I just came across a shit-ton of live albums by hippy jambamby shite-fest moe. at a local record spot. moe. drives me nuts; I saw them once in concert at Berkfest years ago, an outdoor summer music festival, and the pain-wrenching experience has stuck with me. Ever since that unfortunate patchouli-stenched evening, I’ve had this sneaky suspicion that the band is really nothing more than some huge sociological experiment being run by some sly-willick Grad Student (somewhere in the Northwest) looking to uncover the process by which loose hippy bitches become attached to certain bands/artists/decorative posters not because of personal taste but because of social group dynamics. moe. is the perfect vehicle by which one may determine the threshold of terribleness a band may approach before ceasing to be popular. I really can’t imagine moe.’s popularity being based on anything but the way in which the act of liking the band––going to shows, wearing the t-shirts––fits one into a pre-determined, pre-established group identity. There is no way people go to moe. concerts based on aesthetic choice. The legions of loose hippy bitches that flock to these shows do so out an innate inability to make their own aesthetic decisions, out of a desire to fit into the loose hippy bitch ideal.

Is aesthetic opinion innate, or is it really indistinguishable from the social dynamics of group association?