00:00Benson Boone really isn't that bad, you're all just mean.
00:03For those of you who don't know, Benson Boone was a former American Idol contestant who grew in popularity largely because of TikTok,
00:09and last year he released his debut album, which included the song Beautiful Things.
00:13Now, regardless of how you feel about it, Beautiful Things was the best-selling global single of 2024.
00:19But Benson Boone has received a lot of intense vitriol online, especially in recent months,
00:23and not just from online trolls, but also from critics too.
00:27For instance, Pitchfork tweeted out in their roundup of the best and worst of Coachella performances
00:31that Benson Boone, seen here with Brian May, who he performed with at Coachella, was, quote,
00:36horrible, just god-awful, the kind of act that makes you wonder if this whole medium has been worth it.
00:41This kind of savagery may be customary for Pitchfork, but it's not exactly constructive criticism,
00:46it's just cruelty designed to fit a trend.
00:49I'd even argue that all this, quote, criticism says more about our social desire to take down
00:54perfectly harmless public figures for our own statistic fulfillment than anything about Benson Boone's actual music.
01:00He actually even posted on TikTok about this, calling out someone in the comments who said, quote,
01:04I don't even know why I hate Benson Boone, but it feels right.
01:07Like, what is he supposed to do with that?
01:09He even went so far as to offer legitimate critiques about himself to this person, which I found pretty amusing.
01:16Also, none of this is to say that Benson Boone is above criticism.
01:19Like, we can have a constructive conversation about his overly simplistic songwriting or the screeching high belts
01:25or the fact that he's done way too many backflips on national television.
01:29But hey, at least he has a gimmick and doesn't just stand frozen behind a microphone and a guitar
01:33like many of the other male pop stars we have these days.
01:36Oh, the double standards.
01:37Listen, defending a man was not on my bingo card today.
01:40But I'm just saying that Benson Boone is not a disgrace to the music industry.
01:44OK, so let's avoid these empty and cruel critiques.
01:48And if we want this guy to actually get better, we have to do better with how we critique him.
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