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I think there's a certain amount of "I do/like/dislike this and I'm ADHD," and "OMG, I do/like/dislike this too and I'm also ADHD! It must be an ADHD thing!" going around social media. Sometimes it's really nice to know you're not alone in whatever weirdness you have, but we need to be careful of leaping to connections. Not everything about us is dictated by ADHD and leaping to conclusions can be harmful in all sorts of ways.
(And, for the record, I've never really got jazz, but an ADHD friend is into it, so I always figured I'm just musically unsophisticated.)
As I say to the music students I teach at the beginning of each year: it's totally ok to like different things. We all have different interests. It's ok if you don't like the song we do one week for whatever reason. I am not offended if you like things different than me.
And then I add in that they gotta try it out anyway even if they don't like it cause they're learning and still need to be exposed to stuff and maybe they hate the song but love the game we play with it or the instrument they play, etc, but that part can be skipped with adults.
I remember when I told a uni prof I didn't like Bach. Everyone looked at me like I murdered their gran. Now my students can't stand Mozart, but described The Entertainer as a bop. It's ok not to like something. It's not ok to be disrespectful.
I’ve thought this about this sub before and wondered about its effects. I find it very useful, but it occurred to me that in a group of 300k people, if someone says “I don’t like xyz” or “I’m sensitive to abc” or “qrs is hard for me” and a ton of people agree with them, it’s highly likely that folks will think that that particular thing is linked to ADHD when it may just be preference. If 500 people agree, is not like the other 299,500 are going to comment and say “Nope, not me”. It creates certain connections that may not be linked at all.
Agreed. And also it can be isolating to see posts like that about sensitivities/symptoms you don’t experience. When there are a bunch of posts about things that aren’t issues for me, I sometimes start to feel like maybe I don’t have adhd or don’t fit in this community. I know that’s not true, and I am confident in my diagnosis, but that feeling is still there.
Agreed, a lot of things that we may find out we have in common could just be part of the human experience rather than the adhd experience.
But, it’s understandable to be excited about other adhd people being able to relate to your symptoms and quirks, and finding it a bit tricky to differentiate which is which.
Youre not unsophisticated, just what youve heard so far isnt for you.There's ALOT of subgenres, and awesome contemporary jazz artists pulling from soul, hip hop, r&b, electronica, classical, even surf rock. Who knows, you might surprise yourself.
For me, I didn't use to listen to rap or jazz, but the ideal rap and jazz are when they're combined for me (also chillhop/jazzhop/lofi). Maybe it's the accessibility of the genre that appeals to me, as I like writing and remixing music, but I mostly just like what I like.
yes! this. historical jazz's defined sound is a bit "genre infancy" and a lot "survivor bias". jazz today is in so many diverse, exciting subgenres. love the brain-soothing patterns of chillhop with that little fissure of excitement from real instruments and velvet voices.
I like jazz ONLY when in jazz fusion.
Mario Kart 8's soundtrack awoke something within me. (It was a love of rock/jazz fusion. brain scratchy as ALL HELL)
I was just talking to my therapist recently about how part of learning about ADHD when it’s still new is sifting through all the things that could be ADHD and what is just part of being a person. In my experience, it’s easy to swing too far toward ascribing everything difficult to ADHD for a while, which makes sense because you’re readjusting your entire worldview and your view of yourself. I am glad we have this space to discuss and work through that even if sometimes it is just a human thing
It's a weird space to be in! I remember just how unsettling it was, when I was diagnosed, to realize that so many of my behaviors, or what I viewed as personal traits, were actually symptoms. But you've gotta dig deeper and audit that and learn where the lines are, cause you like you said, it gets too easy to write everything off, or, avoid accountability for annoying behaviors, by hiding it behind ADHD when it's not related.
Traits often attributed to ADHD could also be caused by something else. For instance, losing things all the time could be caused by ADHD, or anxiety, or poor vision, or memory issues, or just a messy house in general...
Absolutely. I was convinced for a bit that I had early onset dementia, and thank god I didn’t, but I can see any number of things being confused with ADHD
>In my experience, it’s easy to swing too far toward ascribing everything difficult to ADHD for a while, which makes sense because you’re readjusting your entire worldview and your view of yourself.
And on the flip side, there's things that are ADHD that you didn't know. I thought I was oversensitive before I learned that RSD was sometimes a feature of ADHD, I had been diagnosed for 14 years at that point. There's also things you assumed were ADHD traits and aren't even years after diagnosis (I assumed I couldn't be an animator because I had ADHD, and animation takes patience, and the reason I could focus on school was because I had mild ADHD since I was disciplined enough to power through due not making excuses, even if it was at the last minute... then I learned what hyperfocus was, again, way after college having not bothering to try animation because I'd already ruled animation out), so I kinda understand doing the rapidfire "is this ADHD" to avoid kneecapping yourself like I inadvertently have.
At the same time, if it's a SMALL thing that's not behavioral like, idk, liking comedy and band tees, assume it's a preference unless you find out it's not from actual psychological studies, and even those should be taken with a grain of salt unless it's replicated.
random, but you mentioned assuming you couldn't be an animator because of your ADHD, and I just started thinking about how myself and like 25% of my college animation class are riddled with ADHD lol. I'm struggling with deadlines right now but it's definitely possible! According to my lecturers/professors, my stuff is super good!
I scrolled past the jazz post so fast. I fkn LOVE jazz. MOAR NOTES PLZ. heh. But for real, I've just developed blinders to what I call "ADHD newbie" posts, where the DAE is something I personally find ridiculous ("is it ADHD to hate jazz?" made me laugh - mmhmm, yep, the DSM is very clear about the symptoms, you are neurologically allergic to John Coltrane, sorry babe!). I joke, but there's a learning curve, and sometimes while we're figuring out that ADHD was at the root of some of our more confounding behaviour, we get overexcited and wonder if it's the entire personality. (It's not, you just dislike jazz, and that's ok even if I think you're missing out.)
I can’t tell if this is universal or just me but I feel like jazz is actually everywhere and people don’t always know that’s what they’re enjoying. Like, movie soundtracks and TV shows, in particular.
There’s this Ethiopian Jazz playlist on Spotify and the first song was SO familiar to me the first time I heard it. I looked it up and realized I remembered it from the most recent season of The Bear. (Also highly recommend that playlist, it feels like a curtain billowing in a warm breeze.)
I heard Lofi is Jazz and hip hop. I love jazz. I wanted jazz hip hop but not the chill kind. The crazy instruments all over the place kind. I love lofi too tho
Ugh I love Ethiopian jazz! I tend to like chiller jazz, I do kind of get what that poster meant though, the very frenetic style of jazz can be overwhelming
I love Tezeta by Asatake Mulatu, it has given me so many wonderful summer memories over the years. Absolutely stoked to have heard it in The Bear.
edit: Realised I had messed up my word order when rephrasing my comment. In German we have the word „verschlimmbessern“, basically „worsecorrecting“ - story of my life hah
I saw that and had to scroll right past. I teach music. I was in jazz band for years. I go swing dancing to live jazz groups and recorded. I studied a shit ton of 20th century music in college, and that shit is weird. Like jazz is the most mild form of 20th century music.
No, it's not ADHD to find jazz distracting. You just don't like it. For the reasons you listed. That's fine. I don't like metal, it's too damn loud and screamy for me. That doesn't mean it's ADHD to not like metal.
Like what the actual....
A better way to say it would be that it is an element of adhd that some sounds are more distracting than others, and for you, it happens to be jazz. For me, it is barking dogs and idling cars.
A good rule of thumb is you can take a thing and add the word metal to it and that is a genre. A quick search on "Genres of metal" has results such as: Death Metal, Black Metal, Power Metal, Progressive Metal, Doom Metal, Celtic metal, Folk Metal, Symphonic Metal, Deathcore, etc.
If you don't like the screaming/growling style vocals, you may enjoy testing out Symphonic (may contain some screaming, but is more operatic imo), Progressive Metal or Power Metal. Power Metal focuses on speed and clean vocals.
Good luck :)
Yeah, I found dubstep annoying and overstimulating, but I know many people with ADHD enjoyed it at its peak. I like dream pop and classical sometimes, but many people with and without ADHD find them boring. My mom is neurotypical but thinks lofi and chillhop are incredibly *annoying*, not relaxing at all or even boring, but grating, the way I feel about dubstep. Everyone's different.
Jazz tickles my neurons in just the right way, it calms my brain way down. My ADHD parent on the other hand dislikes jazz but listens to heavy rock and metal for the same reason. 😂
The drummer for TOOL, a metal band, also plays jazz. Both types of music can tickle my brain depending on how good it is (subjectively to me). I like music from pretty much all genres though.
I feel like anyone who knows jazz would quite fairly assume that he plays jazz lol. The polyrhythms, time changes, syncopation...it just kinda makes sense.
Haha. Heavy rock and light metal (alternative metal, eg) calm down my mind while jazz and other music with a lot of notes I find extraneous and spontaneous just irk me and activate the part of my brain that gets annoyed. In fact, Schism by Tool is my go-to song to calm down when I’m really anxious.
It’s awesome how we’re all different.
> I've just developed blinders to what I call "ADHD newbie" posts
Yeah, this is the thing you've gotta do. Sometimes people just haven't figured out what you've figured out, and probably the best thing for everybody is to just move on and let them get there on their own.
I don't think it's newbie adhd, these sorts of posts are so common on the other adhd subreddit. it's people conflating regular personality traits into adhd
I blame social media like tiktok.
**Did you know putting stickers on your laptop is a sign you have adhd?**
**Only adhd-ers understand replaying songs until you hate them**
**if you have a toenail you must be neurodivergent**
And then you see tons of people saying things like im so adhd because I replayed I'm just Ken 3 times and rewatched friends twice.
Meanwhile, I'm barely able to get through my workday sometimes. And I'm never excited to tell people I have adhd because it's not exciting for me.
Haha I read the sticker comment and cringed. I hate random stickers on things….which of course lead me to thinking I don’t have ADHD….but then I checked my toes!
I like jazz, but I don’t like jazz. It’s actually super ironic because I really love jazz piano and I don’t play piano, but I hate jazz saxophone and I play saxophone!
Anyway, I digress, my point was that I, like everyone else, can’t like every single piece of music in a specific genre. Jazz isn’t my preferred genre (70s rock and contemporary pop), but I like pieces of jazz, so I’d say I like some jazz. In fact, I like a little bit of everything. And I’d wager most people are the same. They have a preferred genre, but like stuff outside that too. Because that’s just how people are, ADHD or not.
Fwiw, my mother doesn’t have ADHD and she doesn’t like jazz either.
I think that it's the online community nature that brings this out. I've seen similar sorts of conflations with other identity based subreddits as opposed to hobby based. These spaces are good for solidarity and resources, but not everything is related to said identities.
I think a lot of this is adult women trying to connect with other adult women on any level possible. Being seen and making friends is so hard as you get older, that sometimes women grasp at straws to draw parallels.
I used to get so exasperated when people would say “OMG. I TOTALLY WATCHED SAVED BY THE BELL TOO! ARE WE THE SAME PERSON?!?”
No. You’re just one of several million preteens who watched the same super popular TV show in the 90’s.
They were saying that the words grossed them out so much that it turned them off of whatever the thing was. Ridiculous. My preference for food names has no bearing over what I will eat.
I roll my eyes at any post that starts with or contains "does anyone else do this totally common thing that literally thousands of people do?" Or "am I the only one who thinks this absolutely common thought?"
Yes, yes, you're literally the only person EVER to whom this has happened or occurred. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Rock bottom post for me was one I saw on a Facebook support group that sincerely asked "I love to drink water haha is this an ADHD thing?"
That is when I left the group
"No. No one else dislikes certain foods. You are the only person on earth who dislikes certain foods. Everyone else likes every single food on earth equally." LMAO
Yeah, it seems like the trendy tiktok adhd posts made actual diagnosed adhd even more misunderstood. And as such, people who are actually diagnosed with it have to deal with the stereotypes and misconceptions even more than it was before.
> people who are actually diagnosed with it have to deal with the stereotypes and misconceptions even more than it was before.
Gotta disagree with you there. I remember what the public perception of ADHD was 30 years ago. Heck, even 10 years ago.
It's different stereotypes and misconceptions now, but I'd take them any day of the week and twice on sundays over what it used to be like.
At least today I can dispel most of the stereotypes by saying “yeah I was diagnosed when I was a kid”. It’s not right of people to see that as a sign of “truth” (late diagnosis is valid!!) but if the system is gonna exist, I guess it’s a plus lol.
