A small artist you love gets discovered. Overnight, they flood your feed, and your friends are asking if you’ve heard of them. You hear them in shops, maybe on the radio, and suddenly they’re everywhere. How exactly are we meant to feel?

The most recent example for me was Lola ‘Young’s Messy’ (if you haven’t heard it yet, where have you been?). I saw the song used on socials once or twice and smiled to myself; the next day, I saw it a dozen times. I felt that familiar glowing feeling in my chest. Many have called it a superiority complex – a belief that discovering good music first bestows some powerful validation on your taste or the range of your media input. While such theories have merit, I’ve always felt these feelings to be more complex than mere self-congratulation.

“There’s often a peculiar feeling reminiscent of power, like being the first to know a good bit of gossip”

Discovering an undiscovered artist is a joy in itself. Supporting them and building a relationship with their music often goes deeper than just enjoying a melody or a beat; we develop emotional connections to their songs. When any small artist we know and love then gains attention, we experience positive feelings of vindication, feelings of excitement at sharing the music. There’s often a peculiar feeling reminiscent of power, like being the first to know a good bit of gossip.

For myself, however, these have often been accompanied by a tightness in my chest and a feeling of panic that I was keen to understand. These seemed to have a few causes. There was initially a sadness and annoyance that I would no longer be able to introduce my friends to a “hidden gem”. Music, for me, is like artwork or trinkets – things I collect over time because they bring me joy and which, ultimately, come to feel like an exhibition of my soul. My collection of artists and music is like a library of my life, representations of my emotions and experiences. I have always appreciated music as a medium for knowing myself and allowing others to know me, a tool to deepen friendship which feels irrationally threatened when one of my hidden gems becomes mainstream. Maybe there are some anthropological motivations at work here too – a subconscious fear of sharing important resources, despite the fact there’s no scarcity.

“Seeing one of their songs blow up digitally however, becoming plastered all over TikTok perhaps, felt like a threat”

What I definitely did feel was discontent – a sense of foreboding, even – at the prospect of others under-appreciating art that was so important to me. Suddenly hearing my favourite small artists at house parties, dinners, and gatherings – where I could find whoever was on the aux and bond with them over the art – was an exciting prospect. Seeing one of their songs blow up digitally, however, becoming plastered all over TikTok perhaps, felt like a threat. I remembered a friend of mine describing the B-52’s ‘Love Shack’ as “that TikTok song”, with borderline malice. This was a fear that people would only listen to snippets of Lola’s song, without appreciating the song as a whole or her as an artist – or worse still, use it because it was trending without identifying with the lyrics at all. This fear, though, was indicative of how important her music has been to me, and my longing for her and her work to be appreciated.

This seemed to be the bedrock of all my feelings, both with Lola and other artists: an emotional connection to the art and a desire to build genuine community through it. So how should we channel these emotions when our small artists blow up? As always, it is our duty as fans to channel these emotions in ways that support our artists; gatekeeping music and contributing to toxic fanbases only harm the musicians we love. Even if viral success in the modern age can feel cheap and commercial, it’s important we remember that all success benefits the artist, and we all want what’s best for the artists we love. We must embrace the rapid expansion of an artist’s fan base for what it is – an ever-increasing community of like-minded music fans.

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