What Your MCM’s Musical Taste Says About Him

Well it’s Monday folks, and you know what that means: ̶I̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶g̶e̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶b̶r̶e̶a̶d̶. It’s time to avoid lamenting the poor decisions that we made, with absolute vigor Friday through Sunday, using some quality memes and fake internet holidays!! True to this theme, let’s talk about your MCM (short for Man Crush Monday), which is basically the internet’s way of saying “the dude you’ve been stalking on Instagram and affectionately roasting with your friends in your group text.” In today’s complicated, often frustrating landscape full of Dating Apps, “U up?” bear traps and “send nudes” landmines, it’s important to proceed with caution, while still getting to know people for who they really are. That is why I — someone with debilitating intimacy issues who spends 75% of her time alone, and is thus completely qualified to speak on such matters — am here to help guide your journey. Here are the facts (my opinions): Everybody sucks in their own way; there’s just no getting around it. We are all flawed, and we each have our own penchants and idiosyncrasies that can be attributed to our personal histories of psycho-emotional wear and tear… :-D

The difficult thing about dating, then, is not figuring out whether someone sucks, but rather how much and in which areas. Ideally you will find someone whose brand of suck compliments your own, so that by combining forces you achieve minimal suckiness as a unit. You might think that the best place to begin this quest is by checking their social media behaviors or trying to peep their text messages, but I’m of the opinion that this is a fool’s errand. You’re going to inevitably find something that you don’t like or could easily take out of context, and furthermore, you’re not actually gaining any new information as to what this person is like behind their curated, public-facing persona. Save yourself the trouble, I say. If someone is an outright fuckboy, that reality will manifest itself in other areas. Ipso facto, I have developed a system for screening these idiots, which doesn’t require you to play anything below the belt. Are you ready?

Check. His. Spotify.

Or Apple Music, if he’s full of self-loathing. That’s actually a pretty good indication right off the bat, because it’s common knowledge that people who love themselves and feel they deserve a superior music experience, use Spotify. But I’ll get off my soapbox about that until they start paying me for my constant endorsement. Regardless, I maintain that a person’s listening preferences are the best way to glean insight into what they’re like in private, when no one else is around. Odds are you can even gain access to this information without ever having to touch their phone. Just ask them to DJ when you’re in the car, or what concerts they’ve been to lately, or what their favorite song/artist of all time is, etc… Spotify™️ even allows you to follow people, so you can see everything that they listen to. But he probably won’t lie about it, because he won’t understand the implications that his answers to these questions have. Step two is what to make of this information once you get it. Surely we all listen to things we’re not proud of once in a while (several ABBA songs somehow manage to make their way into my Top 100 every year), but if someone is habitually returning to a specific genre or handful of artists, then it’s important to know what that says about their overall personality. So without further ado, I have gathered, compiled, and slightly exacerbated some testimonials from my own personal experiences, as well as those of my fellow women, to create the following stereotypes. Let’s just dive right in:

EDM Guys

I chose to include both of these photos so as to demonstrate the evolution of an EDM guy — Because the only discernible difference between the guys in the first picture and the guys in the second (apart from muscle mass), is that the guys in the second photo have been to enough festivals to know that you’re only supposed to say things like “let’s get fucking weird” and “show me your tits,” not wear them on your shirt. Merely a rookie mistake; I’m sure the guys from the first picture will be back next year with larger traps and less clothing. If an EDM guy has fist pumped his way into your heart, you can expect that he probably A) has brain damage from doing copious amounts of MDMA and B) contracted a venereal disease from that girl with the “PLUR” tattoo that he fucked on the ferris wheel at Electric Daisy Carnival. Bonus points if he or one of his friends try to glove at you without your permission (for those of you who haven’t experienced gloving, all you need to know is that it is ocular assault and should be outlawed in all 50 states). EDM Guy takes shirtless selfies in his bathroom mirror, as well as at the gym, and the pool, and his family’s Thanksgiving, and his grandmother’s funeral, etc.… and will often send them to you unsolicited, because he genuinely believes that he is blessing your inbox. Some true fuckboys live under this umbrella, and unfortunately this knowledge hails from my own personal experience.

