Photo courtesy of Austin Neill via Unsplash

There is perhaps nothing that irks a music fan more than being prompted by other fans to prove their allegiance to a particular band or artist. Arguments over being a real or fake fan cause divisions in communities that should be focused on the exploration and enjoyment of art. Many music fans often become so connected with what they listen to that they become territorial over their favorite bands and artists, feeling the need to gatekeep their favorite music and exclude new listeners who might be just discovering the artist.

Many die-hard fans assert what they feel is their superior status by calling into question the validity of other peoples’ fandom, creating a harmful culture of gatekeeping and elitism that is ruining music.

Music has long been heralded as the universal language. Every song can speak to people of all different cultures and backgrounds regardless of their fluency in the language the song was written in. Listeners can even feel themselves connecting to foreign music with lyrics they don’t understand, sometimes prompting them to take an interest in the culture in which the song was born. But if music has the innate ability to reach across physical and social borders to connect people, why is so much of the music community exclusionary?

In many cases, the exclusionary culture of gatekeeping music groups comes from a desire to be in a small, exclusive group of fans. The feeling of having an underground music taste is highly sought after by hard-core fans of music. When playing your favorite music for friends, being complimented and asked about the band you’re playing evokes an unrivaled sense of validation. Nothing makes you feel cooler than casually replying to these inquiries with, “Oh, it’s a really small band. You’ve probably never heard of them.”

The desire to have an underground music taste is the primary reason that many fans gatekeep their favorite bands and try to keep them out of the mainstream. Their tastes in music feel less and less special the more widespread recognition their favorite artists get. Of course, attitudes like this actively harm other fans and the artists themselves within the music community.

Many smaller artists would be justified in feeling betrayed by their most loyal fans. Although the first fans of an artist might have positive intentions in wanting to maintain a small, close-knit community, their efforts often hold the artist back from reaching the popularity they dream of and hurt the artist’s ability to make a living off their music.

In addition to holding back smaller artists, gatekeeping music hurts incoming fans of well-known bands. Recently, notable fan communities have reacted negatively to their favorite bands being discovered by new demographics, their elitist perspectives causing them to shame new listeners for not being real fans.

In 2020, fans of the iconic pop-rock band Fleetwood Mac found themselves divided after a TikTok user posted a video of himself skateboarding down the road with a bottle of cranberry juice to the sound of the band’s hit song “Dreams.” The TikTok exploded in popularity, becoming a viral trend and catapulting “Dreams” back into the Billboard Top 100 for the first time since 1977. Of course, some long-time fans of the band couldn’t hide their elitist attitudes. “I grew up listening to Fleetwood Mac, you heard them on TikTok. We are not the same,” one fan wrote in a since-deleted post.

In support of the TikTok trend, band members Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks posted their own videos to the sound of “Dreams.” Nicks later reflected on the trend in an interview with CBS, saying, “I’m happy about it because it seems to have made so many people happy.”

Surrounding a medium that has so much potential to bring people together, it’s disappointing that the music community is so plagued with issues of exclusion. Why should it matter how long a fan has followed an artist? Why should it matter how they discovered them? The obscene prevalence of these divisions within the music community has given us all front-row seats to how gatekeeping and elitism are ruining music.