I was thinking on the way to work about all the things the internet and technology have ruined. Yes, I am going to get all Andy Rooney right now. Here's what it's ruined:
1) music (music is now disposable, no one can make any money at it, and everyone is afflicted with flavor of the month syndrome)
2) newspapers (I love newspapers and the internet is fucking them. I read the Bee today in 5 minutes. It's clearly being written by a skeleton crew)
3)people's attention spans (you know this is true. I try to just go with the flow with this and accept it as the new normal but I somehow can't get used to people looking at screens whenever they have a spare second. When do people think?)
4) criticism (There will never be another Pauline Kael. There are no definitive voices because now everyone has a voice. And yes, I include myself as part of the problem.)
Things it will probably ruin at some point
1) books. if Kindle-esque things become really big and people can illegally download books easily, they will, and then no one will get paid for writing or publishing books either.
2) movies. It's already kind of happening. Now everything has to push to the big opening weekend which leads to horrible crap like Transformers 3.
3) TV. Everyone is illegally downloading episodes and skipping commercials so at some point when more people have this technology TV will probably have some crisis about how to get paid and everything will have to be made on the cheap or clogged with product placement.
Things it has made better
1) for me, I got a blog which has led to a lot of good stuff
2) it helps you waste time at work, although this is a mixed blessing because it's probably ultimately more satisfying to just do more work
3)Netflix
Things it can't ruin (for me)
1) gardening
2)riding bikes
3)eating and drinking
4)the wonder of pets
5)traveling (it both helps and fucks up traveling in some ways)
6)hanging with friends
writing this list has made me more secure about the world.
Oh yeah, I won't be posting for a week or so. Smell ya later!
29 comments:
TL;DR. LOL
-miller
;)
-mlr
A few counterpoints:
1) Music. Yes, the fashions can be more ephemeral because of the internet, but the trade-off for the consumer is more democracy of access. You don't have to know somebody who knows somebody to get that Grateful Dead bootleg you (and I do mean, you) always wanted. Sure, some people see this as a bad thing, but I don't. For the producers, agreed, it sucks. Music is virtually free nowadays.
2) Newspapers. Agreed, the internet is fucking them.
3) People's attention spans. I've seen debates about this, and from what I remember the evidence is mixed. Memory, by contrast, is declining at an alarming rate. Soon we will need a Google app to remind us of our names.
4) Criticism. I agree there was a beautiful flowering period of it in the 60s and 70s. Susan Sontag (I think it was her...internet eating my memory) once said the period was the result of the Jews leaving the ghetto and assimilating into the mainstream. This gave them a unique view of the culture: at once outside and inside it. As far as movies are concerned, I think the movies got much shittier, not necessarily the criticism.
Finally, I want to point out that TV has gotten 300% better since the internet. I don't know if there is any correlation between the two, tho.
--Knowcebo
My favorite post in a while! I'm with you on all this. But you maybe knew that already. Now I'm going to share this post on facebook with my iphone.
JD
once media perfects location-based display ads, we will start to see writers, musicians, etc, reaping more fiscal reward for their creations. but this will be a while--there has to be both a fine-tuning of technology and also a critical mass of portable-device users--so until then it's struggle and lamenting old times.
but, in the case of mcclatchy, you can make a strong case that it was a combination of the company's bad business acumen and media-platform myopia that led to the Bee's skeleton crew. not just the "damn internet."
and i would argue there are still a wealth of great film critics out there--ella taylor, hoberman, etc--and websites such as metacritic make it even easier for us to taste and sample and see who we resonate with.
plus, i think movies started sucking long before I had an email address.
TV, which once was unwatchable, is now putting out the best visual narrative work.
armchair quarterback response!
NM
Re: attention span - This was in full force last night when you noticed your Man texting during the 2nd Fresh & Onlys song, despite standing in the front row. Young hipsters, whatevs....
Forgot to sign last comment..
Jed
At least I was texting that they were starting!
-miller
I'm resisting going on an anti-technology rant here. Mainly my thoughts boil down to that a lot of the time savers & democracy creators of the internet look good on paper (t-shirt idea: "the internet looked good on paper") but fail to deliver anything all that life-enhancing. Especially when you take in to account all the things we lose along the way when we embrace some of them.
What Jeff says up there about music sounds great but at the end of the day I'd bet that most people who download a bunch of music are unfamiliar with most of it, spend a bunch of time scrolling through their ipod instead of just listening to something all the way through (which you could argue makes records & the art of making them a lost art) & don't have anywhere near the same connection to it as people did when they had to spend money & make some effort to own a record.