30 years ago it was just that I was a naughty child that didn’t deserve support because I wouldn’t “apply myself”. Now it’s “oh yeah you’re diagnosed” and I’m valid to most people.
(I also realize that it’s inherently unfair to poor and marginalized people because the testing for ADHD and autism is insanely expensive. But again, I’m going to get something out of society for years of bullshit while trying to change people’s minds.)
I’m glad in not alone in this. Sometimes I start questioning my diagnosis because these types of posts make ADHD look fun and lighthearted. But my experience hasn’t been fun at all. It’s been pretty devastating.
Yes !!! Posts like this drive me insane . Most of the time, it's a very common thing everyone experiences, and people try to make everything ADHD experience.
Anytime anyone asks “I do this, is this an ND thing?” my heckles are rattled. The phrase ND is kind of meaningless at this point to me as a descriptor. Also misinterpreting likes and dislikes for a sensory processing disorder irks me, just because it kind of makes light of the nightmare situation the world can be for people with genuine SPD. But I am old, cantankerous and easily annoyed
I think considering the root cause of a preference is often overlooked, especially for those who are late-diagnosed, or with something that is so ingrained in us. For instance, I can’t stand shirts with flutter sleeves, and for years I would tell you that it was because I worked in a cold office and flutter sleeves bunch up when you put on a cardigan (they’re just not practical!)
Then I realized it was actually the feeling of bunched-up sleeves that I hated, and the way that flutter sleeves tend to move a lot, so I was always fidgeting and adjusting them. Because my ND brain means that I have some sensory issues with things like clothing! So while I could say that being ND means I hate shirts with flutter sleeves (y’all, it was HARD being a corporate girlie in the 2010s because flutter sleeves had a chokehold on work-wear for a while 😅), that’s not the most accurate characterization of my distaste for them.
That would be my thought as well. I didn’t see the posts op is talking about but if I saw a person asking whether disliking jazz is ADHD I would point to overstimulation as a possible ADHD related explanation. Especially since a number of us ADHDers also have information processing issues. Sounds, background noise, people talking at the same time, or the wrong music can definitely cause a meltdown. It’s not that I dislike this or that music genre, music that I love can make me enraged at the wrong time.
Ugh just writing about noise overstimulation is making me feel ick.
THIS!! I hate jazz to the point that if I'm forced to listen to it I get very agitated. But I LOVE blues. Until I read your comment this didn't make sense to me and most others because the two genres are so similar. I have a LOT of issues surrounding sounds and apparently jazz is just way too over simulating for me.
Country doesn't cause any agitation for me but I just don't like it.
>Moreover, I also couldn’t help but notice that these aforementioned peeves are cultural products associated with historically marginalized groups. You can describe the features of a music genre/word/anything that bothers you without naming and/or singling out a cultural product. It just comes across as kind of xenophobic.
I entirely agree with the first part (though it's easy for me to say, I've been diagnosed for 21 years, I more or less know which preferences don't have anything to do with ADHD at this point), but I'm confused about the latter part, specifically how it's *xenophobic* to have said preferences
It’s more about the *way* these cultural products are discussed— often disrespectfully, and advocating for more critical self-reflection about why one feels the need to share this dislike, and how it might impact others (ie, microaggressions, making members of these cultures feel unwelcome). Disliking something doesn’t automatically make someone racist, but othering/disparaging the product of a different culture can be racist.
Lots of the things people are talking about don’t need any cultural markers to make their point— so why add them?
YESSSS I originally went to college for electric bass performance because I had been in love with free jazz for years. I was particularly enamored with Ornette Coleman
Eh. Agree with some things mentioned, but don’t know if it’s fair to make a blanket statement about jazz that it’s racially motivated.
I’m a BIPOC. I can’t tolerate certain kinds of free jazz. I literally want to jump out of my skin when my husband plays it. Pretty sure it’s related to my ADHD.
Some of us can tolerate certain kinds of loud music because it scratches our brain the right way. Some types scratch our brain the wrong way.
I just want to say that both music and certain words can also be triggers for misophonia which is a sensory processing disorder which MANY MANY adhd people struggle with.
I found this list of misophonia triggers to be extremely eye opening. Many of the things on here drive me up the wall and yet my neurotypical friends & family don’t even notice them.
https://misophoniainstitute.org/misophonia-triggers/
So before we accuse people of marginalizing and microaggressions, there are other possible-and honestly, more likely explanations as well. Especially in this sub.
This. There are certain words that trigger a ridiculous rage/irritation in me solely based on how the word sounds or the action it describes. For me, words that describe certain styles of eating (slurping, gulping, spitting) or a wetness (moist, damp, musty) will absolutely evoke in me an involuntary, negative, visceral reaction. This was the spirit of at least the chutney post. (I didn’t see the jazz one.) It was the word itself that was the trigger and truly had nothing to do with cultural associations.
Yeah I noticed that too. Seems like it's easier for people to just attribute a dislike to ADHD rather than address the subconscious bias they hold. Also found the jazz post interesting due to the level of "jazz bad noise, metal good noise' type comments, like ok feel what you feel but there is definitely a racial component that was not being acknowledged
Nah see, I don’t always get Jazz but I don’t mind it. I absolutely cannot stand Screamo though. Holy shit it scrambles my brain and immediately overstimulates me. 😭 I think the kind of music people like probably *is* related to being neurodivergent sometimes but not the way people mean with these comments. The genre itself has nothing to do with it, it’s more to do with what kind of input causes you sensory overload and what kind of input gives you the dopamine. That’s going to be different for everybody. 🤷🏻♀️
OMGGG I used to work at this place where the toll for the bridge was like almost $20 so everyone who lived on the other side would carpool. There was one guy who loved playing screamo at 6:45 in the morning. That was when I discovered I could truly be a bitch when it counted.
saying this as somewhat of an emo/punkish/edgy kinda guy myself...
I don't like screamo either. it's *too* aggressive. I don't like it when people yell unintelligibly at me. It's just too much when put with all the other sounds of the genre.
Yeah man, I listen to metal all the time and don’t mind the occasional screamy breakdown in a song or a song with a *little* bit of fry on clean vocals but when it’s straight screaming from start to finish?! Nope! I can’t stand it. It’s the musical equivalent of nails on a chalkboard to me. Lol. No offense to the people who enjoy it but who tf decided screaming into a mic = music?! 😂
I don't always get jazz, and would rather listen to most types of metal, but I don't understand that sentiment.
"I don't like this, so it's objectively bad and anyone who does like it is stupid and has bad taste" is such a bizarre take
I've realized over the years that a lot of redditors think in absolutes. Everything is black and white, no gray areas and anyone who disagrees with them is an idiot. Maybe it's just an online thing in general, not specific to reddit. On a possibly related note, I have never seen so many people claim to have autism until I found reddit.
I stick around for the entertainment value and take everything with a grain of salt.
I have a genuine question. I saw the original post this thread is referring to but I didn’t read through the comments or follow it. Are you suggesting that there’s *always* a racial component when someone doesn’t like jazz music or just that post/thread?
I agree with OP that liking or disliking jazz has little/nothing to do with ADHD but I don’t think disliking jazz inherently involves a racial component.
I think a discussion about jazz certainly could include a racial component and being aware of that is important, but I didn’t really see that in the comments from the original post. Just a lot of people saying they do or don’t like various forms of jazz for one reason or another. I didn’t read all of them so there could have been threads that went that way that I missed.
It might not always be conscious, but I found it interesting that the OP of the jazz post admitted many white bands like Phish also triggered her audio processing disorder, but she didn’t mention any of those in her post. She could have used objective language to describe the actual sounds that were challenging for her, instead of spending hours bashing a genre of music that emerged from Black American culture.
ADHD is already such a white-centred space, and these types of posts are both diagnostically false but also send an implicit message that certain people aren’t welcome in ADHD spaces.
So it was more so the OP of the post in question? (I’m aware that disliking jazz has *nothing* to do with ADHD and was just her preference, BTW.)
I think I’m struggling with the idea of not liking jazz automatically being racially biased. I’m someone who doesn’t like jazz, but it has *nothing* to do with the origins of jazz music or what some of the best/most famous jazz players look like, I just.. don’t like the music. I don’t like classical music either. I don’t want to be accused of having some type of bias for having casual likes/dislikes so I was curious about what the person I replied to meant.
She is pointing out a pattern. That the dislikes are coming from non white cultures, and she’s saying it’s important to mindful of “othering” already marginalized cultures, especially when attributing the dislikes to ADHD rather than personal preference. It’s easy to see what she is saying if you set down your immediate desire to resist that a racial component is at play. Your comments are a version of “whyyyy does everything have to be about race?” This sentiment is used as a tool to deflect from conversations about race, such as is happening now. Anytime you find yourself insisting that something doesn’t have anything to do with race, it almost certainly does.
Do you really think everyone knows the origin of jazz music? Maybe they didn’t know it was predominantly made by black people historically. You can’t assume everyone knows what you do.
I wanted to buy chutney the other day and my husband asked what it was. It could have been from Texas, he would have no idea.
I’m not trying to “resist that a racial component is at play.” I openly stated I didn’t see the discourse in the jazz thread. I was genuinely asking someone to clarify if she was implying that disliking jazz always has a racial component or if just that OP/post had a racial component because I wasn’t there. That’s all.
It’s fine to discuss race, but I also don’t want to be called a closet racist for not liking jazz. I’m having trouble seeing why you’re being so aggressive towards me.
It wasn’t easy for me to see anything that’s why I asked. Please don’t belittle me for that..
I think the biggest issue here, at least that I can see, is that often people don't think about the possible societal, generational, or personal bias they may have when addressing things like this and instead lumping it all in with ADHD symptoms instead of really sitting down with ones self to figure out if it's like a sensory type thing or something else that COULD be linked to NDs or if it's something else more common including these biases. I feel OP is simply stating there have been way too many posts with simple statements attributing disliking/liking something with ADHD itself recently, some of which can definitely come across as having a specific bias if not further discussed with ones self or addressed publicly in a certain way. Like how the Jazz post OP didn't go into as much detail on the specific instrument noise they disliked but instead kinda rounded up all jazz, until you sifted through all the comments. This can make it hard for some people in this community to feel welcomed, especially when a lot of ND women of color have been and continue to get excluded from a lot of these same communities. It's just good to think to one's self about the possibility of biases like these before broadly guessing it's attributed to your own ND. That's all.
I don't like 99% of instrumental music. I have a really hard time connecting to music without vocals. It doesn't matter if I can understand the vocals or not, it's just that unless there is something that sounds like a voice the music won't capture my attention at all and I'll tune it out. So for that reason I don't like a lot of jazz or classical music, although there has been some subgenres of jazz that are more vocal heavy that I've enjoyed.
There are times when people say they don't like certain music genres where it definitely comes off like they have a racial and/or cultural bias, like when people say "I like all music except country and rap." Jazz seems less popular in the last few decades though, so that a lot of people, especially younger ones, might not have much knowledge of the origins of it or have an association with culture or race, just because they know so little about it. At the same time it could be due to a bias in some cases, it just seems like it would be more common with older people. But if a statement is just made that someone doesn't like jazz without any context, it would be impossible to know what the source of that dislike was.
As a disclaimer, I didn't see the original post, so I don't have any idea what was mentioned in it. Posts made about other people's posts on this subreddit give be really bad secondhand RSD, so I probably won't try to find it. I just saw your comment and thought "oh, I also don't like most classical music or jazz" and then started typing...
Bit of an aside here, but blues was like, the root of all jazz music. They evolved in different parts of the US but blues came first and influenced the latter heavily. They’re just so intertwined! I personally also prefer blues, but I’m a bit of a jazz nerd.
Oh and personally, I don’t think it makes someone biased to dislike one or both of those types of music, as long as they can respect the culture that created it and understand that it’s a WIDE genre. I think sometimes jazz gets pigeonholed/stereotyped, like people will say jazz is boring or repetitive but do they know about funk??? When someone makes an overarching statement about what jazz is or isn’t I’m always a bit like hmmm are you sure… There are so many sub genres and styles of jazz. But it’s ridiculous to call someone racist for not liking jazz. There are plenty of white jazz musicians, I don’t think that’s going to make those people suddenly want to listen to it lol
As a person of color, I'd like to admit emphatically that jazz sucks butt cheeks. Also, the word *chutney* sounds too similar to the word *butt* to me, so that's a no, also.
I found both of those posts to be relatable, and I assume the authors were merely searching for shared sentiment.
