In 2003, lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, Natalie Maines, criticized then President Bush about his political stance on Iraq, saying, "Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas."
It killed their country-to-pop crossover momentum, and even though social media wasn't much of a thing back then, pitted their deep country roots against finicky fans, tossing their careers into a spiral they never really recovered from.
But just last month, Maines may have unwittingly made a bunch of new fans in the strangest of places all because of one tattoo artist's lack of Google comprehension — the hardcore bassheads in love with Lorin Ashton (better known as Bassnectar).
In an Instagram post that, to her credit, hasn't been taken down yet, Maines shows off a cover-up of a bad toe tattoo she had gotten some years before. The hashtags in it allude to the assumption she though it was a symbol meaning "strength" in Greek. Though as dozens of comments point out, it's not that at all. It's actually Bassnectar's bassdrop symbol, something completely unrelated to both Greece and strength.
Surprisingly, this isn't the first time confusion has happened with the bassdrop. Last year, a gym by the name of KratosStrong.com was searching Google for the exact same thing and used it as the business logo. It has since been changed (slightly) to represent the Greek God Kratos instead of a DJ with an affinity for shaking the walls with his sick beats.
But how, you ask? Apparently, Pinterest is a powerful tool and when (assumed) fans of Ashton go to there and tag his logo with the wrong words, Google is nary the wiser. And without any real knowledge of the culture at hand, tattoo artists and gym owners are bound to make the mistake once or twice. Unfortunately, the Dixie Chicks still have a large following, and, well, here we are.
Maines may not have to worry so much about it though. According to Ashton, the logo doesn't really mean much of anything, or at least didn't until his popularity blew up and millions began following his mantra of positivity and acceptance. Now, as explained in an earlier blog post by Ashton, people can interpret it how they want — it's for the world.
The logo is about letting go of human dogma (RELIGION!) and surrendering to a much larger universe, but also embracing every minuscule second and tiny experience as PRECIOUS.
It’s a permanent, perfect SIMULTANEOUS dichotomy of total insignificance and total significance merged as one into every single flashing second.
And the logo means a lot of other things too, and you can say it means whatever you want to you as far as I’m concerned.
And really, all she'd have to do to make things right in the universe is appear on one of his future tracks. Using this blunder to her artistic advantage would very likely work out for everyone involved. Maybe his fans can start a hashtag and turn this thing around. #Bassnectoe
Knowing bassheads, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Leave a Reply