You've seen it a million times before on social media – someone does something silly or edgy, it gets shared all over the place, and then all of a sudden the person that did thing has a new living and is inescapable for a little while (sometimes longer). Then everyone starts complaining about that person, wondering why they're famous and not X or Y person that actually deserves it.
The reason is simple – loudly hating shit generally makes the thing more popular. In an interview with Whiplash, Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger openly acknowledges that all the "Nickelback is the worst band" rhetoric over the years has given the band its career.
"Well, I've been saying that for years. All the detractors, all the haters, all the keyboard heroes, they have no idea how much they keep us in the press loop. It's hilarious," said Kroeger. "Those people that would love to see us go away, if they really wanted to see us go away, they would just shut up. Because all those bands that came out with us at the same time are all gone, because nobody said anything about them. They all just sort of disappeared. But we've really kind of spun this whole negative thing into a positive thing. And here we are. [Laughs]"
Kroeger also touched on the band having a good sense of humor, which his brother Mike has pretty well documented. "[If the jokes are] music oriented and we think it's funny, we just leave it there, 'cause the band, collectively, has a great sense of humor. I mean, funny's funny. Just rude and ignorant, that's different. And yeah, obviously, there's tons of that too. But funny is funny. And as the Brits would say, we have no problem taking the piss out of ourselves."
Kroeger has previously made it known that he thinks Nickelback is largely a jokey band, saying "you're goofing off with your friends one minute, and the next minute you're international superstars!" So yeah, dunking on Nickelback online hasn't exactly stopped the band.