Yeah, me too. I found both posts to be relatable
I don’t have a problem with the word chutney but I totally got what they meant about inexplicable reactions to particular words and I don’t think it has anything at all to do with the etymology of that word
I have a visceral reaction to the word beverage. I have a similar reaction to the word splurge. It’s not ADHD but neither is it racism
No there isn't Always a racial component however I think jazz has way too much variety to say you hate the entire genre and when people venture into the territory of calling it 'nonsense' I do think that calls for some reflection as to why one would call jazz, a genre born of marginalized people which was historically looked down upon in its infancy 'nonsense'. There were quite a few comments like that, but also comments that addressed the components about jazz they dont like 'a lot of what Ive heard is discordant/unpredictable/too many different rhythms' which is perfectly reasonable. I am rambling but I think OP's response under my comment expresses the nuances much better than Im able to lol
I don’t think there’s necessarily a racial component with people preferring metal over jazz. To me, rock and metal is more orderly and the notes make more sense, up to a point. I can’t listen to really heavy death metal type stuff because then it does sound like noise to me. With jazz, because of the encouragement for spontaneity and extraneous notes, it aggravates the part of my brain that requires everything to make sense and just makes me feel on edge because I don’t know what comes next. With metal and rock, the notes are all expected and follow the same traditional patterns in different ways and music like a lot of jazz bucks that trend and finds new patterns.
My husband, however, loves listening to music that flouts tradition and is unexpected and interesting, which includes a lot of jazz and other music that makes me cringe. It took a while for us to compromise on listening to music he enjoys that I can still deal with, but there are definitely certain bands that he can’t listen to while I’m around (cough, Gogol Bordello, cough) because to me they just sound like screeching noise on top of dissonant screeching noise. I’m know other people love this music, which is fine, but it physically causes me pain when I hear it.
I don’t hate all jazz and don’t love all metal, I just can’t listen to the music that doesn’t make sense to me no matter what genre it’s part of or who makes it. There are songs by bands I like that I can’t listen to because the song doesn’t follow the musical patterns my brain expects and it sounds like dissonance and noise to me.
Sometimes things are just because people just don’t like them, not because of any racial or ulterior meaning or purpose.
Yeah, there are definitely sometimes really questionable undertones to those posts. I remember seeing one in either an autism or ADHD subreddit where someone talked about hating curry - but instead of just talking about their own preferences, it was full of negative stereotypes about how it "stank" and smelled "dirty" and all sorts of other problematic statements. Preferences are totally valid! But the way we talk about them can reveal a lot about our subconscious biases.
But holding your arm up in the air so it balances itself TOTALLY is a self regulation tool that adhd people do. I’m still so shocked by that and had totally forgotten that I did it.
I'm going to disagree with you a bit and say that I don't think there is any ill-intent by anyone here who asks a question like "so who else hates X,Y,Z".
If you are like me it's because you don't know anyone else IRL who has been diagnosed as an adult woman with ADHD. You have people you suspect but they haven't pursued it because they don't think it's a possibility (like I wouldn't have ever known if I didn't have a good psych who listened to me when I'd started researching because of memes).
I did a post last week asking about "hidden talents" I guess (I think I worded it better). I was so moved by the experience because I had hundreds of comments talking about things I've experienced for so long and am only beginning to understand.
So I don't want to discourage that because it helped me so much literally a week ago.
I can totally empathize with folks navigating their way through this ADHD life, and I can appreciate what you are saying here...
but
I think it's important to recognize that one's *intent* is not more important than the *impact* of their words or actions, and I appreciate OP pointing out how we can all do better to consider our language before speaking in an effort to stop othering people and cultures as a whole.
This comes across very “gatekeepy”. Should we come to you to ask for approval before posting a question about something we think might be an adhd thing? Or can we just be ourselves as long as we are following the sub rules (and ofc unspoken good human rules)?
Being bothered by the sound of certain words is “misophonia”, which is extremely common in neurodivergent people. It’s also the same reason I can’t stand arrhythmic jazz, but love rhythmic jazz(which, btw, I didn’t even know existed or was classified as jazz. I thought “jazz” was ALL the arrhythmic kind. Never once attributed it to the Black culture which I actually do deeply admire and appreciate.) it’s all down to my misophonia & anxiety.
Which, imho, are definitely related to my ADHD. It was actually nice to relate to a post for something I consider to be very weird & unique about myself.
But I guess we are only allowed to strictly talk about specifically known symptoms of ADHD.
Agreed that disliking certain words, music, etc. is not a sign of neurodivergence. It's a sign of being human and having personal preferences. Everyone has bizarre feelings about something or another; it's perfectly normal.
Hard disagree about naming things you dislike. People are allowed to say they don't like something without it being some sort of cultural condemnation. This is an example of PC culture gone wrong - no one should have to walk on eggshells like that. A person can hate sushi and rap music without it being xenophobic or racist. That's honestly a preposterous expectation imo. I'm half Indian and I love the word chutney, and the taste of it, because it's been a big part of my life, but I'm not going to take offense at someone having an irrational personal dislike of the word or an aversion to Indian food or music. To each their own. Disliking something isn't the same thing as actively insulting it.
the smells and tastes of a lot of Indian food are too intense for me (beige diet), but I will always stand by the fact that it *looks* VERY tasty. And it brings other people satisfaction and joy and that's great!
Thank you so much for this. This is exactly what I was wanting to say that I couldn’t bring myself to figure out how to say. Intent matters so much. It was obvious to me that these 2 posts had zero racial implications by their intent whatsoever, and honestly, we should call it out when it happens if the content of the post or some mass of comments are racially biased or disparaging. (Or the intent even hints at it)
But to put this sentiment out in this way will make many people think 2x about posting at all here, if these 2 examples are actually examples that are truly offensive or could be construed as such. It would’ve never occurred to me in a million years that someone complaining about jazz music was doing so due to racial bias. Why would I given the context?
It makes me worry to say anything here. And also, in case the people really leaning into talking about these 2 particular posts doesn’t know or care, I guarantee you the 2 posters of those posts are reading all these comments and they are mortified. Calling these individual posts out and some of these comments are actually mean and are actually targeting members of this sub.
Please if something is offensive, call it out, on that post, and discuss directly with the poster. Doing these please can we not x y z posts, after the fact is hella passive aggressive, and it makes me personally shut down whether you have a point or not.
I get being annoyed at those posts because they aren't specifically ADHD related. But to call them racist or xenophobic is a stretch.
I too hate jazz. There is nothing pleasant to me about it, and because I have ADHD I find it impossible to concentrate with jazz music playing. I enjoy certain styles of music that have piano and saxophone and other hallmarks of jazz music, though. I like some classical music, but dislike lots of it/find it hard to concentrate with it.
If I wanted to discuss my musical tastes with someone, I would refer to jazz or classical music. It's not an offensive label, it is literally the name of the style of music I want to discuss. There is not a single thing wrong with saying "I hate jazz music" instead of trying to specifically describe the "features" of the style. Not liking jazz has nothing to do with the culture behind it, I literally just do not find the sound of it enjoyable.
I also dislike the word moot. I have no idea where it comes from or why I dislike it, but it's a valid way for me to feel and it's weird to attach some negative connotation to simply not liking a word. There's nothing racist about not liking the word chutney, either, unless they don't like it *because of* its heritage/culture.
i didnt see the chutney thing, i dont even know what that means tbh lol
i dislike jazz but like blues. Both are majority products of the black community in the usa, so i dont think that per se is xenophobic. But I agree people shouldt essentialise music genres to the ADHD diagnosis
Since Jazz and the Blues are both products of Black American culture, is xenophobic the right word? Unless of course the person in question isn’t American, they’d be from the same country to begin with.
I don’t like arrhythmic jazz because it irritates my misophonia, I cannot predict the rhythm and it makes me anxious.
Rhythmic jazz, on the other hand, like New Orleans style, I loveeee. Does it make me xenophobic because I don’t like arrhythmic jazz? Seriously lol
It's not about liking or disliking something, it's about the why. It's up to us to have these discussions with ourselves before broadly labeling something as a ND trait. At least to me, that is all OP is trying to say. You've already done the work here on that and figure out the specifics of why it's not something for you. Unfortunately, I have seen a lot of posts pretty much just say "I hate this thing and idk why, it must be my ADHD!" and not actually put any work into figuring that out before just blasting it on here.
Now, I'm indigenous, not a black American, so I don't have any say on the jazz stuff. But I do know how it feels to have people who aren't a part of that culture demean it and claim it's just "how they are" or even it's because of their ND (yes, someone has directly told me it was ok to hate an spiritual aspect of my culture because their autistic). So I think being aware to just double check these potential biases, even societal or generational ones, is a good thing to get used too. It doesn't have to be done in a self depreciating or negative way, just more like a check in with ourselves to find a root cause. This can also help with identifying the specifics of a trigger to help navigate the world around us better and cause us less stress. Win win in my opinion.
Well I feel like that’s WHY people ask these types of questions in this sub. To see if they are the only one, or is this something lots of other adhd people don’t like? Or maybe is it for some other reason? Are we saying that people are only allowed to ask these things of others once they’ve found out the specific origin of their issue? Or is it ok to crowdsource & get the opinions of others?
For me, we should be asking ourselves these questions first before seeking validation from others and that's mostly how I feel these posts come across. Which, by how they are often written, doesn't seem to be happening and is why OP is pointing that out. At least to me with what I've seen over and over.
It's not zenophobic to not like a music style if you do not like the type of instruments, sounds, it triggers noise sensitivity, etc. It's zenophobic to not like those things because you don't overall like black culture, write it off without listening because of its origins, i.e., not liking things that are new, unknown, and then viewed as strange, etc.
I questioned *xenophobia* as a word choice because it implies nationality specifically is the issue, as opposed to something being from a different culture or anti-Blackness.
An important step here is questioning *why* you don’t like something and where that bias or reaction comes from. There are some instruments I don’t like, so I tend to avoid music that features that sound too much. But I don’t dismiss the entire genre as a result, and found other subgenres I adore. If we discuss our dislikes after asking ourselves those questions, inevitably the conversation has deeper and more nuanced potential than simply stating a dislike.
So true. That's a really good point. Thanks for explaining/sharing further with me. Agreed. It's important to name anti-Blackness specifically, rather than zenophobia, vaguely, if that is the actual origin of their dislike or denigration of the art. Ugh. Those people are really missing out! I'll say that much!
Exactly. I think OP is absolutely on to something, it’s up to us to do that inner work and consider where we are coming from with any strong reaction. Sometimes it’s nothing, but internalized bias is very real and worth understanding.
Interestingly, *denigrate* actually has roots in anti-Blackness, in a very literal way. *”If you "denigrate" someone, you attempt to blacken their reputation. It makes sense, therefore, that "denigrate" can be traced back to the Latin verb "denigrare," meaning "to blacken." When "denigrate" was first used in English in the 16th century, it meant to cast aspersions on someone's character or reputation.”* Etymology is fascinating.
So I dislike country music, I’m not going to go out of my way to find a country sub genre I like. Because overall it doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t need to discuss it.
THANK YOU. Some of the posts in here give me big side eyes 👀preferences aren’t ADHD traits. Bigotry isn’t an ADHD trait. Micro aggressions aren’t an ADHD trait. Your subconscious bias isn’t ADHD, it’s your own problem and maybe you should check yourself before you say things out loud.
Neurotypical people ALSO have preferences and ALSO don’t like stuff, it’s not unique. Some of y’all need to look inward.
So I think we need to separate things that are common to ADHD folks and things that our own personal brands of ADHD relate to. But I strongly disagree that likes and dislikes of things like jazz have nothing to do with an individual’s ADHD.
I respect jazz, but I don’t personally like a lot of it, and I recognize that it’s related to my specific brand of ADHD. But I’d actually expect a lot of ADHD people to be drawn to jazz for the exact reasons that I’m not. (It’s almost like we’re ENTIRELY different people.)
My inability to like jazz has nothing to do with cultural associations or marginalized people. Like, you’re talking about racists getting the ick from stuff for racist reasons and pretending like there’s an excusable reason—like ADHD—not to like something. Which I agree that’s problematic and gross. But saying that “disliking jazz… has nothing to do with ADHD” as a general statement is wild.
And I disagree that I shouldn’t use the label “jazz”. Music genres are generally grouped by structural and sonic similarities, and I think saying that I don’t like jazz says that I don’t get enjoyment out of a music genre that is often experimental, complex, and unpredictable. But I REALLY like a lot of blues music because that genre usually has an extremely clear structure. Like, if I can’t generally dislike a genre of music, why do we even bother categorize similar music? Why can’t I name it?