All I know is I wouldn't trade my formative years hitting & missing my way through the Tower record racks for all the free music in the world.
I certainly don't want to go back to pre-internet times because the internet is awesome & really helpful. But I could do without all of the side effects of it that seem to make people less & less interesting.
-miller
Downloading Grateful Dead live shows:
1. Search for "Dead bootlegs" in Google.
2. Download
Buying tapes from some guy I found on craigslist:
1. Dude calls me.
"Hey, I know we don't know each other but since you like the Dead I thought maybe, you know, instead of money we could trade for, you know, some mary jane or something"
"Sure"
"Cool, well I have to go, I'm on a conference call at work & I'm calling you on my cell".
2. Meet at Amtrak, trade hash for giant box of tapes.
-miller
I found out last night that Scott was texting ME that the Fresh and Onlys were starting. He didn't see me on the other side of the crowd.
I agree, it does seem that somehow TV is better and has been for quite a few years now. Probably unrelated to the internet and perhaps the internet can't ruin it.
location-based display ads? are those like the cardboard cutouts in the lobby of the tower?
I'm pretty sure that no one other than Tom Clancy-esque writers still get paid these days - and most of the time they're just getting money from the affiliated movie and video game rights.
The publishing business is strikingly similar to the music and art business. You can't just be a writer anymore. You also have to be a marketer, blogger, etc. in order to sell books.
No, worse: say, you walk by Mr. Pickle and a giant Pickle shows up on your iPad or cell phone!
OK, Smiller you're off the hook for texting during F&O's set. Had you been texting another dancing bear for a bootleg hookup, that would've been another story...
Jed
I can't believe anyone commented on this post! See poll at right.
love this rant
love this post, even though I think I disagree with a whole lot of it, but I don't have time to respond because I just found out you can download Dead bootlegs on the Internet! and that's going to keep me busy all afternoon.
HSIHS (holy shit I'm hella stoked)
I'm currentl LOL-ing at "the wonder of pets"
-miller
Currentl is text-speak for currently BTW.
@miller.
People probably listen to iPods the way they once listened to the radio. The difference now is that the playlists are slightly less repetitious.
Look, I'm not arguing that the internet hasn't steamrolled over any beautiful flowers. Obviously, it has. Our interaction with media and the artifacts of media generates a kind of intimacy. I remember when I first found out that Factory Record releases each had a unique catalog number. As a teenager, this fascinated me. The FAC numbers seemed to possess an occult significance. Today, I see the numbers as a very clever aesthetic game. It was another way Wilson and Saville were using the packaging as a part of the artistic experience. Digital media can't give us that, because there is no packaging.
I just don't accept the argument that the consumption of media in a digital form has less value than consuming it in a plastic form. The objects themselves have no value. People have to give them value. For example, for me, bands like Joy Division and Bauhaus were my first introduction to the idea of Modernism. This was uber-important to my development as an individual, but that doesn't mean that kids coming up today aren't going to have meaningful cultural experiences because they can't buy The Sky's Gone Out on tape at Dimple like I did when I was sixteen. They will find their own way to give their media meaning.
--knowcebo
Some will, but I think most won't.
How did you get the money to acquire that Sky's Gone Out cassette? I know that if I wanted to buy a couple new albums, I'd hafta mow a neighbor's lawn, pull some weeds, wash a car, or watch somebody's kids. I invested in every record I bought. I couldn't just stream it or download it for free.
I had to stand on one leg in the corner of my room touching the antenna on my boombox to tune in KDVS clearly or read reviews in zines to form a hypothesis that I was gonna like some new music, and then earn the money, and then beg for a ride to Barney's Records in Davis or hitch with a friend to Amoeba. If I listened to a new hard-earned album and didn't like it, I'd force myself to listen and listen until I did like it...if possible.
Today's kid faced with a smorgasbord of free downloadable music just dumps anything that has a drawn-out 15-second intro because it's not exciting from the giddyup.
Listening habits on average are so terrible due to the erosion of patience.
The awesome thing is that you or me or anyone can start a band today, record it, and make it publicly available tonight. That's improving democracy. Also, untouchable collector grails or total mystery bands are now lurking somewhere online, downloadable for free. But these are shadowy corners of the internet. Crap like Ke$ha and Kid Rock are still top-billin' 'cos their flash-animated banners are still hogging too much attention.
