Alternative? Narrow minded more like.

Today Amy Winehouse died. Most of my friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter paid their respects in messages and, regardless of opinion of her personally, all agreed it was a terrible waste of life and talent.

There was a certain section of my online acquaintances that reacted in a disappointing, but predictable way. those who identify themselves as ‘Alternative’.

Most (but not, I should add, all) of the Goth/Industrial/Alternative types on my various friends lists reaction to Winehouse's death was nothing short of unsurprising.

Smug and self-important.

Well done there, the moral high-ground they so desperately insist is yours (all the time) is, once again, very much not. Those elitist, holier-than-thou pricks.

I'm not even a massive Winehouse fan but she definitely had an incredible voice and was a character that will be missed. There’s aren’t enough characters any more. When you watched her on TV or whatever you got the impression that, although appearances were that she was being mocked, she was pretty canny to her public persona. Her stints on Never Mind The Buzzcocks were amongst the funniest episodes.

But, as I said, I'm not a massive fan, it just winds me up that 'Alternative' types always claim the open minded, right thinking, position in any situation. But are in fact, almost exclusively, closed minded, isolationist, bitter and venomous idiots who fear and hate anything outside of their tiny little 'Alternative' world.

I'm proud to no longer be one of them.

Yes, 91 had died in Oslo today, yes 10 had died in China, and those of us with any decency had already expressed out shock and horror and bewilderment at these situations, that’s no reason to feel superior enough to mock the death of someone else, for whatever reason.

The ‘Alternative’ scene thinks it’s so different, so non-conformist, but never had I come across more blinkered prejudicial and, in certain respects, bigoted group of people in my life. The fact that they are mostly so deluded that they think they are the good guy, due to some perceived intellectually superiority, just make me madder.

Hence the rant.

It’s been a hell of a day for bad news and tragedy. That’s never a good time to act smug.