Wolves Riding Bears.

This is a topic which greatly infuriates me and it's a word that's toted about with such ease by people who question and mock everything except the peculiars that have slipped through their cynical nets.
Pretentious.

What does this word actually mean?
Well, the dictionary definition is:
;attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed : a pretentious literary device.'
So, being pretentious.
What it is?
It is certainly a hazy subject, which makes it even more odd that it's referenced so much by people.

To me, pretentiousness is: Cooperate culture. As Bill Hicks would put it, 'sell outs'; people, groups or unities that live a comfortable life in the mainstream. In fact, no. It's not even them themselves. The people who pump out this 'broad' culture (eg. music; radio friendly music.) without a want to offend anyone with any kind of experimentation or diversity.
They are not pretentious.
Why?
Because that's what they want to do. There's a difference from contriving and just being. They are just being what they are and even if they are shit, it's irrelevant.

No, it's the fans.
The fans are pretentious.
For example:
Towards the end of 2008, I was involved in a production at my college (I do Performing Arts, if you're unaware by now) and before the second night of two, the performers were generally 'chilling' in the theatre and listening to music through the speakers of the theatre. Average, inoffensive, boring. Then, Nickelback comes on, the song 'Photograph'. Any true musical person will realise suddenly that this is a sigh for all of that nature. Well, my classmate Genna exclaimed a joy of "Now, this is music!" I then proceeded to walk up to and demand he repeat.
That? That is 'music'?
Nickelback are a staple of talent and worth to the beautiful section of culture that is music?
Really?
Am I missing something?
Aha. I know I'm not.

That example proves my point. These people are pretentious philistines. They revel in their ignorance about culture, fashion, sophistication and living. They think things like 'Nickelback' are talented demigods. My god.
Of course, you expect this from the mainstream audience.
They lap it up and I don't mind it that much, however, I see how foolish they are, I leave them to it.
However.
If I were to play them something really abstract and different from what they usually hear, the word pretentious often pops up.
Also, I like how philistines such as they use the would 'pretentious' to try and appear like they have some kind of intelligible hierarchy above the other. Oh, such hypocrisy.

People would call a band like Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man pretentious. And why?
They're experimental, unusual, progressive, different, weird, but, the most obvious factor of them is that they are middle-class.
It has now become a norm that being middle-class or expressing a blatancy of being middle-class is, the word, pretentious. Now that everyone has been downgraded or promoted into one ruling class of people (which, by the way, bare more traits of working class than any other), to not be that way (working class-esque) is to be pretentious; to be up oneself; to think you are better than you are lead to believe; to have ideas above your station.
Also, people so often define the meaning of 'pretentious' wrongly.
It's generally held with a banner of being too British, or to revel in oneself, and ones abilities; specifically if those abilities involve the mind, appearance or general sophistication and culture, or class.
Don't overstep yourself is what we're constantly told.
But, it's okay for a working class man to claim his rights and use the term 'Working Class Hero' and exclaim how he will not be held down. However, if a middle class man were to stand up for the stereotypical traits of being middle class (the paragraph above), he is seen as pretentious.
Why?
Have we come one nation ruled by the working class?
A hundred years ago, the working class barely existed in terms of acknowledgment, and now, it's prideful to call yourself working class and 'up yourself' to claim any 'higher'.
To use a really pathetic, but, reasonably persuasive metaphor which i'm sure a lot of white working class men (mainly men) will have reveled in about their rights.
'Why is it that if I were to call a black man something negative, there would be outcry, but, on the other way around, it's not a problem?'
That kind of situation.
Also, if you were one of the people who needed to read that example to understand my point, you're clearly one of the people who will call me or this article pretentious, but, I care not.

I am quite sick of being made to feel guilty for my own intelligence and love of it.
Not everyone wants to aspire to be a workman (horrible generalisation of working class people there, but to be fair, that's the feeling I got when in school and surrounded by boys with such aspirations.), some of us want to write novels, or, explore music making.

What point am I making?
Well, my point is merely this: try and rid of the word 'pretentious' from your vocabulary. (Also, because you're using that word, you're becoming pretentious yourself, you see?) It's highly negative and it just obstructs evolution, really. It makes everyone go 'Oh, okay...' and not strive difference, abnormality or individualism and, these three things, I adore.
So, shut up. Thanks.

& To put it in a less smug way.
Let people be free to experiment with their lives, and don't judge, you shouldn't let it worry you, and in fact, you should be doing it too. Thank you.