YMMV / Thirty Seconds to Mars

• Anvilicious: The original video for "A Beautiful Lie" contained an intro and an outro intended to show the impact of global warming and encourage environmental action, as well as promote the A Beautiful Lie organization. The "A Beautiful Lie 2.0" version of the video contains two things: a lot more typography and a lot less subtlety.
• Awesome Music:
  • "Kings & Queens" will echo in your head forever.
  • "Capricorn (A Brand New Name)," their first single, is a killer, despite being overshadowed a bit by later successes.
• Critical Dissonance: America. Fans loved it, but critics? Not so much, heck most music critics arguably hated it and considered it a downgrade to Mars's sound.
• Forced Meme: Some of the segments on VyRT live shows emphasized by the band can come across as this, but to the band's credit, they do tend to become memes in the context of the Echelon community regardless.
• Friendly Fandoms: The Echelon are unusually receptive to opening acts that open for Mars. There's significant fandom overlap between the Echelon and fans of Street Drum Corps and Neon Trees. The overlap between Cobra Starship fans and the Echelon is probably less, but the good reception was enough for the band to thank the Echelon in the liner notes of their second album, ¡Viva la Cobra!
  • For the most part, the Echelon and Angels & Airwaves fans, due to the bands sharing similar musical themes, high aspirations and a bassist.
  • The Echelon also set out to be friendly with fans other musicians that use the VyRT service like The Jonas Brothers and Ryan Beatty, although it comes from a more pragmatic place: VyRT is a new service that was launched by Mars and the Echelon want it to succeed. Therefore, they go out of their way to help answer questions about VyRT for fans of other groups who use the service. That and the Echelon being unnecessarily rude and intimidating to Jonatics just because they don't like the act and/or their fans is just bad for business. This was averted with Echelon helping out Janoskianators when The Janoskians held a backstage event stream on VyRT. Unlike the last non-Mars streams, some Janoskianators wondered where all the people with Mars/Jared Leto avatars were coming from and evoked Unwanted Assistance in their reactions, despite all of the Janoskians fans being new to the platform.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • SOON, a word used by Jared to mean anything from a few weeks to a few years to release something highly anticipated, often accompanied by Echelon groaning and eye rolling.
  • The first VyRT The Mars Laboratory opened with and often cut to a scene of a palm tree◊ when technical difficulties happened. As soon as the band opened suggestions of what to name it, Buddha (named after the Mars song Buddha for Mary), ended up getting .gifs, a Twitter account and even featured on official Vy RT merchandise.
  • Jared and McKayla are not impressed.◊
  • #JaredHugginLeto
  • The generator for the album cover of America.
• Narm:
  • Jared is a little too eager to go from a breathy whisper to a full-throated scream. Of course, that's just Narm Charm for some.
  • "The Kill" and "This is War" have gotten this reception, mainly from people outside the fandom who are tired of both songs being constantly used in other fandom's AMVs and, for the latter song, the constant use in Tumblr gif/photosets.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Attempts were made early in the band's run to avoid being known only for Jared Leto as much as possible. As the band gained more mainstream credibility for being a band that could stand on their own merits, they eased off on these efforts, which included not doing shows that used Jared's fame as a major selling point. Regardless of the time, there has and always will be people mainly there because of Jared's looks. The Echelon dislike it as much as anyone else (even those who do go on about Jared's looks on a regular basis).
• Refrain from Assuming:
  • That song is not called "This is a Fight to the Death" or "Rise Again" or "Say a Prayer". It's called "Conquistador".
  • You know "I'll Attack"? It's actually just called "Attack".
  • "Come Break Me Down" doesn't exist, that's "The Kill". And "Bury Me" is its subtitle, but not its actual name.
• Retroactive Recognition: Before they became the pilots of Crimson Typhoon, the Wei Triplets were trapped in the hotel from "The Kill".
• Signature Song:
  • "The Kill". A good many emotionally charged live show singalongs derive from that single.
  • Also, "Kings and Queens", which is played right at the end of each show with the band inviting a large number of people from the crowd on stage. This also introduced some people to the band due to its use in the trailer for Legend Of The Guardians The Owls Of Ga Hoole.
• Song Association:
  • Many Need for Speed fans may associate "Edge of the Earth" with Criterion Games' Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (2010). Not to mention that "Night of the Hunter" was also featured in Shift 2: Unleashed.
  • "Echelon" was used in the ending cinematic of The Core.
  • "Closer to the Edge" appeared in Project CARS.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Walk On Water" gets compared a lot to "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons.
• Tear Jerker: The Tribute Song, performed at BBC Radio 1 and later at the I Heart Radio Music Festival. A seamless, soft Mashup of "Purple Rain", "Heroes," "Freedom!", “Crawling”, and “Black Hole Sun”.
  • The song The Kill is very dark as well. According to Jared it's a nice little song about losing your mind - set in an old hotel.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Mars tends to put a new spin on their musical style with each album release, so this reaction among some fans is a given.
  • While America was a commercial success and well received among fans, critical reception and certain parts of the fandom loathed it for the band veering hard into late 2010s music trends. The decreased rock elements were a specific sore spot, especially with Tomo leaving the band.