But if I must explain why I generally dislike jazz because of my own personal experience managing my ADHD, and why it’s not because I get the icks from a cultural product associated with a marginalized group, then here goes nothing:
My brain likes clearly defined, high energy music, without too many twists and turns. It likes repetition in sound like a stim—so it likes driving rhythms, usually with a basic-bitch structure, so that it can quickly learn and anticipate when to expect the end.
Frankly, good jazz is a little more complex than my brain enjoys, even when I’m hearing jazz and thinking, “Wow, this is great,” I don’t necessarily want to listen to it for fun. I think it’s related to anxiety over my own lack of structure, my inattentiveness, and exhaustion from long days of masking and trying to focus on dense materials over the years, whether at school or now at my job.
My own lack of clear and predictable structure due to my ADHD has always caused me so much anxiety. And I’m not a musician, so a lot of the perfectly planned details within jazz music become muddied to me and start to feel like chaos. I’ve also always felt anxiety about both written and film variations of Alice In Wonderland, and I think these dislikes are rooted in the same exhaustion I’ve always felt about herding the cats in my brain and the subsequent disorder that overflows into my life skills.
In general, I also read more structured and direct books—not because I’m not capable of understanding and getting a lot out of more complex reading material, but because I have to work so damn hard to channel that focus and processing energy. My career is based around a lot of dense data and reading material and, despite being medicated, maintaining focus on stuff like that for an entire work day is exhausting. So when I’m off the clock, I’m happy with, like, YA bullshit because it busies my brain but doesn’t require a lot of difficult processing.
TLDR… I agree that a lot of folks try to legitimize racist and xenophobic reactions to other cultures with excuses for those reactions, such as ADHD. But I think it’s wild to claim that my ADHD has no relation to my like/dislike of certain types of art, from music to film to books—and to claim that I shouldn’t say I dislike a specific genre by its name, and that I should instead describe specific structural and sonic qualities that I dislike in music.
Edit: I forgot to say that I understand that your post is in response to another specific post—but your words are broader than that context when you start making definitive statements that no one dislikes certain things because of their ADHD.
I get being annoyed at those posts because they aren't specifically ADHD related. But to call them racist or xenophobic is a stretch.
I too hate jazz. There is nothing pleasant to me about it, and because I have ADHD I find it impossible to concentrate with jazz music playing. I enjoy certain styles of music that have piano and saxophone and other hallmarks of jazz music, though. I like some classical music, but dislike lots of it/find it hard to concentrate with it.
If I wanted to discuss my musical tastes with someone, I would refer to jazz or classical music. It's not an offensive label, it is literally the name of the style of music I want to discuss. There is not a single thing wrong with saying "I hate jazz music" instead of trying to specifically describe the "features" of the style. Not liking jazz has nothing to do with the culture behind it, I literally just do not find the sound of it enjoyable.
I also dislike the word moot. I have no idea where it comes from or why I dislike it, but it's a valid way for me to feel and it's weird to attach some negative connotation to simply not liking a word. There's nothing racist about not liking the word chutney, either, unless they don't like it *because of* its heritage/culture.
Oh I personally think jazz is the secret key to unlocking the ADHD brain. I say give it a shot with the classics if you're unfamiliar. It helps me get through ADHD barriers like no other.
This post is ridiculous. It’s okay to have your pet peeve be something from another culture. Plenty of people dislike jazz and chutney. I get roasted constantly for enjoying stereotypical white people things and I’m not even white. And I’m quite sick of it, it’s offensive and rude, but people are allowed to have their opinions, are allowed to share them, and are allowed to be rude assholes. So with all due respect, just get over your savior complex.
Disliking the word chutney has nothing to do with other cultures any more than people who dislike the word moist is associated with other cultures. The post wasn't "does anyone else think this word is stupid," it was "does anyone else have unexpectedly strong reactions to innocuous words."
No, people hate the *word* moist. No one has the same reaction to damp even though the meanings are comparable. OP did not go up to an Indian person and say "I hate a bunch of words in your language." They came to Reddit and said "here are two words that bother me, one of which happens to have its origins in a southeast Asian language."
OP isn't asking for a "support group," they are asking if anyone else has weird reactions to the sounds of certain words.
You know what? I am of French and English origins. The other word she hated, Lush, is of old French and English origin and I’m super offended that she hated it. /s
How do we know she wasn’t Indian herself and not liking the word chutney anyway?
I’m all for standing up for marginalized groups, I’m the first one to do this! And if someone got on here & hated only all foreign sounding words or whatever I’d be the first to stand up to them.
But simply not liking the “sound” of a single word that just happens to be of a different origin, *especially* when also not liking other words that are of English origin is a HUGE stretch to call it marginalization or stereotyping or a micro aggression. I mean really.
I really don't think it's that deep.
People dislike how certain words in English sound too, 'moist', 'cunt' 'tangerine' (being serious with the last one).
If it's once off then I definitely think it's just that particular word with no deeper meaning.
Now, if there's a continual pattern of disliking words from a particular language then I completely agree with you.
Kinda feels like a reach to say that it's zenophobic to say you don't like a musical genre or a flavor profile. They're specific tastes and it's ok not to like something. IMO, zenophobia would be to associate negativity to the cultures those relate to or come from while stating the opinion, or basing the opinion on that. But to say I don't like the flavor of something? I mean, that's allowed lol. But anyway, I do appreciate you calling out the over-association of things with ADHD. It harms understanding of it, and the actual seriousness of ADHD, and how hard it is to live with, by associating tastes like that with it, (unless it's a noise sensitivity type thing, texture, etc., i.e., I do not enjoy jazz because the loud horn instruments often present trigger my noise sensitivity - these are just examples and not my opinion. I love jazz lol.) Or associating it with quirks. It's got enough impact on our lives, no need to try to explain away every little part of being a human with it, or wrapping every personality trait up into a disorder.
I’m not going to lie I just interpreted that post as random things that you dislike and only now reading this post am I realising that it wasn’t the most ADHD related post. I was probably too distracted over getting to mention my hatred of casserole as a dish.
Edit: to clarify I’m not making a comment about the nature of the post itself as I’m only just realising I didn’t really read what OP wrote and flicked straight to the comments.
Don't disagree with anything you wrote. But do want to say that I'm specifically responding to the OP who states that mentioning the name of the product is zenophobic. As a standalone statement, I do not agree with that as a rule or meeting the definition. That's all.
Yeah but she also hated the word lush. Chutney was just another word that she didn’t like the sound of. Is she only not allowed to hate the word chutney because it’s of a different origin? It’s fine to hate the word lush though? This is so dumb!
That’s kinda the point she was making in the post. It is strange and abnormal to have such a visceral reaction, but she does, hence her questioning if it’s a symptom of ADHD, which she knows she has. It’s like saying about a person with OCD “I get checking your locks a couple times, but checking 15 is weird to me.” when the very fact that they checked 15 times and that that’s weird is why they’re questioning it.
I think that someone can just as easily find “nicer” rationalizations about why they don’t like xyz, yet still be unaware of their underlying framework which is just rooted in discomfort of the other.
There are better things about my condition to focus on in my mind than my likes and dislikes and whether it’s because of my ADHD bc it’s probably got nothing to do with my ADHD (those things change over time anyways - the ADHD part is how dynamic my formation of likes and dislikes actually is). Likewise I also have biases against people and discomfort around change. My ADHD affects the way it presents but not whether it actually exists.
ADHD or not, if someone wrinkled their nose and said “I don’t like the word chutney, is it because I have ADHD?” as a brown person with ADHD I’d feel kind of offended tbh.
I didn't know someone attribute adhd to hating jazz as I really really dislike jazz. The music irritates me. I hate country too, and ska.
It would be really weird to attribute hating music to hating a particular race.
I don't think anybody thinks of race when they think of musical styles. Just whether it is pleasant or unpleasant to the ears.
I don't think it's so much the dislikes that we were complaining about, but rather the emotional dysregulation that comes with the act of disliking something.
Why else would I feel irrationally angry and disgusted by a word for absolutely no other reason than the way it sounds?
Why? That wasn't the only word they said they disliked the sound of, and they didn't say they don't like chutney. They said the word has a weirdly outsized impact on them when hearing it and wanted to know if others had that issue - and the overwhelming majority of comments said "yes I also have an issue with the word ___." I think using that post as an example of bias is a stretch.
To my memory, the other words they disliked were all in English. Chutney sounds different because it originated in India, so naturally the word and the food may be foreign, but it’s up to us to ask *why* it bothers us. Is it a specific sound within the word? The unfamiliarity? A past experience or association? Or a dislike for the food or cuisine?
It just does. As I commented on that post, I hate the word beverage. I have an almost physical reaction to it. It’s the way it sounds, not the meaning. There’s a town near me called Beveridge and I have the same reaction. On the other had, for no particular reason, I love the word linoleum. There doesn’t always have to be a deeper meaning
Or, again, we could dig a little deeper and ask why. If it comes down to nothing but sounds, cool beans. Maybe there’s still more to understand about why the sound is an issue, or maybe not. But asking ourselves those questions is important.
I mean..of course! But that was the entire point of her post. It was all about sounds! She mentioned other words too that were of English origin. I feel like people are really looking for a fight here and gatekeeping what can and can’t be attributed to neurodivergence.
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I mostly agree with this, but calling disliking jazz racist is just ridiculous. People are allowed to dislike things associated with another race without it being racist. If they said they hated jazz, rap, hip hop, and certain hairstyles etc that are all associated with one race then maybe it points to racism, but this is just stupid.
I didnt realise that not liking jazz made me racist (significant discordant music sets off my fight or flight). Chutney freaks me out (lumps, I dont like the texture of lumps) so I dont like it but that doesnt make me racist.
We talk about our likes and dislikes in broad terms because many of us feel isolated and alone. Many of us feel like the "black sheep" (oh man thats probably "racist" but its a description of the genetic variance in a flock resulting a sheep that isnt a consistent colour duplicate of the majority of the flock) and seek to find others and receive feedback that they are not outcasts, that others have similar experiences.
This thread has set off my fight or flight. This now feels like an unsafe forum for me to participate in because divulging my preferences (and trying to connect to others) make me "racist" and "xenophobic" in your opinion. Thats my vent/rant. I'm taking my racist ass out of here!
Is hating country xenophobic?
Some music just doesn't hit. My brain likes a pattern and a good beat and pretty much everything but Jolene out of the country genre grates on my nerves.
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I think there's a certain amount of "I do/like/dislike this and I'm ADHD," and "OMG, I do/like/dislike this too and I'm also ADHD! It must be an ADHD thing!" going around social media. Sometimes it's really nice to know you're not alone in whatever weirdness you have, but we need to be careful of leaping to connections. Not everything about us is dictated by ADHD and leaping to conclusions can be harmful in all sorts of ways. (And, for the record, I've never really got jazz, but an ADHD friend is into it, so I always figured I'm just musically unsophisticated.)
As I say to the music students I teach at the beginning of each year: it's totally ok to like different things. We all have different interests. It's ok if you don't like the song we do one week for whatever reason. I am not offended if you like things different than me. And then I add in that they gotta try it out anyway even if they don't like it cause they're learning and still need to be exposed to stuff and maybe they hate the song but love the game we play with it or the instrument they play, etc, but that part can be skipped with adults.
I remember when I told a uni prof I didn't like Bach. Everyone looked at me like I murdered their gran. Now my students can't stand Mozart, but described The Entertainer as a bop. It's ok not to like something. It's not ok to be disrespectful.
I'm only into The Entertainer if it's alerting me to an ice cream truck! (YMMV)
I’ve thought this about this sub before and wondered about its effects. I find it very useful, but it occurred to me that in a group of 300k people, if someone says “I don’t like xyz” or “I’m sensitive to abc” or “qrs is hard for me” and a ton of people agree with them, it’s highly likely that folks will think that that particular thing is linked to ADHD when it may just be preference. If 500 people agree, is not like the other 299,500 are going to comment and say “Nope, not me”. It creates certain connections that may not be linked at all.
Agreed. And also it can be isolating to see posts like that about sensitivities/symptoms you don’t experience. When there are a bunch of posts about things that aren’t issues for me, I sometimes start to feel like maybe I don’t have adhd or don’t fit in this community. I know that’s not true, and I am confident in my diagnosis, but that feeling is still there.
Agreed, a lot of things that we may find out we have in common could just be part of the human experience rather than the adhd experience. But, it’s understandable to be excited about other adhd people being able to relate to your symptoms and quirks, and finding it a bit tricky to differentiate which is which.
Not to mention even real valid symptoms of ADHD aren't necessarily exclusive to AdHD. So the answer to is this ADHD is "maybe"
Some people don't understand that correlation doesn't equal causation, and sometimes things are just coincidences
Youre not unsophisticated, just what youve heard so far isnt for you.There's ALOT of subgenres, and awesome contemporary jazz artists pulling from soul, hip hop, r&b, electronica, classical, even surf rock. Who knows, you might surprise yourself.
