Massless

On Disliking Eminem: I like the beat of that radio single, "The Real Slim Shady". I find it catchy. And while there is much hand-wringing over the content of his songs...I can't say for sure whether he is sincerely launching personal attacks against his wife or people he derides in song or just trying to be a contrary asshole, though knowing about the misogynous and homophobic content of his other songs certainly undercuts the enjoyment of this one for me... However, any enjoyment I derive from the sinuous interplay of beat and prosody doesn't ameliorate the fact that I am unforgiving regarding his particular brand of marketing mindlessness, by which I mean a marketing push that seems to want to ignore how teens socialize, form opinions, and develop empathy. Compiling such misogyny, homophobia, and hate and marketing it to the teen meme, a group mind-set in flux whose members, on occassion, display a well-understood capacity for internalizing and sometimes violently "acting out" the message, makes me wish that his wife's violent episode had been a little more outré.