP anytime soon!. an_ill_omen jumps in immediately to say that he did it first and to warn scarredworld345 of the evils of vordul.


Cue... very mixed responses, ranging from "yeah, it's a dumb tag and people only use it because it makes them feel special for listening to something that's not American." to "it's not a genre, but it's still a valid tag!" to "It is so distinct from Western rock!", plus yet more "but the Japanese call it J-rock too!" Most of the "it's still a valid tag!" comes from vordul, who thinks that scarredworld345 ought to delete his post so no poor innocent is tricked into thinking that scarredworld345's argument makes sense when in fact it does not. Or something like that. scarredworld345 responds to this by saying "Whether you all agree that this makes sense or not, "J-rock" is still dumb and people who use the name at all are dumbasses." Convincing argument, isn't it?

But vordul is not convinced! Instead, he goes through his foe's journal, and posts the following:

"scarredworld345 said...

I listen to Japanese music (mostly Japanese Rock)

You posted that 8 days ago. Unless you've had some sort of epiphany in the last few days, you now have three options:
1 - Remove this journal to hide the fact that you are a huge hypocrite and poor troll,
2 - Keep this journal up and show the world that you're a huge hypocrite and poor troll, or
3 - Block me and delete all my posts in an attempt to hide the fact that you're a huge hypocrite and poor troll.

I look forward to seeing which one you pick!"

scarredworld responds to this by saying he would keep his journal, because "I'm no fighter, but I stand with my beliefs, and die with them." Personally, I don't think opinions on music genres are worth dying over, but what do I know?

In the meantime, puppettalk tells vordul that it doesn't matter whether or not the Japanese use the term J-rock, because "I'm sure most [Western] people know they tag it as such to feel special." He challenges vordul to show him "somewhere, anywhere on the site where a significant amount . . . of people from Japan has tagged a band as j-rock instead of rock." vordul calls logical fallacy, saying the burden of the proof lies with the prosecution, which is apparently the anti-J-rock people in this case.

an_ill_omen says that just because the Japanese do it doesn't make it right. vordul calls him a troll, which seems to be his favorite insult. an_ill_omen responds by calling vordul a troll right back, and says that tagging a band as "j-rock" is a "deformation of character [sic]."


And it gets pretty repetitive at this point ("you're a troll!" "No, you're a troll!" "No, you are!" "No, you are!"), so I think I'll leave it there. In conclusion, this wank has taught me that tags and musical genres are serious business, and anyone who refers to Japanese music as J-rock is an ignorant weeaboo. I only hope it is as educational for the rest of you. Thank you for your time.