We’ve all been there before. Caught in an awkward social situation where you have nothing to say to another person, but feel the need to just say something because the silence between you two is eating you alive. What do you do? What else can you do? You begin to make fun of Air Supply.
While the premier Australian soft rock group sold millions in the early ’80s, they have subsequently not only lost all of their original popularity, but evidently have become the butt of almost any joke made about bad music. It’s such a surefire way of getting a laugh from your audience! Finish almost any conversation about crappy shit with, “Hey, at least they’re not Air Supply!” and I guarantee everyone in the room with be rolling on the floor like hyenas, thinking you are the greatest person on Earth.
Now while I never succumbed to laughing at such unwarranted abuse of the band that brought us heart wrenchingly beautiful love songs like “Lost in Love,” “All of Out Love,” “The One That You Love” and “The Power of Love,” I must admit that I didn’t voice my protests either. But once I read an article by a distinguished professor at Cornell University stooping so low as to include a gratuitous quip at Air Supply’s expense in a recently published article, I realized enough was enough.
I wrote the educator a lengthy e-mail educating him on how rude he was. I began my tirade by asking, “Why must you make fun of Air Supply? Haven’t they suffered enough?” and followed by explaining why Air Supply’s music has the power to bring me to tears. This distinguished professor never wrote me back.
If you doubt just how pervasive this heartless derision is, I ran a Google search on “Air Supply sucks.” Results totaled 1,600,000. As a control, I ran a search on “David Hasselhoff sucks” and received 2.5% of that.
And what do these haters have to say about Air Supply? On one site, Van Gully writes, “They are not Air Supply or N’suck.” N’fuck you, Van Gully! Elsewhere, Willie Roy writes “I’m sorry their is nothing wrong with Homosexuals, but it is nasty and Air Supply sucks.” What does that even mean? And it’s “there,” not “their” douchebag.
Readers, is this the cowardly sleaze you want to emulate?
Archived article by Jared Wolfe
Sun Staff Writer