What’s Your Top 5? A Question That People Have Posed And Been Questioned About For Ages
If you are of a certain age, then you will fondly remember going to a house party and at some point, perusing the clearly displayed CD/Records/DVD collections. That would give you a great deal of insight into the host’s personality. You’d be able to gauge whether or not the host was your type of person. Somebody you could vibe with. Are they a Horror person, fan of Indie fare, or lover of Hollywood blockbusters. Maybe they have an affinity for all of the above. What’s their musical taste? Is their style Punk, have a deep love of Hip Hop or can’t get enough of all things Metal. These are the “getting to know you” questions you didn’t need to ask when you first spoke with the host. You didn’t need to query what the host’s top 5 was. You’d see them loud and proud amongst their collection.
Nowadays though with the abundance of social media available that hands on experience is no longer something that happens. Hell, with streaming now, most people no longer even have physical media. That’s a whole other subject all together though. Save for a different article. Here I want to focus on how much our tastes in movies, music and books shape our personalities. The popular question found online these days are “what’s your top 5?” Whether its your top 5 movies in a genre or top 5 actors, top 5 singers, top 5 rappers, top 5 guitarists. The lists can literally be endless. Back to the abundance of social media though cause, I want to focus on social medias’ influence on people’s top 5.
I see a LOT of these lists, and to be honest they all seem to be carbon copies of each other. There is a clear lack of uniqueness. People let social media influence what their top 5’s are. Therein lies the problem. The person’s individuality has been lost because they are no longer defining their own individuality. There are just going with the flow. Case in point, I used to work in a bar, and this guy asked me who my favorite Emcees were, and I named them without hesitation. He said he had never heard of any of them. Then questioned why my favorites weren’t Biggie, Tupac or Eminem? See those were the only names he knew of because that’s what he saw online. He lacked original thought. You’d think with the endless amount of information available online that people would be more apt to make a more thoroughly researched top 5. I’m not saying that EVERYBODY lacks originality when stating their top 5, I’m just saying I find it suspicious when so many people’s top 5 lists look damn near identical. So, in short, I just want more people to exude individuality. Be themselves and make their own unique top 5’s that aren’t influenced by strangers on the internet. I’m all ears if you want to sound off on your OWN top 5’s.
