The ‘Niche Connoisseur’: someone who knows more about a mainstream topic than anyone reasonably should, or someone who seeks to know everything about something you’ve never heard of. In either case, both ‘Niche Connoisseurs’ look for every opportunity to prove to everyone else that they are more informed and more dedicated to their interest of choice than the “basic” population: the “sheep” who dress in the black tank/blue jeans uniform and listen to music from Spotify’s AI playlists rather than vinyl records.
Gen Z social media culture has blurred the distinction between basic and niche interests by creating a sort of niche-flation. As certain topics grow in popularity online, and more fans of lesser known topics find each other, the standard of what truly counts as a niche interest keeps rising. Geese, yesterday’s alternative band, can become tomorrow’s mainstream trend overnight. As a result, the niche connoisseurs within this fandom must turn on each other to fight for the spot of the “Number One Fan”, or risk joining the rest of the flock of basic, trend-hopping followers.
Although the ‘Niche Connoisseur’ could covet any band, book, or object, they are easy to spot: whether their subject of choice is the highest grossing band of all time, or has 200 monthly Spotify monthly listeners, they will make sure you know they have a deeper connection to said subject than anyone else. They have two ways of achieving this.
In the first case, when the subject is already popular, the ‘Niche Connoisseur’ turns a widely shared opinion about their interests into a unique statement about their own individuality, one that screams “I like this because I am special.” To do so, they delve into the nooks and crannies of the fandom lore. While this involves more mental gymnastics, it can also be more rewarding because it provides the ‘Niche Connoisseur’ with many, many opportunities to show that while others jumped on the bandwagon, they were the ones who drove it.
For example, I once met a ‘Niche Connoisseur’ who insisted I wasn’t a “real fan” of The Beatles because I didn’t truly know The Beatles discography. Apparently listening to only one album, or a few songs, wasn’t a strong enough expression of my dedication to the band. They argued that if someone really liked The Beatles, they would listen to all of their tracks and see that “Number Nine” is the most sonically impressive Beatles song. Further, they continued, the backstory to each song is incredibly important to actually understanding the music, so a real fan would listen to the tapes of the band recording the songs, then read the footnotes cited on each member’s Wikipedia page.
So, those 36 million people who listen to the Beatles each year may think they like the band, but they don’t truly understand the music because they don’t get the band. After all, can you really appreciate a song like “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” if you don’t know why Paul McCartney isn’t wearing shoes on the Abbey Road album cover?
In the second case of the ‘Niche Connoisseur’, where the subject of enjoyment is more obscure, conflict is (paradoxically) much more likely to arise, especially in online spaces. An alternative band may be known to very few, leading each fan to believe that they are the band’s only true follower. The only one who knew them before they got big — that is, until they find other fans online, and now must prove they were the original fan that posers only seek to imitate.
Let’s imagine an indie band called Hard-Kick that has one popular song that blew up on TikTok. Hundreds of thousands can sing the chorus, but only two people have listened to and enjoyed the full album from which it is from. Both criticize their friends for praising Hard-Kick without meeting the ‘Niche Connoisseur’s standards for enjoying the song. Online, they comment under videos of strangers dancing or lip-syncing to the trending chorus, saying that they’re too “basic” to understand the deeper meaning behind the song, and don’t understand the culture behind it. One day, Fan #1 sees Fan #2’s comment reading, “Real ones know Hard-Kick from the song ‘I Kick Real Hard’ rather than the catchy single ‘Kick Quick’.” Instead of agreeing with Fan #2 that more people should enjoy “I Kick Real Hard”, Fan #1 retorts that, actually, real fans would understand that Hard-Kick’s best song (which is somehow also their least known) is “Kick, Hit, Kick.”
A thread then emerges of both fans trying to out-niche the other over their shared love of Hard-Kick, instead of geeking out about it together. They can’t appreciate their mutual interest, because if others like Hard-Kick just as much as they do, then they are just like everyone else. People who could have been friends are turned to enemies by their own insecurity of being seen as basic. As seen in Marvel comic book and movie fans, who respectively claim that a real fan would read all the comics or watch all the movies.
This niche-on-niche violence happens everyday online, with no peace in sight so long as the standards of what counts as niche is gatekept by a wall of over-possessive fans, who would, to protect their egos, rather see their chosen artist poor and unknown than mainstream and, God forbid, basic. Similarly, for the same reasons, they would rather listen to music alone than play it aloud to an equally enraptured friend.
The ‘Niche Connoisseur’ is annoying to meet in person, discouraging to meet online, and above all else harmful to their artist of choice. In the first case, a person puts down the interest of others in order to further their own ego. The second, they turn what could be an engaging online forum to celebrate an artist into a battleground of “If you liked Y, you would know X.” Both create a negative connotation between the subject and a possible fan. Until the terms “basic” and “niche” are deemed neutral, rather than inferior and superior, ‘Niche Connoisseurs’ will continue to deter people not only from getting to know them personally, but from getting to know their obsession of choice.