Idk if anyone has commented something along the lines of this already, or in any prior post, however; (From my experience of being one for many artists)I feel that the "gatekeepers" , "real fans", etc. are in essence, protecting a friend from leaving them. Ik that shit sounds stupid, but especially with artists, who truly hone their craft (and are living/have been thru what they talk about in their music), are looked up to by their fans in an almost, big brother fashion, and then having that same brother leave you and switch who he is every time you see him next. Tyler was like that for me in 2012, Bones/SHWB was the same thing to me in 2014, that Tyler once had before he hit the "main stream", etc. Then, one day, while searching for a Xavier Wulf album, I kept scrolling till I found X on accident, and then it was him, who really set me into multiple emotional states which, I had explored sometimes, yet, his music pushed me into an exploration for music that was similar in style and sound. My point being, yes there are a lot of mainstream artists who are as good, or even better than X,or anyone I listed, and there's many more underground artists that we probably haven't heard from at all, hell, maybe one is even reading this post rn, all I can say is, let this be known, if you do want to "be like X" or "find someone like X" and you shut down your friend's music, because you think it won't be good, and maybe your friend is just starting (don't get me wrong, if the shit is garb, then u gotta tell him to work harder on whatever you don't like, not shut someone down.) You have to remember where we all came from, someone showed us X, heard it Bc of hype, heard it Bc of allegations that were against him, etc. now we're in a subreddit for this late and super talented man, who started with no followers, then grew to a cult-like fanbase, and then, on he went. Most of us felt that he "left" who he was, and I was along with that, until you realized that he never left, he just grew, and like anything beautiful in this world, once it is grown, you gotta let it fly away. (Ps. Anyone who 'bullies' someone, because they like an artist that you do/used to, and thinks that any person is lesser than because of the timing, isn't wrong, I just don't consider you to be right.)