Jam Band Bros

If your MCM listens to Widespread Panic and The String Cheese Incident, or has seen Umphrey’s McGee in concert in any context other than being dragged there against his will, he is a jam band bro. What does this mean for you? It means you can expect that he’ll try to leave his Chacos on during intercourse, and will also keep you awake for hours past your bedtime to discuss the reverence of Phish’s “Tweezer,” while you scream and cry hot tears of sexual frustration into a pillow. The song may *only* have been 36 minutes long, but you’ll be forced to pay for it for the duration of your relationship. All the while, the Dancing Bears on his wall tapestry will laugh down at you maniacally. The only bit of good news about these people is that they’re easy to identify, because they are actually incapable of not assaulting your inconspicuous conversation with mention of jam bands every few minutes. This genre has one of the most cult-like followings that I’ve seen.

Country Boys

How this awful tweet managed to amass 43k likes I do not know, but I’m concerned for the heterosexual youth of this nation. Country Boy loves to shout things like “Mama didn’t raise no bitch!!!” as he crushes his shotgunned beer into the scorched earth with a work boot heel. After the initial theatrics, most people would pick that can up and deposit it into a nearby waste receptacle, but not Country Boy. Oh no, he doesn’t “believe in” global warming. Caring about the planet is for snowflakes, he says. A romantic evening with this person probably includes passing a bottle of bourbon back and forth in his truck bed before giving each other hand jobs at a Jason Aldean concert (It’s the simple things in life, you wouldn’t understand). If he only recently became a fan of Kanye West, that’s not a good sign. Country boys are also responsible for some of the worst tweets known to man (see above).

The Old Souls

This persona actually transcends multiple genres, because it applies to people who say things like “there’s no real rap music anymore, the 90s were a better time,” or “I was born in the wrong decade, I swear Rock n’ Roll died in the 80s.” Yaaaawn. I have news for you, you condescending ass hat: You weren’t born at the wrong time. People have been saying this since the dawn of humanity, and they were wrong too. “I swear this elephant just does not taste as good as the Wooly Mammoth, I was born in the wrong epoch smh.” What this is, is merely a testament to the fact that we’re incapable of ever enjoying our present circumstances. Obviously we are all living in hell at this point — as epitomized by the fact that Nathan For You was cancelled, or that Tumblr will no longer host porn — so your best bet is to just embrace the 2018 of it all. Do what the rest of us do and numb the pain with moth memes and one-click ordering on Amazon Prime. And if you’re aching to fill a void left by 90s hip hop or 70s rock, might I suggest the musical stylings of Kendrick Lamar or Tame Impala.

Hypebeasts

This guy is absolutely begging someone to beat his ass, and I refuse to hear otherwise. If my parents ever turned to each other in the car and started shouting a 20 year old rap song (which, by the way, is objectively bad), I would’ve called CPS without thinking twice, for my own safety. Hypebeasts are basically the people just riding whatever the current wave is, and are typically more concentrated within the rap genre. They usually carry their Juuls in their Supreme crossbody bags, and spend way too much money on sneakers. Hypebeasts are often also the most guilty of having very little discernible taste of their own when it comes to music/fashion/culture in general. When dating hypebeasts, you should do your due-diligence and check their SoundCloud as well, because the odds are that they’ve been rolling out homemade rap covers from their garage, which may or may not feature intimate details about your relationship, or even sound bites from voicemails you’ve left them. And before you ask, yes, my personal Spotify is littered with Sheck Wes tracks, including “Mo Bamba.” I listened to Mudboy for like four days straight when it dropped, and then nearly fought the clerk at 7 Eleven when she told me they were out of mango Juul pods. Perhaps I possess hypebeast tendencies, whatever.

Other Musical Personas that I Don’t Have Quite as Much to Say About, but Still Exist:

Popstars — If his favorite genre is pop, it is very possible that he is gay. Which is awesome, if you are also a gay man. If you aren’t, you might want to re-evaluate the nature of your relationship, or be on the lookout for other signs that support this theory.

ALT Rockers — Otherwise known as hipsters. Perhaps the most arrogant fans of all the genres, because they actually have good taste and they are very aware of it. Probably spend a fortune on beard oil.

Metalheads — Probably had a rough childhood; possibly owned a pet rat.

“Doesn’t like music” — fucking RUN!!!! He is a serial killer; a sociopath; dead inside.

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