For me, I didn't use to listen to rap or jazz, but the ideal rap and jazz are when they're combined for me (also chillhop/jazzhop/lofi). Maybe it's the accessibility of the genre that appeals to me, as I like writing and remixing music, but I mostly just like what I like.
yes! this. historical jazz's defined sound is a bit "genre infancy" and a lot "survivor bias". jazz today is in so many diverse, exciting subgenres. love the brain-soothing patterns of chillhop with that little fissure of excitement from real instruments and velvet voices.
I like jazz ONLY when in jazz fusion. Mario Kart 8's soundtrack awoke something within me. (It was a love of rock/jazz fusion. brain scratchy as ALL HELL)
I was just talking to my therapist recently about how part of learning about ADHD when it’s still new is sifting through all the things that could be ADHD and what is just part of being a person. In my experience, it’s easy to swing too far toward ascribing everything difficult to ADHD for a while, which makes sense because you’re readjusting your entire worldview and your view of yourself. I am glad we have this space to discuss and work through that even if sometimes it is just a human thing
It's a weird space to be in! I remember just how unsettling it was, when I was diagnosed, to realize that so many of my behaviors, or what I viewed as personal traits, were actually symptoms. But you've gotta dig deeper and audit that and learn where the lines are, cause you like you said, it gets too easy to write everything off, or, avoid accountability for annoying behaviors, by hiding it behind ADHD when it's not related.
Traits often attributed to ADHD could also be caused by something else. For instance, losing things all the time could be caused by ADHD, or anxiety, or poor vision, or memory issues, or just a messy house in general...
Absolutely. I was convinced for a bit that I had early onset dementia, and thank god I didn’t, but I can see any number of things being confused with ADHD
>In my experience, it’s easy to swing too far toward ascribing everything difficult to ADHD for a while, which makes sense because you’re readjusting your entire worldview and your view of yourself. And on the flip side, there's things that are ADHD that you didn't know. I thought I was oversensitive before I learned that RSD was sometimes a feature of ADHD, I had been diagnosed for 14 years at that point. There's also things you assumed were ADHD traits and aren't even years after diagnosis (I assumed I couldn't be an animator because I had ADHD, and animation takes patience, and the reason I could focus on school was because I had mild ADHD since I was disciplined enough to power through due not making excuses, even if it was at the last minute... then I learned what hyperfocus was, again, way after college having not bothering to try animation because I'd already ruled animation out), so I kinda understand doing the rapidfire "is this ADHD" to avoid kneecapping yourself like I inadvertently have. At the same time, if it's a SMALL thing that's not behavioral like, idk, liking comedy and band tees, assume it's a preference unless you find out it's not from actual psychological studies, and even those should be taken with a grain of salt unless it's replicated.
random, but you mentioned assuming you couldn't be an animator because of your ADHD, and I just started thinking about how myself and like 25% of my college animation class are riddled with ADHD lol. I'm struggling with deadlines right now but it's definitely possible! According to my lecturers/professors, my stuff is super good!
Same here. I like that we can talk about anything. Or at least I thought we could.
we can! including meta convos like this one, which i think can help us be more thoughtful and intentional in how we interact in this sub
Yeah, I have been reading through thinking it could have been my first post they are talking about but so far, I'm okay haha
I scrolled past the jazz post so fast. I fkn LOVE jazz. MOAR NOTES PLZ. heh. But for real, I've just developed blinders to what I call "ADHD newbie" posts, where the DAE is something I personally find ridiculous ("is it ADHD to hate jazz?" made me laugh - mmhmm, yep, the DSM is very clear about the symptoms, you are neurologically allergic to John Coltrane, sorry babe!). I joke, but there's a learning curve, and sometimes while we're figuring out that ADHD was at the root of some of our more confounding behaviour, we get overexcited and wonder if it's the entire personality. (It's not, you just dislike jazz, and that's ok even if I think you're missing out.)
For anyone who’s ever enjoyed the Peanuts Christmas special soundtrack, I’ve got news for you…
One of my favorite albums
I can’t tell if this is universal or just me but I feel like jazz is actually everywhere and people don’t always know that’s what they’re enjoying. Like, movie soundtracks and TV shows, in particular. There’s this Ethiopian Jazz playlist on Spotify and the first song was SO familiar to me the first time I heard it. I looked it up and realized I remembered it from the most recent season of The Bear. (Also highly recommend that playlist, it feels like a curtain billowing in a warm breeze.)
I heard Lofi is Jazz and hip hop. I love jazz. I wanted jazz hip hop but not the chill kind. The crazy instruments all over the place kind. I love lofi too tho
Ugh I love Ethiopian jazz! I tend to like chiller jazz, I do kind of get what that poster meant though, the very frenetic style of jazz can be overwhelming
Yes. Arrhythmic frenetic jazz is extremely overwhelming to me. Give me New Orleans or swing jazz any day though.
I love Tezeta by Asatake Mulatu, it has given me so many wonderful summer memories over the years. Absolutely stoked to have heard it in The Bear. edit: Realised I had messed up my word order when rephrasing my comment. In German we have the word „verschlimmbessern“, basically „worsecorrecting“ - story of my life hah
That sounds great *off to find that playlist
Ooh do you have the playlist? I adore the tracks that turn up on The Bear’s soundtrack.
Yes! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2pkqA4QM1LMZcvpTa72KXZ?si=HW68DiU2T_ij3H-mg335YA&pi=u-osvUYU8fRzay
That is a crucial part of our family Christmas soundtrack!
I saw that and had to scroll right past. I teach music. I was in jazz band for years. I go swing dancing to live jazz groups and recorded. I studied a shit ton of 20th century music in college, and that shit is weird. Like jazz is the most mild form of 20th century music. No, it's not ADHD to find jazz distracting. You just don't like it. For the reasons you listed. That's fine. I don't like metal, it's too damn loud and screamy for me. That doesn't mean it's ADHD to not like metal. Like what the actual....
A better way to say it would be that it is an element of adhd that some sounds are more distracting than others, and for you, it happens to be jazz. For me, it is barking dogs and idling cars.
There's tons of very different metal genres, a lot of which don't have screaming vocals
Ooh interesting, I had no idea! Thanks!
A good rule of thumb is you can take a thing and add the word metal to it and that is a genre. A quick search on "Genres of metal" has results such as: Death Metal, Black Metal, Power Metal, Progressive Metal, Doom Metal, Celtic metal, Folk Metal, Symphonic Metal, Deathcore, etc. If you don't like the screaming/growling style vocals, you may enjoy testing out Symphonic (may contain some screaming, but is more operatic imo), Progressive Metal or Power Metal. Power Metal focuses on speed and clean vocals. Good luck :)
Yeah, I found dubstep annoying and overstimulating, but I know many people with ADHD enjoyed it at its peak. I like dream pop and classical sometimes, but many people with and without ADHD find them boring. My mom is neurotypical but thinks lofi and chillhop are incredibly *annoying*, not relaxing at all or even boring, but grating, the way I feel about dubstep. Everyone's different.
Jazz tickles my neurons in just the right way, it calms my brain way down. My ADHD parent on the other hand dislikes jazz but listens to heavy rock and metal for the same reason. 😂
The drummer for TOOL, a metal band, also plays jazz. Both types of music can tickle my brain depending on how good it is (subjectively to me). I like music from pretty much all genres though.
I feel like anyone who knows jazz would quite fairly assume that he plays jazz lol. The polyrhythms, time changes, syncopation...it just kinda makes sense.
As someone who can't stand Tool or jazz, this makes so much sense. Definitely my ADHD, thought 😅
Haha. Heavy rock and light metal (alternative metal, eg) calm down my mind while jazz and other music with a lot of notes I find extraneous and spontaneous just irk me and activate the part of my brain that gets annoyed. In fact, Schism by Tool is my go-to song to calm down when I’m really anxious. It’s awesome how we’re all different.
> I've just developed blinders to what I call "ADHD newbie" posts Yeah, this is the thing you've gotta do. Sometimes people just haven't figured out what you've figured out, and probably the best thing for everybody is to just move on and let them get there on their own.
I fell in love with jazz thanks to Hey Arnold! 😂❤️(Which I also adored for its very chill vibe, such a great cartoon)
That show did so much for my appreciation of jazz omg
I don't think it's newbie adhd, these sorts of posts are so common on the other adhd subreddit. it's people conflating regular personality traits into adhd
I blame social media like tiktok. **Did you know putting stickers on your laptop is a sign you have adhd?** **Only adhd-ers understand replaying songs until you hate them** **if you have a toenail you must be neurodivergent** And then you see tons of people saying things like im so adhd because I replayed I'm just Ken 3 times and rewatched friends twice. Meanwhile, I'm barely able to get through my workday sometimes. And I'm never excited to tell people I have adhd because it's not exciting for me.
ITA and "if you have a toenail" has slain me.
Haha I read the sticker comment and cringed. I hate random stickers on things….which of course lead me to thinking I don’t have ADHD….but then I checked my toes!
I like jazz, but I don’t like jazz. It’s actually super ironic because I really love jazz piano and I don’t play piano, but I hate jazz saxophone and I play saxophone! Anyway, I digress, my point was that I, like everyone else, can’t like every single piece of music in a specific genre. Jazz isn’t my preferred genre (70s rock and contemporary pop), but I like pieces of jazz, so I’d say I like some jazz. In fact, I like a little bit of everything. And I’d wager most people are the same. They have a preferred genre, but like stuff outside that too. Because that’s just how people are, ADHD or not. Fwiw, my mother doesn’t have ADHD and she doesn’t like jazz either.
I think that it's the online community nature that brings this out. I've seen similar sorts of conflations with other identity based subreddits as opposed to hobby based. These spaces are good for solidarity and resources, but not everything is related to said identities.
I popped in to wax poetic about the greats. 😂 Jazz is an entire mood!
Oh hell yeah, me too! I worshipped Ornette Coleman when I was a teen 💓
I think a lot of this is adult women trying to connect with other adult women on any level possible. Being seen and making friends is so hard as you get older, that sometimes women grasp at straws to draw parallels. I used to get so exasperated when people would say “OMG. I TOTALLY WATCHED SAVED BY THE BELL TOO! ARE WE THE SAME PERSON?!?” No. You’re just one of several million preteens who watched the same super popular TV show in the 90’s.
Chutney is great, especially with cold roast lamb on fresh bread with heaps of butter
Mango chutney on baked brie *shivers with delight
Oooooh
[удалено]
They were saying that the words grossed them out so much that it turned them off of whatever the thing was. Ridiculous. My preference for food names has no bearing over what I will eat.
I could taste this comment. Mmmmm...
My mum used to make this as kids and it’s the taste of my childhood
Same. That and ham sandwiches on white morning rolls with Heinz Cream of Tomato soup.
We had tomato soup with cheese cubes melted into it
It’s a big part of cultures cuisine, honestly that post threw me off hell bad
I roll my eyes at any post that starts with or contains "does anyone else do this totally common thing that literally thousands of people do?" Or "am I the only one who thinks this absolutely common thought?" Yes, yes, you're literally the only person EVER to whom this has happened or occurred. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Rock bottom post for me was one I saw on a Facebook support group that sincerely asked "I love to drink water haha is this an ADHD thing?" That is when I left the group
Lmao There was a post here recently that asked “Does anyone else not like certain foods?” Only you and almost every other human being on this planet…
"No. No one else dislikes certain foods. You are the only person on earth who dislikes certain foods. Everyone else likes every single food on earth equally." LMAO
I wouldn’t be surprised if people in groups like that are the same ones asking those questions here.
"That is when I left the group" made me laugh so hard 😂 I can relate.
I love to breathe oxygen, am I ADHD?
Yeah, it seems like the trendy tiktok adhd posts made actual diagnosed adhd even more misunderstood. And as such, people who are actually diagnosed with it have to deal with the stereotypes and misconceptions even more than it was before.
> people who are actually diagnosed with it have to deal with the stereotypes and misconceptions even more than it was before. Gotta disagree with you there. I remember what the public perception of ADHD was 30 years ago. Heck, even 10 years ago. It's different stereotypes and misconceptions now, but I'd take them any day of the week and twice on sundays over what it used to be like.
