...what?

What do you mean? The OP made it personal by accusing this forum of not being a friendly place, and eliciting that reponse by his own comments. I personally am just responding to his question as to why this seems suddenly an unfriendly place to him; be friendly and tolerant and people will reciprocate. Be nasty and snide, that'll come right back on ya!

Wasn't trying to direct it at you Trollheart. Sorry if you took offence. Only the manner of being thrown back and forth as it does, I don't think it'll solve anything by reciprocating it.

Excuse my comment I shouldn't have derailed the topic. I apologise.

That's ok. The whole tone of this guy is beginning to get to me, so before I get into trouble like in another thread I'll probably back out now. Think I've said all I can anyway.
No offence taken.
:)

??

Really?

Wow. there are some sensitive souls on here.

This is the sort of thing that I don't really understand. I mostly listen to music that some peopel would (unfairly) label "depressing".

Why is that not good?

I believe it depends on the person to whether they find certain music depressing.

Ok let me explain.

I've nothing against you personally, don't know you, but your attitude from the word go has been not only argumentative (which is fine; this is, after all, a place for debate) but combative and pushy. You're selling your opinion as the only one --- "we need to find a better word than depressing/melancholy" --- --- why? That word suits pefectly well, has for centuries or more. It seems from that comment that you're just trying to shape the perception of depression and/or melancholia to fit your argument. People responding here have pointed out that you're confusing depressing with being depressed, two totally different concepts, and you've either ignored or attacked them, desperate to defend your position.

You've suggested that anyone who gets depressed listening to music, or watching a sad movie, must be mentally unbalanced --- "If this is the case, then that person must be rather unstable - to have his or her entire frame of mind chanegd by a movie". How can you presume to make such a judgement? Lots of people get depressed through being exposed to various stimuli, doesn't make then mentally deficient or unstable.

You keep saying people shouldn't get depressed by listening to music, ignoring the fact that many do. Just because you don't doesn't mean others aren't affected that way. But your posts don't seem to accept that. You keep asking how can this happen, but it does. And instead of saying okay well maybe it does for them but it doesn't for me, and closing the thread, or moving on to other discussions born from it, you keep harping on as if you HAVE to be right, when it's been at first gently then more forcefully explained to you that your argument does not hold water.

And to cap it all, you then sniff about us not being friendly, when you yourself have come across as over-opinionated and somewhat too sure of yourself to accept that yours is just an opinion, not a fact you have to prove.

That's why I have a problem with your attitude. It's not that I'm sensitive: I really couldn't give a toss. But I prefer proper, informed, reasonably researched and backed-up and polite debate, which is what we usually engage in here. Someone just refusing to accept that they're wrong and therefore extending a premise that has been proven to be based on either inaccurate information or a false impression, yeah I have a problem with that.

Because, "depression" is a disease. It's an actual tragic state of mind.

I find it very difficult to believe that a piece of music someone has never heard before can suddenly lull them into a deep state of mental torture.

As I said, I find it a lazy way of dismissing music. I know folks that don't like slow, downbeat music. Fine, but when saying why they don't like it, they say "because it's depressing". They don't aoffer a critique of what they don't liek about the piece of music. Just that it falls into this category of depressing. Lazy IMO.


I'm genuinely gobsmacked that you think I've "attacked" people on this forum.

This all started because of the following comment on another thread:

To me, that is a ridiculous comment. And sadly, one which is found in quite alot of epople who dismiss downbeat music as "depressing"

I won't bother next time then.

People also use words like "manic" and "schizophrenic" to describe music. It doesn't mean the music causes mental illness, it's just a way of describing what the music feels like. Hell, people often describe pop songs as "infectious", but that doesn't mean you're at risk of catching a disease if you listen to them.

So your problem is really with people who dismiss music for dumb reasons, not with the word "depressing". You could just as easily be upset by people who dismiss music for being "angry" or for being "violent" or whatever else. The irony, of course, is that those people have the same problem you do: they don't understand the difference between subject matter and artistic value.