By Stephanie Shore

Rockism. Not a familiar term, but a pretty familiar concept.

The term was brought to my attention by a 2004 New York Times editorial I read for class a few weeks ago. The widely-discussed editorial, written by Kalefa Sanneh, was titled, “The Rap Against Rockism.”

Rockism, described by Sanneh as a “knee-jerk backlash against producer-powered idols who didn’t spend years touring dive bars,” is difficult to define. In short, a “rockist” is a person who spends his or her time mocking pop stars and idolizing musicians who write and perform their own music under the rock ‘n’ roll ideal.

What is this rock ‘n’ roll ideal? Well, that’s difficult to define, too, and I’m not going to try. The trouble with rockism is that talking about it often creates a straw man argument in which anti-rockists argue against a position that doesn’t necessarily exist in one specific form.

However, here’s my picture of the typical rockist of our generation: the college student who calls himself a serious music fan and claims to listen to “everything,” but actually only listens to mostly unknown bands until too many other people have heard of them.

This is the person who either lists about 300 obscure artists under “favorite music” on Facebook or MySpace, or instead, writes one sarcastic and clever sentence without listing any music at all, as if to say, “What’s the point? You don’t know who they are, and you’re not smart enough to appreciate them anyway.”

When I read Sanneh’s editorial, I experienced myriad feelings. First, amusement – I knew exactly what Sanneh was talking about, and man, did he bash those pretentious asses. Next, shame – I’ve been guilty of rockism myself.

I wrote a column last September that began with, “Rock music is supposed to be about passion. It’s built on the premise of ‘sticking it to the man.’ And unlike the hits played on Top 40 radio, it’s about the creation of raw intensity and brutal honesty – not about the creation of revenue.”

Well, there you have it: the essence of rockism. Oops. But please, let me clarify. When it comes to rock ‘n’ roll, the line between art and commerce should remain solid. When you commercialize rock music, you get Nickelback. Enough said.

However, there’s a reason pop music makes a lot of money: it’s because people like it. The typical rockist would tell you the masses of consumers who buy pop albums don’t know anything about good music. Nonetheless, “good music” lies in the ear of the beholder.

Take, for example, Justin Timberlake’s “What Goes Around