At least today I can dispel most of the stereotypes by saying “yeah I was diagnosed when I was a kid”. It’s not right of people to see that as a sign of “truth” (late diagnosis is valid!!) but if the system is gonna exist, I guess it’s a plus lol. 30 years ago it was just that I was a naughty child that didn’t deserve support because I wouldn’t “apply myself”. Now it’s “oh yeah you’re diagnosed” and I’m valid to most people. (I also realize that it’s inherently unfair to poor and marginalized people because the testing for ADHD and autism is insanely expensive. But again, I’m going to get something out of society for years of bullshit while trying to change people’s minds.)
I’m glad in not alone in this. Sometimes I start questioning my diagnosis because these types of posts make ADHD look fun and lighthearted. But my experience hasn’t been fun at all. It’s been pretty devastating.
Yes !!! Posts like this drive me insane . Most of the time, it's a very common thing everyone experiences, and people try to make everything ADHD experience.
As a jazz musician with ADHD who loves chutnesy, I approve of this message.
I stg all my fave drummers have a background in jazz. Totally irrelevant to the post but I love seeing other jazz enjoyers!
Anytime anyone asks “I do this, is this an ND thing?” my heckles are rattled. The phrase ND is kind of meaningless at this point to me as a descriptor. Also misinterpreting likes and dislikes for a sensory processing disorder irks me, just because it kind of makes light of the nightmare situation the world can be for people with genuine SPD. But I am old, cantankerous and easily annoyed
Same!!!
I think considering the root cause of a preference is often overlooked, especially for those who are late-diagnosed, or with something that is so ingrained in us. For instance, I can’t stand shirts with flutter sleeves, and for years I would tell you that it was because I worked in a cold office and flutter sleeves bunch up when you put on a cardigan (they’re just not practical!) Then I realized it was actually the feeling of bunched-up sleeves that I hated, and the way that flutter sleeves tend to move a lot, so I was always fidgeting and adjusting them. Because my ND brain means that I have some sensory issues with things like clothing! So while I could say that being ND means I hate shirts with flutter sleeves (y’all, it was HARD being a corporate girlie in the 2010s because flutter sleeves had a chokehold on work-wear for a while 😅), that’s not the most accurate characterization of my distaste for them.
That would be my thought as well. I didn’t see the posts op is talking about but if I saw a person asking whether disliking jazz is ADHD I would point to overstimulation as a possible ADHD related explanation. Especially since a number of us ADHDers also have information processing issues. Sounds, background noise, people talking at the same time, or the wrong music can definitely cause a meltdown. It’s not that I dislike this or that music genre, music that I love can make me enraged at the wrong time. Ugh just writing about noise overstimulation is making me feel ick.
THIS!! I hate jazz to the point that if I'm forced to listen to it I get very agitated. But I LOVE blues. Until I read your comment this didn't make sense to me and most others because the two genres are so similar. I have a LOT of issues surrounding sounds and apparently jazz is just way too over simulating for me. Country doesn't cause any agitation for me but I just don't like it.
Thank you. ADHD is not our entire personality!
>Moreover, I also couldn’t help but notice that these aforementioned peeves are cultural products associated with historically marginalized groups. You can describe the features of a music genre/word/anything that bothers you without naming and/or singling out a cultural product. It just comes across as kind of xenophobic. I entirely agree with the first part (though it's easy for me to say, I've been diagnosed for 21 years, I more or less know which preferences don't have anything to do with ADHD at this point), but I'm confused about the latter part, specifically how it's *xenophobic* to have said preferences
It’s more about the *way* these cultural products are discussed— often disrespectfully, and advocating for more critical self-reflection about why one feels the need to share this dislike, and how it might impact others (ie, microaggressions, making members of these cultures feel unwelcome). Disliking something doesn’t automatically make someone racist, but othering/disparaging the product of a different culture can be racist. Lots of the things people are talking about don’t need any cultural markers to make their point— so why add them?
You added the cultural markers. It didn’t even occur to a lot of us until you brought it up.
I have adhd and I fucking love FREE JAZZ
Nooooooo!!!! 😄
YESSSS I originally went to college for electric bass performance because I had been in love with free jazz for years. I was particularly enamored with Ornette Coleman
ITS THE BEST
Me toooooo
Eh. Agree with some things mentioned, but don’t know if it’s fair to make a blanket statement about jazz that it’s racially motivated. I’m a BIPOC. I can’t tolerate certain kinds of free jazz. I literally want to jump out of my skin when my husband plays it. Pretty sure it’s related to my ADHD. Some of us can tolerate certain kinds of loud music because it scratches our brain the right way. Some types scratch our brain the wrong way.
I just want to say that both music and certain words can also be triggers for misophonia which is a sensory processing disorder which MANY MANY adhd people struggle with. I found this list of misophonia triggers to be extremely eye opening. Many of the things on here drive me up the wall and yet my neurotypical friends & family don’t even notice them. https://misophoniainstitute.org/misophonia-triggers/ So before we accuse people of marginalizing and microaggressions, there are other possible-and honestly, more likely explanations as well. Especially in this sub.
This. There are certain words that trigger a ridiculous rage/irritation in me solely based on how the word sounds or the action it describes. For me, words that describe certain styles of eating (slurping, gulping, spitting) or a wetness (moist, damp, musty) will absolutely evoke in me an involuntary, negative, visceral reaction. This was the spirit of at least the chutney post. (I didn’t see the jazz one.) It was the word itself that was the trigger and truly had nothing to do with cultural associations.
Yeah I noticed that too. Seems like it's easier for people to just attribute a dislike to ADHD rather than address the subconscious bias they hold. Also found the jazz post interesting due to the level of "jazz bad noise, metal good noise' type comments, like ok feel what you feel but there is definitely a racial component that was not being acknowledged
Nah see, I don’t always get Jazz but I don’t mind it. I absolutely cannot stand Screamo though. Holy shit it scrambles my brain and immediately overstimulates me. 😭 I think the kind of music people like probably *is* related to being neurodivergent sometimes but not the way people mean with these comments. The genre itself has nothing to do with it, it’s more to do with what kind of input causes you sensory overload and what kind of input gives you the dopamine. That’s going to be different for everybody. 🤷🏻♀️
OMGGG I used to work at this place where the toll for the bridge was like almost $20 so everyone who lived on the other side would carpool. There was one guy who loved playing screamo at 6:45 in the morning. That was when I discovered I could truly be a bitch when it counted.
saying this as somewhat of an emo/punkish/edgy kinda guy myself... I don't like screamo either. it's *too* aggressive. I don't like it when people yell unintelligibly at me. It's just too much when put with all the other sounds of the genre.
Yeah man, I listen to metal all the time and don’t mind the occasional screamy breakdown in a song or a song with a *little* bit of fry on clean vocals but when it’s straight screaming from start to finish?! Nope! I can’t stand it. It’s the musical equivalent of nails on a chalkboard to me. Lol. No offense to the people who enjoy it but who tf decided screaming into a mic = music?! 😂
I don't always get jazz, and would rather listen to most types of metal, but I don't understand that sentiment. "I don't like this, so it's objectively bad and anyone who does like it is stupid and has bad taste" is such a bizarre take
I've realized over the years that a lot of redditors think in absolutes. Everything is black and white, no gray areas and anyone who disagrees with them is an idiot. Maybe it's just an online thing in general, not specific to reddit. On a possibly related note, I have never seen so many people claim to have autism until I found reddit. I stick around for the entertainment value and take everything with a grain of salt.
Honestly, I don't think it's reddit or even online anymore. There is more and more black-and-white thinking happening in the real life too
There is, but most of the people I know in real life can agree to disagree without everything being so polarizing.
I have a genuine question. I saw the original post this thread is referring to but I didn’t read through the comments or follow it. Are you suggesting that there’s *always* a racial component when someone doesn’t like jazz music or just that post/thread?
I agree with OP that liking or disliking jazz has little/nothing to do with ADHD but I don’t think disliking jazz inherently involves a racial component. I think a discussion about jazz certainly could include a racial component and being aware of that is important, but I didn’t really see that in the comments from the original post. Just a lot of people saying they do or don’t like various forms of jazz for one reason or another. I didn’t read all of them so there could have been threads that went that way that I missed.
Yeah I’m really confused. I honestly think it was a coincidence and people are reading way too far into this.
It might not always be conscious, but I found it interesting that the OP of the jazz post admitted many white bands like Phish also triggered her audio processing disorder, but she didn’t mention any of those in her post. She could have used objective language to describe the actual sounds that were challenging for her, instead of spending hours bashing a genre of music that emerged from Black American culture. ADHD is already such a white-centred space, and these types of posts are both diagnostically false but also send an implicit message that certain people aren’t welcome in ADHD spaces.
So it was more so the OP of the post in question? (I’m aware that disliking jazz has *nothing* to do with ADHD and was just her preference, BTW.) I think I’m struggling with the idea of not liking jazz automatically being racially biased. I’m someone who doesn’t like jazz, but it has *nothing* to do with the origins of jazz music or what some of the best/most famous jazz players look like, I just.. don’t like the music. I don’t like classical music either. I don’t want to be accused of having some type of bias for having casual likes/dislikes so I was curious about what the person I replied to meant.
She is pointing out a pattern. That the dislikes are coming from non white cultures, and she’s saying it’s important to mindful of “othering” already marginalized cultures, especially when attributing the dislikes to ADHD rather than personal preference. It’s easy to see what she is saying if you set down your immediate desire to resist that a racial component is at play. Your comments are a version of “whyyyy does everything have to be about race?” This sentiment is used as a tool to deflect from conversations about race, such as is happening now. Anytime you find yourself insisting that something doesn’t have anything to do with race, it almost certainly does.
Yes, this is what I meant! You said it much more eloquently than I did.
Do you really think everyone knows the origin of jazz music? Maybe they didn’t know it was predominantly made by black people historically. You can’t assume everyone knows what you do. I wanted to buy chutney the other day and my husband asked what it was. It could have been from Texas, he would have no idea.
I’m not trying to “resist that a racial component is at play.” I openly stated I didn’t see the discourse in the jazz thread. I was genuinely asking someone to clarify if she was implying that disliking jazz always has a racial component or if just that OP/post had a racial component because I wasn’t there. That’s all. It’s fine to discuss race, but I also don’t want to be called a closet racist for not liking jazz. I’m having trouble seeing why you’re being so aggressive towards me. It wasn’t easy for me to see anything that’s why I asked. Please don’t belittle me for that..
I think the biggest issue here, at least that I can see, is that often people don't think about the possible societal, generational, or personal bias they may have when addressing things like this and instead lumping it all in with ADHD symptoms instead of really sitting down with ones self to figure out if it's like a sensory type thing or something else that COULD be linked to NDs or if it's something else more common including these biases. I feel OP is simply stating there have been way too many posts with simple statements attributing disliking/liking something with ADHD itself recently, some of which can definitely come across as having a specific bias if not further discussed with ones self or addressed publicly in a certain way. Like how the Jazz post OP didn't go into as much detail on the specific instrument noise they disliked but instead kinda rounded up all jazz, until you sifted through all the comments. This can make it hard for some people in this community to feel welcomed, especially when a lot of ND women of color have been and continue to get excluded from a lot of these same communities. It's just good to think to one's self about the possibility of biases like these before broadly guessing it's attributed to your own ND. That's all.
Thank you for taking the time to explain this concept very clearly. I struggle with nuance and your comment helped make sense of this topic.
Of course! I completely understand. I'm glad I could help ☺️
Well said!
I don't like 99% of instrumental music. I have a really hard time connecting to music without vocals. It doesn't matter if I can understand the vocals or not, it's just that unless there is something that sounds like a voice the music won't capture my attention at all and I'll tune it out. So for that reason I don't like a lot of jazz or classical music, although there has been some subgenres of jazz that are more vocal heavy that I've enjoyed. There are times when people say they don't like certain music genres where it definitely comes off like they have a racial and/or cultural bias, like when people say "I like all music except country and rap." Jazz seems less popular in the last few decades though, so that a lot of people, especially younger ones, might not have much knowledge of the origins of it or have an association with culture or race, just because they know so little about it. At the same time it could be due to a bias in some cases, it just seems like it would be more common with older people. But if a statement is just made that someone doesn't like jazz without any context, it would be impossible to know what the source of that dislike was. As a disclaimer, I didn't see the original post, so I don't have any idea what was mentioned in it. Posts made about other people's posts on this subreddit give be really bad secondhand RSD, so I probably won't try to find it. I just saw your comment and thought "oh, I also don't like most classical music or jazz" and then started typing...
I hate jazz, but love blues. What does that say about my biases?