It's still a miracle that any young person discovers something cool on their own. In fact, the portals to underground music were probably better-sited when we were young. I read about Septic Death and Japanese HC punk bands in the back pages of Thrasher, which was available at every 7-Eleven and even the AAFES Shoppette, which is the Air Force Base version of 7-Eleven. Now, that mag's 99.9% fulla crap, and it's wrapped in plastic so you can't browse it anyway.
There were also places in Davis and Sacramento where I could count on finding show fliers, and I would go there to have a look when I was searching for fun. I found my way into house-shows as a high-schooler because of show-fliers. Now, you hafta be networked to someone cool to get invited to such a show on FB, and most likely, you ignore it or delete it immediately because it's some dude with a beard twice your age sending the invitation, and you get 10 invites a day from other people who are more your age anyway.
Often the object (Factory records are a perfect example) shaped me as much if not more than the actual music so I see it as having a lot of value. Whether or not I gave it that value instead of the value just intrinsically existing doesn't matter to me. In fact I'd say the fact that the art is open to interpretation gives it infinitely more value because each person is having their own experience with the object.
In fact I think that the 'group-experience' that many internet things seems to promote is exactly what I don't like about it.
Maybe you're right though - maybe kids will figure out a way to give the new media a personal meaning to them. I honestly doubt it will be anywhere near as rewarding but who knows.
-miller
I grew up so alone and thinking I was crazy because I was so different than most people in Montana. I think just knowing that Amoeba or KDVS existed would've been amazing. I am kind of glad that fucked up kids in fucked up places can find each other now. They will probably still end up fucked up, but acceptance and friendship are huge.
gbomb
it's different now cuz of the net, but I don't think it's necessarily better or worse. I constantly run into folks (of all ages, but lots of young people) who are absolutely in love with music and may be downloading demos from Terminal Escape but then will track down that band playing in someone's house in Oak Park and be thrilled to buy a tape, and see and meet those bands. There are some seriously obsessed music freaks around right now of all ages and the nice thing about the internet is it makes it way easier to access/share/find the good stuff if that's what you want. Sure, a ton of people aren't really deeply into the music and who knows what they will be doing in 5 years, but really that's always the case -- go back to the Loft days and more people were into the whole hanging out/drinking in the parking lot scene than the supporting a lot of the bands playing. Take a look at the OG Sacto punk group on facebook and most of the folks are there to make connections with old friends, much more than remember the music. Nothing wrong with that, I just don't see it as being much different than how things are today -- where a few people are finding deep meaning from the music (regardless of how it is delivered to them) and a lot of people are just out having fun.
The whole "Wugazi" thing (or Death Grips for that matter) is an example of that, some people are so into that and it has real meaning for them -- even though it's form is free downloads and you tubes
oh yeah, and personally I love having a huge crate worth of records on my little 2 square inch mp3 player
We're just getting old. Love the post.
"pee pee 1990" on YouTube is proof enough the internet is nothing but pure goodness
This whole thread is gold but mostly I'm just stoked that Rick gave props to Barney's (RIP).
-omf
(ps, the internet doesn't suck even though it usually seems like it does. TV pretty much sucks, even when it doesn't seem like it does... EG the History Channel)
About the cheapening of music: For years just about anyone could be part of a decent-sounding record, talented or not. Now it just is cheaper to make one. Live is where a performance can be really judged. People demand live, even fans of Kee(dollarsign)ha and Kid Rock. I believe those two and the rest of the flavor-of-the-next- five-minutes acts truly have to work hard to keep the money rolling in. (Whether they see much of it is a whole nother thing.)
Newspapers have been in decline for decades. Post-Watergate "journalism" has always been about sculpting what is known to promote one agenda or another. Goes in cycles. Murdoch made it worse. Them thar internets have just made it easier for a-holes to vent in comments sections rather than take the time to write something down and provide contact information for identity verification, so shit-talking that someone would have been called on in the days of yore (MRR letters!) slides by. It may take a while, but I think the pendulum will swing back into balance until the next whatchamacallit comes along.
Meanwhile, I am going to lecture some gen Y-ers or Z-ers about booking shows and making records that involved expensive phone calls, letters, money and classified ads (MRR!) just so I can see them practice their job-interview eye rolling skills.
Ed
I know I'm chiming in super late, but Gballz, I agree with your point. I was so depressed and lonely as a teenager out in the country in Lincoln, and the internet probably would have made that better. In fact, meeting other people who were into Morrissey just about saved my life (corny but true) and that would have happened earlier.
Post a Comment