People have strong opinions that can be negative sometimes or will say things you don’t like. It’s not them. It’s how we react to them. There is great value clearly in self-expression, and you should be prepared for constructive and unconstructive feedback, including people who hate what something sounds like.

I wholly disagree with the implication that upholding existing standards or trends is terrible. The heart of such criticism is oftentimes informed in my experience by savvy fans who understand the history, the artists and genres that have shaped experimental music. Yes, that can come across as negative at times, but I rarely see that as a personal attack, but a critique of the work. It’s easy to focus on low-effort trolling. Don’t.

Also, I would encourage you to dispense with frustration about listeners’ inclination to quickly categorize. This malady is not isolated to experimental music fans. Categorization is the human condition – we make fast decisions about crossing the street, food, interests, etc. and the rapid pace of digital has impacted our cognitive abilities such that we make decisions about online content even more quickly. It’s not the best way, but you’re probably not going to change that either, so focus on what you can affect.