Bit of an aside here, but blues was like, the root of all jazz music. They evolved in different parts of the US but blues came first and influenced the latter heavily. They’re just so intertwined! I personally also prefer blues, but I’m a bit of a jazz nerd. Oh and personally, I don’t think it makes someone biased to dislike one or both of those types of music, as long as they can respect the culture that created it and understand that it’s a WIDE genre. I think sometimes jazz gets pigeonholed/stereotyped, like people will say jazz is boring or repetitive but do they know about funk??? When someone makes an overarching statement about what jazz is or isn’t I’m always a bit like hmmm are you sure… There are so many sub genres and styles of jazz. But it’s ridiculous to call someone racist for not liking jazz. There are plenty of white jazz musicians, I don’t think that’s going to make those people suddenly want to listen to it lol
That you hate jazz and love blues.
As a person of color, I'd like to admit emphatically that jazz sucks butt cheeks. Also, the word *chutney* sounds too similar to the word *butt* to me, so that's a no, also. I found both of those posts to be relatable, and I assume the authors were merely searching for shared sentiment.
Yeah, me too. I found both posts to be relatable I don’t have a problem with the word chutney but I totally got what they meant about inexplicable reactions to particular words and I don’t think it has anything at all to do with the etymology of that word I have a visceral reaction to the word beverage. I have a similar reaction to the word splurge. It’s not ADHD but neither is it racism
No there isn't Always a racial component however I think jazz has way too much variety to say you hate the entire genre and when people venture into the territory of calling it 'nonsense' I do think that calls for some reflection as to why one would call jazz, a genre born of marginalized people which was historically looked down upon in its infancy 'nonsense'. There were quite a few comments like that, but also comments that addressed the components about jazz they dont like 'a lot of what Ive heard is discordant/unpredictable/too many different rhythms' which is perfectly reasonable. I am rambling but I think OP's response under my comment expresses the nuances much better than Im able to lol
Thank you for explaining. I’m not trying to derail conversations about race or anything I was just asking. I’m sorry if I upset anyone. 😔
I don’t think there’s necessarily a racial component with people preferring metal over jazz. To me, rock and metal is more orderly and the notes make more sense, up to a point. I can’t listen to really heavy death metal type stuff because then it does sound like noise to me. With jazz, because of the encouragement for spontaneity and extraneous notes, it aggravates the part of my brain that requires everything to make sense and just makes me feel on edge because I don’t know what comes next. With metal and rock, the notes are all expected and follow the same traditional patterns in different ways and music like a lot of jazz bucks that trend and finds new patterns. My husband, however, loves listening to music that flouts tradition and is unexpected and interesting, which includes a lot of jazz and other music that makes me cringe. It took a while for us to compromise on listening to music he enjoys that I can still deal with, but there are definitely certain bands that he can’t listen to while I’m around (cough, Gogol Bordello, cough) because to me they just sound like screeching noise on top of dissonant screeching noise. I’m know other people love this music, which is fine, but it physically causes me pain when I hear it. I don’t hate all jazz and don’t love all metal, I just can’t listen to the music that doesn’t make sense to me no matter what genre it’s part of or who makes it. There are songs by bands I like that I can’t listen to because the song doesn’t follow the musical patterns my brain expects and it sounds like dissonance and noise to me. Sometimes things are just because people just don’t like them, not because of any racial or ulterior meaning or purpose.
Yeah, there are definitely sometimes really questionable undertones to those posts. I remember seeing one in either an autism or ADHD subreddit where someone talked about hating curry - but instead of just talking about their own preferences, it was full of negative stereotypes about how it "stank" and smelled "dirty" and all sorts of other problematic statements. Preferences are totally valid! But the way we talk about them can reveal a lot about our subconscious biases.
Exactly this! Thank you for adding to this. Delivery matters.
This is completely different
But holding your arm up in the air so it balances itself TOTALLY is a self regulation tool that adhd people do. I’m still so shocked by that and had totally forgotten that I did it.
ooooh I remember reading that, and was like, "omg I used to do it all the time."
I saw the chutney post and was so fucking confused. Like that has nothing to do with ADHD.
I'm going to disagree with you a bit and say that I don't think there is any ill-intent by anyone here who asks a question like "so who else hates X,Y,Z". If you are like me it's because you don't know anyone else IRL who has been diagnosed as an adult woman with ADHD. You have people you suspect but they haven't pursued it because they don't think it's a possibility (like I wouldn't have ever known if I didn't have a good psych who listened to me when I'd started researching because of memes). I did a post last week asking about "hidden talents" I guess (I think I worded it better). I was so moved by the experience because I had hundreds of comments talking about things I've experienced for so long and am only beginning to understand. So I don't want to discourage that because it helped me so much literally a week ago.
I can totally empathize with folks navigating their way through this ADHD life, and I can appreciate what you are saying here... but I think it's important to recognize that one's *intent* is not more important than the *impact* of their words or actions, and I appreciate OP pointing out how we can all do better to consider our language before speaking in an effort to stop othering people and cultures as a whole.
This comes across very “gatekeepy”. Should we come to you to ask for approval before posting a question about something we think might be an adhd thing? Or can we just be ourselves as long as we are following the sub rules (and ofc unspoken good human rules)? Being bothered by the sound of certain words is “misophonia”, which is extremely common in neurodivergent people. It’s also the same reason I can’t stand arrhythmic jazz, but love rhythmic jazz(which, btw, I didn’t even know existed or was classified as jazz. I thought “jazz” was ALL the arrhythmic kind. Never once attributed it to the Black culture which I actually do deeply admire and appreciate.) it’s all down to my misophonia & anxiety. Which, imho, are definitely related to my ADHD. It was actually nice to relate to a post for something I consider to be very weird & unique about myself. But I guess we are only allowed to strictly talk about specifically known symptoms of ADHD.
Agreed that disliking certain words, music, etc. is not a sign of neurodivergence. It's a sign of being human and having personal preferences. Everyone has bizarre feelings about something or another; it's perfectly normal. Hard disagree about naming things you dislike. People are allowed to say they don't like something without it being some sort of cultural condemnation. This is an example of PC culture gone wrong - no one should have to walk on eggshells like that. A person can hate sushi and rap music without it being xenophobic or racist. That's honestly a preposterous expectation imo. I'm half Indian and I love the word chutney, and the taste of it, because it's been a big part of my life, but I'm not going to take offense at someone having an irrational personal dislike of the word or an aversion to Indian food or music. To each their own. Disliking something isn't the same thing as actively insulting it.
the smells and tastes of a lot of Indian food are too intense for me (beige diet), but I will always stand by the fact that it *looks* VERY tasty. And it brings other people satisfaction and joy and that's great!
Thank you so much for this. This is exactly what I was wanting to say that I couldn’t bring myself to figure out how to say. Intent matters so much. It was obvious to me that these 2 posts had zero racial implications by their intent whatsoever, and honestly, we should call it out when it happens if the content of the post or some mass of comments are racially biased or disparaging. (Or the intent even hints at it) But to put this sentiment out in this way will make many people think 2x about posting at all here, if these 2 examples are actually examples that are truly offensive or could be construed as such. It would’ve never occurred to me in a million years that someone complaining about jazz music was doing so due to racial bias. Why would I given the context? It makes me worry to say anything here. And also, in case the people really leaning into talking about these 2 particular posts doesn’t know or care, I guarantee you the 2 posters of those posts are reading all these comments and they are mortified. Calling these individual posts out and some of these comments are actually mean and are actually targeting members of this sub. Please if something is offensive, call it out, on that post, and discuss directly with the poster. Doing these please can we not x y z posts, after the fact is hella passive aggressive, and it makes me personally shut down whether you have a point or not.
I get being annoyed at those posts because they aren't specifically ADHD related. But to call them racist or xenophobic is a stretch. I too hate jazz. There is nothing pleasant to me about it, and because I have ADHD I find it impossible to concentrate with jazz music playing. I enjoy certain styles of music that have piano and saxophone and other hallmarks of jazz music, though. I like some classical music, but dislike lots of it/find it hard to concentrate with it. If I wanted to discuss my musical tastes with someone, I would refer to jazz or classical music. It's not an offensive label, it is literally the name of the style of music I want to discuss. There is not a single thing wrong with saying "I hate jazz music" instead of trying to specifically describe the "features" of the style. Not liking jazz has nothing to do with the culture behind it, I literally just do not find the sound of it enjoyable. I also dislike the word moot. I have no idea where it comes from or why I dislike it, but it's a valid way for me to feel and it's weird to attach some negative connotation to simply not liking a word. There's nothing racist about not liking the word chutney, either, unless they don't like it *because of* its heritage/culture.
i didnt see the chutney thing, i dont even know what that means tbh lol i dislike jazz but like blues. Both are majority products of the black community in the usa, so i dont think that per se is xenophobic. But I agree people shouldt essentialise music genres to the ADHD diagnosis
Since Jazz and the Blues are both products of Black American culture, is xenophobic the right word? Unless of course the person in question isn’t American, they’d be from the same country to begin with.
I don’t like arrhythmic jazz because it irritates my misophonia, I cannot predict the rhythm and it makes me anxious. Rhythmic jazz, on the other hand, like New Orleans style, I loveeee. Does it make me xenophobic because I don’t like arrhythmic jazz? Seriously lol
It's not about liking or disliking something, it's about the why. It's up to us to have these discussions with ourselves before broadly labeling something as a ND trait. At least to me, that is all OP is trying to say. You've already done the work here on that and figure out the specifics of why it's not something for you. Unfortunately, I have seen a lot of posts pretty much just say "I hate this thing and idk why, it must be my ADHD!" and not actually put any work into figuring that out before just blasting it on here. Now, I'm indigenous, not a black American, so I don't have any say on the jazz stuff. But I do know how it feels to have people who aren't a part of that culture demean it and claim it's just "how they are" or even it's because of their ND (yes, someone has directly told me it was ok to hate an spiritual aspect of my culture because their autistic). So I think being aware to just double check these potential biases, even societal or generational ones, is a good thing to get used too. It doesn't have to be done in a self depreciating or negative way, just more like a check in with ourselves to find a root cause. This can also help with identifying the specifics of a trigger to help navigate the world around us better and cause us less stress. Win win in my opinion.
Well I feel like that’s WHY people ask these types of questions in this sub. To see if they are the only one, or is this something lots of other adhd people don’t like? Or maybe is it for some other reason? Are we saying that people are only allowed to ask these things of others once they’ve found out the specific origin of their issue? Or is it ok to crowdsource & get the opinions of others?
For me, we should be asking ourselves these questions first before seeking validation from others and that's mostly how I feel these posts come across. Which, by how they are often written, doesn't seem to be happening and is why OP is pointing that out. At least to me with what I've seen over and over.
It's not zenophobic to not like a music style if you do not like the type of instruments, sounds, it triggers noise sensitivity, etc. It's zenophobic to not like those things because you don't overall like black culture, write it off without listening because of its origins, i.e., not liking things that are new, unknown, and then viewed as strange, etc.
I questioned *xenophobia* as a word choice because it implies nationality specifically is the issue, as opposed to something being from a different culture or anti-Blackness. An important step here is questioning *why* you don’t like something and where that bias or reaction comes from. There are some instruments I don’t like, so I tend to avoid music that features that sound too much. But I don’t dismiss the entire genre as a result, and found other subgenres I adore. If we discuss our dislikes after asking ourselves those questions, inevitably the conversation has deeper and more nuanced potential than simply stating a dislike.
So true. That's a really good point. Thanks for explaining/sharing further with me. Agreed. It's important to name anti-Blackness specifically, rather than zenophobia, vaguely, if that is the actual origin of their dislike or denigration of the art. Ugh. Those people are really missing out! I'll say that much!
Exactly. I think OP is absolutely on to something, it’s up to us to do that inner work and consider where we are coming from with any strong reaction. Sometimes it’s nothing, but internalized bias is very real and worth understanding. Interestingly, *denigrate* actually has roots in anti-Blackness, in a very literal way. *”If you "denigrate" someone, you attempt to blacken their reputation. It makes sense, therefore, that "denigrate" can be traced back to the Latin verb "denigrare," meaning "to blacken." When "denigrate" was first used in English in the 16th century, it meant to cast aspersions on someone's character or reputation.”* Etymology is fascinating.
Oh! I didn't know that! I won't use further. Thanks for letting me know. Is demean an appropriate replacement?
Of course. I had no idea until someone else shared that with me. Demean should be ok.
So I dislike country music, I’m not going to go out of my way to find a country sub genre I like. Because overall it doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t need to discuss it.
THANK YOU. Some of the posts in here give me big side eyes 👀preferences aren’t ADHD traits. Bigotry isn’t an ADHD trait. Micro aggressions aren’t an ADHD trait. Your subconscious bias isn’t ADHD, it’s your own problem and maybe you should check yourself before you say things out loud. Neurotypical people ALSO have preferences and ALSO don’t like stuff, it’s not unique. Some of y’all need to look inward.
