Why do you hang around?

Imagine you have a favourite restaurant where you have enjoyed eating for a number of years. You’ve always felt comfortable there and you’ve always thought the food is excellent. However, recently you feel things have changed, and for whatever reason, you decide you don’t like it there anymore.

What do you do? Do you continue attending this restaurant to complain, to harass the other customers, and to abuse the owner and staff? Or do you simply find somewhere else to eat?

You might leave a negative review on the restaurant’s Facebook page or other website. But having once done this, would you keep returning to said page to make further negative comments, argue with other customers, or leave laughing emojis on every positive review?

And would your negative review or comments include a personal, abusive and vindictive attack on the restaurant owner, and even on customers who continue to eat there?

I have already touched on the mysterious phenomenon of people saying ‘I’m finished with Morrissey’ yet strangely remaining active in various Morrissey fan groups on social media. This is something that I have for some time found both irritating and baffling in equal measure. Can these people really not find anything better to do with their time?

So what is going on here?

The problem is, Morrissey isn’t just a restaurant, and certainly not just any old restaurant, and as such, he can’t be easily replaced. There is a certain amount of emotional investment here; quite a lot, it would seem.

Morrissey has touched many people’s lives and thoughts in a very profound way. Their love for this artist and his songs has been something that is very emotional, deep-rooted and sincere. And he’s been around for a long time, so for some people he has played this special role for a significant part of their lives. This means letting go and walking away just isn’t that easy.

Many have remarked that there is no other artist whose fans exhibit such ardent devotion. The outpouring of love and affection evident at his shows is as remarkable as the recent outpouring of online abuse.

It would seem the extent of apparent hatred and anger expressed by some towards Morrissey is a reflection of just how important he has been in people’s lives, and how much he has meant to so many for so long. Morrissey isn’t just any other pop or rock artist. He is entirely unique, and his greatness simply cannot be overestimated. So anyone saying they are ‘finished with him’ finds this leaves a hole in their lives that just cannot be filled by any other artist.

But the thing is, we all have our own special relationship with Morrissey’s songs, and what they mean to us or say to us personally, and how they affect us. And we all have our own idea of what we think the artist behind these songs would be like if we ever had the privilege of knowing him personally. But without having that privilege, that’s all it is; an idea, an image. It seems to me to be presumptuous to state that Morrissey has changed, to make statements about what he once stood for, when you never knew him personally in the first place. So is it fair to hurl abuse at someone because they failed to live up to your image, your ideal?

Those who have been recently eager to quote Morrissey’s lyrics, “It’s so easy to laugh, it’s so easy to hate”, would do well to remember to apply this to their own behaviour and attitudes instead of trying to use it as an accusation against a man who has given them so much, and yet who they need to accept is a real person, a human being, with loves and hates and passions that might not be just like theirs.