Stop Hating!

                                                         
"Hate- Verb; to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest"

Picture if you will two people having a conversation about artist "X". "X" is hot right now, he's on every remix, he has the #1 album, presumably he's making plenty money.  One of the two isn't a fan.  He expresses the (legitimate) view, that however "hot" "X" may be he isn't exactly talented.  When this view is expressed the "X" fan will claim without fail that his friend is "hating" on "X".  This conversation happens every day, and over the years, more and more frequently.


I don't know when exactly this shift occurred, somewhere between Master P and Soulja Boy it just became the go to charge to make.  Especially if said artist or thing is commercially successful.  Not a fan of Medea?  Hater.  Think Lil B isn't the best emcee in the world?  Hater.  Not feeling Waka Flaka's lack of lyrics?  Hater.  Think OJ da Juiceman needs to step his rap game up?  Hater.  What do you mean Jim Jones isn't the greatest rapper ever?  Hater.  You don't watch Basketball Wives?  Hater.  Not feeling The Game?  Hater.  Think Kobe is no MJ?  Hater!!!

Why it's a virtue to slavishly like every piece of garbage is thrown our way?  I couldn't tell you.  Why one isn't allowed to have a critical opinion of someone or something? I don't know.  Why it's wrong to actually expect substance from my entertainment?  I couldn't tell you either.  The term hate is thrown around so loosely that people claim to hate things they probably only dislike.  Something that if you measured it probably only irks your nerves is transformed into something you hate.  Only what do you say when you genuinely hate something or someone?

So you don't want Lebron James to ever win a ring, do you really hate him?  Think Kanye is a narcissist who doesn't know when to shut up, do you hate him?  I personally don't understand how a person can hate someone they don't personally know.  I don't care how much you watch someone on TV you don't know who they are off the camera.

What's funny to me is, the term is thrown around so freely, I don't even know what the proper term for someone who fits the description of a "hater" is.  It's not as if these kinds of people didn't exist before we labeled them "haters" after all.  Maybe there were multiple terms and we just found an all encompassing phrase.  After all not all "haters" are jealous of the person or thing they are "hating on".  Or are they?