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Can you believe this article?


Guest Honey Emerald

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Guest Honey Emerald

Cognitive dissonance in this article refers to fans, saying how we want Green Day to stay true to their roots and put out some grittier, more raw shit, but then we buy the poppiest songs and put those at the top of the charts. Case in point, if "The Forgotten" becomes the most successful single of the trilogy, which it very well might be.

Perspective: I buy albums because I found something I enjoy and want to hear more regardless of what is being said about it... I hope that the rest of the fans agree to this. I started listening to other types of music through Green Day... I began reading the lyrics and all of a sudden I became an eclectic listener. So yeah, perhaps I do not like "The Forgotten"... but someone out there does and through it... they might end up like me.

Another perspective: If you played the same music all the time would it be truthful to who you are and what you are about every day of your life?

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I am certain that fans have Cognitive Dissonance... but as it was said earlier.. everyone has it... not just fans. How is the article proving that Billie Joe Armstrong was having an episode of Cognitive Dissonance based solely upon his rant at the iHeart Music Festival?

"The incident, though, does reveal a bit of cognitive dissonance in what Armstrong thinks his band is and what it actually is."

That statement , which seems to show that the writer of the article has very little knowledge of what he is talking about. The writer is trying to place his personal beliefs of what Green Day as a band is upon an entire populace by saying those words.

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On another note:

Did no one pay attention to the words "I want to play something new!" coming out of Billie Joe Armstrong's mouth at the iHeart Radio Music Festival performance? If there was ANY cognitive dissonance going on there.. that would have been the moment that could have possibly proven it... but at that point... Billie Joe Armstrong himself had stopped playing.

What makes this moment so critical an event... is not that he ranted... but the fact that he stopped playing. He also said "We'll be back"... and I believe him.

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Cognitive dissonance in this article refers to fans, saying how we want Green Day to stay true to their roots and put out some grittier, more raw shit, but then we buy the poppiest songs and put those at the top of the charts. Case in point, if "The Forgotten" becomes the most successful single of the trilogy, which it very well might be.

The subtitle for the article says "Billie Joe Armstrong's Recent Outburst Suggests a Cognitive Dissonance, But Maybe Our Response to 1995's Insomniac Tells Us How We're Partially to Blame For His Misunderstanding".

His misunderstanding. As in, Billie Joe is experiencing cognitive dissonance and we, the fans, are part of the cause for that dissonance. That is what this article is haphazardly trying to say. But cognitive dissonance is not a "misunderstanding" at all. Nor does it have anything to do with public perception, as it's an entirely internal process.

Trying to reconcile Green Day's actions in respect to the punk scene they grew up in would be an endless string of cognitive dissonances needing to be resolved for them and for us, to use the most pertinent example. But his proposition that the band are making *conscious* choices to appease the mass audience based on chart performance, even if we took it at face value as truth, would not be an example of cognitive dissonance; It'd just be good old-fashioned pandering. Or supply and demand, in a more business-tinted sense. Likewise, talking about how Billie perceives himself as something he isn't--or that our public perception has fueled that self-concept--is not cognitive dissonance. It's almost an entirely separate discussion, even.

Hell, even your alternate interpretation about the fans being cognitively dissonant isn't a real example of cognitive dissonance, as it conflates public reception with individual opinions. If I like fantasy shows and want more well-written ones on TV, but then ratings prove crime procedurals like CSI to be more popular, that isn't cognitive dissonance. Not even close. It would only be cognitive dissonance if I personally started watching CSI regularly, and enjoying it as a "guilty pleasure" (the guilt part being the manifestation of the dissonance). The same goes for music. Not to mention, that viewpoint completely belies the role of corporate influence on the market. The labels and the band pick the singles together, for whatever reasons they have for picking them, and then the label uses all their resources to push those songs into public awareness. Runaway hits like Good Riddance and Boulevard of Broken Dreams can never be accurately predicted, of course, but when they do, it's considered a win. Not "shit, we thought that song would bomb."

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Well I'm pretty sure the author is saying Billie's mind is working like this:

One side- I like this breed of punk rock. These songs are good. This is who I am.

Other side- People really like this pop kind of sound. These songs are good? This is who I am?

The cognitive dissonance in this case being the conflict between Billie's belief of what sort of musician or rock star he is. Sort of like his punk roots and his pop roots coming into conflict because they have a tendency to contradict each other.

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