Nickelback-hating meme must stop, says comedian Jim Gaffigan

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It's a question I've often wanted to ask: Where were you when you started hating Nickelback?

Would anyone know? Would only the most smart and self-righteous say, "When I first heard a Nickelback song"?

Somehow, though, you're supposed to despise this band because you're supposed to despise this band.

It's become so prevalent that even the police in Queensland, Australia, think it's funny. They actually wafted to Facebook to indict Nickelback for crimes against music.

Comedian Jim Gaffigan appeared on Conan O'Brien's show to discuss this phenomenon.

"I feel like there's this moment where people just decide that we're all going to hate some celebrity for no real reason at all," he said.

Such moments regularly occur on Twitter. Some even get memorialized by Twitter's latest feature, helpfully called Moments.

Nickelback appeared in a cameo on Gaffigan's self-titled show.

"I don't know anything about Nickelback, but I know that my friends who are supercool despise Nickelback," he said. "Like they kidnapped the Lindbergh baby."

Gaffigan tells some of his supercool friends that it's not cool at all. He says he enlightens them: "You wait tables. They sell out arenas."

Popularity isn't everything. It's hard, though, to entirely pinpoint what Nickelback actually did to incur such wrath.

Gaffigan compared them to Carrot Top. What exactly did he do to become a name uttered with free spittle attached?

"I think it's just people who define themselves by criticizing other things, and I think that's wrong," he concluded.

So let's define ourselves by refusing ever again to speak to anyone who declares a detestation of Nickelback.

I wonder if we'll miss any of them.