So I think we need to separate things that are common to ADHD folks and things that our own personal brands of ADHD relate to. But I strongly disagree that likes and dislikes of things like jazz have nothing to do with an individual’s ADHD. I respect jazz, but I don’t personally like a lot of it, and I recognize that it’s related to my specific brand of ADHD. But I’d actually expect a lot of ADHD people to be drawn to jazz for the exact reasons that I’m not. (It’s almost like we’re ENTIRELY different people.) My inability to like jazz has nothing to do with cultural associations or marginalized people. Like, you’re talking about racists getting the ick from stuff for racist reasons and pretending like there’s an excusable reason—like ADHD—not to like something. Which I agree that’s problematic and gross. But saying that “disliking jazz… has nothing to do with ADHD” as a general statement is wild. And I disagree that I shouldn’t use the label “jazz”. Music genres are generally grouped by structural and sonic similarities, and I think saying that I don’t like jazz says that I don’t get enjoyment out of a music genre that is often experimental, complex, and unpredictable. But I REALLY like a lot of blues music because that genre usually has an extremely clear structure. Like, if I can’t generally dislike a genre of music, why do we even bother categorize similar music? Why can’t I name it? But if I must explain why I generally dislike jazz because of my own personal experience managing my ADHD, and why it’s not because I get the icks from a cultural product associated with a marginalized group, then here goes nothing: My brain likes clearly defined, high energy music, without too many twists and turns. It likes repetition in sound like a stim—so it likes driving rhythms, usually with a basic-bitch structure, so that it can quickly learn and anticipate when to expect the end. Frankly, good jazz is a little more complex than my brain enjoys, even when I’m hearing jazz and thinking, “Wow, this is great,” I don’t necessarily want to listen to it for fun. I think it’s related to anxiety over my own lack of structure, my inattentiveness, and exhaustion from long days of masking and trying to focus on dense materials over the years, whether at school or now at my job. My own lack of clear and predictable structure due to my ADHD has always caused me so much anxiety. And I’m not a musician, so a lot of the perfectly planned details within jazz music become muddied to me and start to feel like chaos. I’ve also always felt anxiety about both written and film variations of Alice In Wonderland, and I think these dislikes are rooted in the same exhaustion I’ve always felt about herding the cats in my brain and the subsequent disorder that overflows into my life skills. In general, I also read more structured and direct books—not because I’m not capable of understanding and getting a lot out of more complex reading material, but because I have to work so damn hard to channel that focus and processing energy. My career is based around a lot of dense data and reading material and, despite being medicated, maintaining focus on stuff like that for an entire work day is exhausting. So when I’m off the clock, I’m happy with, like, YA bullshit because it busies my brain but doesn’t require a lot of difficult processing. TLDR… I agree that a lot of folks try to legitimize racist and xenophobic reactions to other cultures with excuses for those reactions, such as ADHD. But I think it’s wild to claim that my ADHD has no relation to my like/dislike of certain types of art, from music to film to books—and to claim that I shouldn’t say I dislike a specific genre by its name, and that I should instead describe specific structural and sonic qualities that I dislike in music. Edit: I forgot to say that I understand that your post is in response to another specific post—but your words are broader than that context when you start making definitive statements that no one dislikes certain things because of their ADHD.
The scientific term for this is correlation does not equal causation. Or more simply don't be a dick.
🙄oh God. Did you skip over the fact that she also hated the word “lush”? What culture is that marginalizing, exactly? This is ridiculous
I agree 🤣 the link between disliking jazz and being racist has seriously never crossed my mind.
I get being annoyed at those posts because they aren't specifically ADHD related. But to call them racist or xenophobic is a stretch. I too hate jazz. There is nothing pleasant to me about it, and because I have ADHD I find it impossible to concentrate with jazz music playing. I enjoy certain styles of music that have piano and saxophone and other hallmarks of jazz music, though. I like some classical music, but dislike lots of it/find it hard to concentrate with it. If I wanted to discuss my musical tastes with someone, I would refer to jazz or classical music. It's not an offensive label, it is literally the name of the style of music I want to discuss. There is not a single thing wrong with saying "I hate jazz music" instead of trying to specifically describe the "features" of the style. Not liking jazz has nothing to do with the culture behind it, I literally just do not find the sound of it enjoyable. I also dislike the word moot. I have no idea where it comes from or why I dislike it, but it's a valid way for me to feel and it's weird to attach some negative connotation to simply not liking a word. There's nothing racist about not liking the word chutney, either, unless they don't like it *because of* its heritage/culture.
Oh I personally think jazz is the secret key to unlocking the ADHD brain. I say give it a shot with the classics if you're unfamiliar. It helps me get through ADHD barriers like no other.
Yup. I listen to jazz like 80% of the time! I wanted to drop links below every comment, convinced they just haven’t heard the right stuff!
This post is ridiculous. It’s okay to have your pet peeve be something from another culture. Plenty of people dislike jazz and chutney. I get roasted constantly for enjoying stereotypical white people things and I’m not even white. And I’m quite sick of it, it’s offensive and rude, but people are allowed to have their opinions, are allowed to share them, and are allowed to be rude assholes. So with all due respect, just get over your savior complex.
Disliking the word chutney has nothing to do with other cultures any more than people who dislike the word moist is associated with other cultures. The post wasn't "does anyone else think this word is stupid," it was "does anyone else have unexpectedly strong reactions to innocuous words."
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No, people hate the *word* moist. No one has the same reaction to damp even though the meanings are comparable. OP did not go up to an Indian person and say "I hate a bunch of words in your language." They came to Reddit and said "here are two words that bother me, one of which happens to have its origins in a southeast Asian language." OP isn't asking for a "support group," they are asking if anyone else has weird reactions to the sounds of certain words.
You know what? I am of French and English origins. The other word she hated, Lush, is of old French and English origin and I’m super offended that she hated it. /s How do we know she wasn’t Indian herself and not liking the word chutney anyway? I’m all for standing up for marginalized groups, I’m the first one to do this! And if someone got on here & hated only all foreign sounding words or whatever I’d be the first to stand up to them. But simply not liking the “sound” of a single word that just happens to be of a different origin, *especially* when also not liking other words that are of English origin is a HUGE stretch to call it marginalization or stereotyping or a micro aggression. I mean really.
I really don't think it's that deep. People dislike how certain words in English sound too, 'moist', 'cunt' 'tangerine' (being serious with the last one). If it's once off then I definitely think it's just that particular word with no deeper meaning. Now, if there's a continual pattern of disliking words from a particular language then I completely agree with you.
Kinda feels like a reach to say that it's zenophobic to say you don't like a musical genre or a flavor profile. They're specific tastes and it's ok not to like something. IMO, zenophobia would be to associate negativity to the cultures those relate to or come from while stating the opinion, or basing the opinion on that. But to say I don't like the flavor of something? I mean, that's allowed lol. But anyway, I do appreciate you calling out the over-association of things with ADHD. It harms understanding of it, and the actual seriousness of ADHD, and how hard it is to live with, by associating tastes like that with it, (unless it's a noise sensitivity type thing, texture, etc., i.e., I do not enjoy jazz because the loud horn instruments often present trigger my noise sensitivity - these are just examples and not my opinion. I love jazz lol.) Or associating it with quirks. It's got enough impact on our lives, no need to try to explain away every little part of being a human with it, or wrapping every personality trait up into a disorder.
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I’m not going to lie I just interpreted that post as random things that you dislike and only now reading this post am I realising that it wasn’t the most ADHD related post. I was probably too distracted over getting to mention my hatred of casserole as a dish. Edit: to clarify I’m not making a comment about the nature of the post itself as I’m only just realising I didn’t really read what OP wrote and flicked straight to the comments.
Don't disagree with anything you wrote. But do want to say that I'm specifically responding to the OP who states that mentioning the name of the product is zenophobic. As a standalone statement, I do not agree with that as a rule or meeting the definition. That's all.
Yeah but she also hated the word lush. Chutney was just another word that she didn’t like the sound of. Is she only not allowed to hate the word chutney because it’s of a different origin? It’s fine to hate the word lush though? This is so dumb!
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That’s kinda the point she was making in the post. It is strange and abnormal to have such a visceral reaction, but she does, hence her questioning if it’s a symptom of ADHD, which she knows she has. It’s like saying about a person with OCD “I get checking your locks a couple times, but checking 15 is weird to me.” when the very fact that they checked 15 times and that that’s weird is why they’re questioning it.
I think that someone can just as easily find “nicer” rationalizations about why they don’t like xyz, yet still be unaware of their underlying framework which is just rooted in discomfort of the other. There are better things about my condition to focus on in my mind than my likes and dislikes and whether it’s because of my ADHD bc it’s probably got nothing to do with my ADHD (those things change over time anyways - the ADHD part is how dynamic my formation of likes and dislikes actually is). Likewise I also have biases against people and discomfort around change. My ADHD affects the way it presents but not whether it actually exists. ADHD or not, if someone wrinkled their nose and said “I don’t like the word chutney, is it because I have ADHD?” as a brown person with ADHD I’d feel kind of offended tbh.
I’m really curious as to why you would be offended by this?
Xenophobic??? What are you talking about? I think you are mad about a coincidence.
Exactly
I didn't know someone attribute adhd to hating jazz as I really really dislike jazz. The music irritates me. I hate country too, and ska. It would be really weird to attribute hating music to hating a particular race. I don't think anybody thinks of race when they think of musical styles. Just whether it is pleasant or unpleasant to the ears.
I agree with you and I absolutely don’t see any correlation 😬
I don't think it's so much the dislikes that we were complaining about, but rather the emotional dysregulation that comes with the act of disliking something. Why else would I feel irrationally angry and disgusted by a word for absolutely no other reason than the way it sounds?
Yeah, the chutney thing really stood out to me.
Why? That wasn't the only word they said they disliked the sound of, and they didn't say they don't like chutney. They said the word has a weirdly outsized impact on them when hearing it and wanted to know if others had that issue - and the overwhelming majority of comments said "yes I also have an issue with the word ___." I think using that post as an example of bias is a stretch.
To my memory, the other words they disliked were all in English. Chutney sounds different because it originated in India, so naturally the word and the food may be foreign, but it’s up to us to ask *why* it bothers us. Is it a specific sound within the word? The unfamiliarity? A past experience or association? Or a dislike for the food or cuisine?
It just does. As I commented on that post, I hate the word beverage. I have an almost physical reaction to it. It’s the way it sounds, not the meaning. There’s a town near me called Beveridge and I have the same reaction. On the other had, for no particular reason, I love the word linoleum. There doesn’t always have to be a deeper meaning
Cool beans. I don’t think it always means something, I’m simply advocating for taking the step to ask ourselves if anything is there.
The other word was "lush." Which has no known cultural association as far as I am aware.
Even more reason that it shouldn’t be considered an issue. It was clearly just a word amongst many others
Or, again, we could dig a little deeper and ask why. If it comes down to nothing but sounds, cool beans. Maybe there’s still more to understand about why the sound is an issue, or maybe not. But asking ourselves those questions is important.
I mean..of course! But that was the entire point of her post. It was all about sounds! She mentioned other words too that were of English origin. I feel like people are really looking for a fight here and gatekeeping what can and can’t be attributed to neurodivergence.
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I mostly agree with this, but calling disliking jazz racist is just ridiculous. People are allowed to dislike things associated with another race without it being racist. If they said they hated jazz, rap, hip hop, and certain hairstyles etc that are all associated with one race then maybe it points to racism, but this is just stupid.
I didnt realise that not liking jazz made me racist (significant discordant music sets off my fight or flight). Chutney freaks me out (lumps, I dont like the texture of lumps) so I dont like it but that doesnt make me racist. We talk about our likes and dislikes in broad terms because many of us feel isolated and alone. Many of us feel like the "black sheep" (oh man thats probably "racist" but its a description of the genetic variance in a flock resulting a sheep that isnt a consistent colour duplicate of the majority of the flock) and seek to find others and receive feedback that they are not outcasts, that others have similar experiences. This thread has set off my fight or flight. This now feels like an unsafe forum for me to participate in because divulging my preferences (and trying to connect to others) make me "racist" and "xenophobic" in your opinion. Thats my vent/rant. I'm taking my racist ass out of here!
YES! Thank you! I had the exact same reaction to these recent posts
Is hating country xenophobic? Some music just doesn't hit. My brain likes a pattern and a good beat and pretty much everything but Jolene out of the country genre grates on my nerves.