In newspaper, I have the “privilege” of sitting next to sophomore Nick Booth. We both enjoy listening to music while working; however Booth possesses a musical ideology that I like to call “music elitism.” This is why I usually am “not allowed to” listen to music like Pentatonix or Nicki Minaj, and scoffed at when I attempt to. Basically, music elitism is thinking that your music is better than everyone else’s. There are probably many other music elitists out there, so I’d just like to say: I hate to break it to you, but your music isn’t better than anyone else’s.

People have drastically different tastes in music. I am open to just about everything, but many others are not. Just because someone likes music that you don’t like, should you bash them for it? Absolutely not. Just because you’re not the biggest fan of country music doesn’t mean that you can talk badly about your friend’s Hunter Hayes songs (but let’s face it, there aren’t any bad things to be said about Hunter Hayes anyway).

Just because you accept someone’s music taste doesn’t mean you have to like it. I’m not saying you should listen to everything and love it; you just need to be nice about your tastes. No matter what genre a song is or who it’s by, music is still music. There are no right or wrong kinds. It’s been able to bring people together forever, and there’s no reason why it should stop now.