No News Is Good
As I regain my footing within the Internet, one thing particularly bothers me: the quality/quantity divide. It seems as if we have given in to the need for more, faster content, leaving behind any semblance of worthwhile content.
I've made the mistake of attempting to keep up with this nonsensical pace, and today I took a few baby steps toward redemption:
- I put a tourniquet on my Facebook account
- I took the "news" section off of Sidedown Audio and redesigned the site.
Why? Well, I'll tell you.
I was attempting to read a rather vitriolic and pointless "conversation" on Craigslist about the "Chicago Music Scene" and how much it sucks. First of all, Craigslist is not a forum, so when people start trying to have a dialogue, it means lots of individual posts interspersed among actual content. It's weird and disjointed.
The point of the conversation was this: As a musician, it's everyone else's obligation to do things for me. The venues should not have any requirements and should always pay me. Booking agents should give original music and up-and-comers a chance based solely on the fact that they are new and original. People should give musicians unwarranted respect. Musicians should get paid first. Musicians should get fame and celebrity easily and quickly.
While I would love for some of that to be the case, I found it amazing that so many people were agreeing with the idea that the reason the music scene in Chicago sucks (which I don't think it does, by the way) is because of these venues and agents trying to make money off of the sweet sweet music from the delicate geniuses.
Do people actually believe this? Maybe... but I think they underlying problem is that the people positing this notion think that because they've been playing out for a few months, they should be in the upper echelons of performance and payment.
It's the compression of time that's the problem. People think that because they put something out into the world they should get instant returns. Maybe this happens every now and then, but not very often. The Internet, with its frenetic pace and massive egotism, has allowed people to feel as if they are working very hard and that they've been at it a long time. In fact, these people are missing major opportunities in their community by spending so much time online, and they think because they've told their friends about a project, that it should make them rich.
And yeah, I realized that I have done this on more than a few occasions. Pretty sad.
Playing in a band has actually taught me a lot of patience. I've been with Absinthe & The Dirty Floors for six months... the entire span of the band's gigging life. In this time we've played a handful of gigs, including just the type of agent-run gig that the Craigslist people were crying about. It has been tremendously fun, and while it would be nice to be making money off of the whole thing right away, that is amazingly unrealistic. I was talking to a friend who's band has had significant success, and he told me that they didn't make any money until the fifth year they were together.
Five years... that's the same for any business... it takes years to get to the point where you're truly making profit. Why are people so reluctant to pay their dues? Why do people expect instant attention and success? Why does everyone want everything for nothing?
I think the Internet has a lot to do with it. I've often thought that being so ridiculously global isn't always a good thing. It is still possible, and in my opinion admirable, to be the big fish in a small pond... but not on the Internet. There's just too many fish, and all the ponds bleed into each other. What is popular online comes and goes in a matter of weeks, and it has spend up the idea of trend just as much as it has sped up peoples' expectations of success.
It would be folly to completely ignore the Internet. After all, I wouldn't be talking to you without it. I would not have access to as much information as I did before.
Back to music: In high school and college, I was on a quest to purchase all albums by Mike Oldfield. This was not an easy task, because Amazon did not yet exist. I had to go to malls, to record stores, and hunt for these treasures. When I found each one it was a victory. Even as the Internet opened up options to order these albums, I chose to find the the old fashioned way, because the hunt just wasn't as much fun when I could do it from my desk.
Now I can easily find out when albums come out, but the anticipation of finding and purchasing albums the analog way is still preferable to clicking them into my life.
Instant information and real-life pacing can exist together... we just have to choose that way and put a little effort into being calm and patient.
So, reading this stupid Craigslist whining, and thinking about my own whining, I decided that I really need to detach from the constant, and the main thing that is giving me this feeling of overflow is, of course, Facebook.
I can't just straight up delete my account. Well, I can, but I feel like there is something out there that may be benefitted from having that access. However, I have deleted all of my superfluous info: photos, videos, notes. I've hidden tons of people... people who talk about their babies, people whose lives obviously have nothing in common with mine, and people who, frankly, are just jerks. I'm keeping the SIDEDOWN fan page active, because at least people on there are suggesting they want information about what I'm up to. That's probably not true, but I'll ignore it for now.
After I took care of that, I decided to get rid of the "news" updates on Sidedown Audio. It's not that I don't have any news to report, but I felt like news is another random thing to focus on and not care about. If you're going to Sidedown Audio, the idea is that you want to buy music. Now the music is first and foremost. Everything else has been streamlined and toned down.
I love this new layout, and will likely implement it on all of my other sites as well.
Some of this may seem a little convoluted, but purging excess bullshit from your life is sometimes a winding and muddy process. All I know is, I don't feel like the Internet is reality, and I need more reality in my life. The Chicago Music Scene is fantastic, real, and the more people get off of their computers and go out to see bands play (myself included), the better it will be.
Tara has it right. Then again, the reason I even started up on Facebook is because all of my "friends" who I normally talked to via Instant Messenger, email, or phone had all abandoned those things for the inanity of FB.
I have avoided Facebook for one main reason... if a friend can't be bothered to check in with me once in a while via phone, letter, email, whatever - why offer them one more even EASIER way to see what I'm up to?
A friend of mine has a funny theory. He says that he wishes that he smoked, so he could cut out that habit and save all the money. That's kind of how I feel about facebook and a few similar sites. I'm pre-emptively saving the time I would spend there.
Well said. I'm afraid I often veer into that kind of "here's the excruciating minutiae of my life" posts on Facebook (and, to a lesser extent, on Twitter), and when I do, most of the time my first thought is, "What is Josh Wentz going to think of this?" Seriously. You're my conscience.
I recognize the exhibitionism and egotism inherent in posting ANYTHING on these kinds of sites, but when I post something like this I always run it by my internal "Is someone going to find this interesting and/or humorous?" censor, and I try to filter out the real drivel... unless it involves Brazil nuts.
Anyway... this discussion has helped to solidify in my mind the need to refocus (though obviously I am not doing a great job at it, or I wouldn't be here writing this... but at least I'm not doing it on Facebook). I deleted my bookmarks for Facebook and Twitter -- from now on, those applications are for use in downtime on my iPhone only. I am going to try for quality, not quantity, in my online interactions.
Thanks for helping to bring some things into focus.
I agree that it is not the Internet, or any sort of medium that is the actual problem... but just as it has given us access to more of the good stuff, it's done the same for the bad. It used to be much easier to ignore things or people that bother me, and now these types of things or people are everywhere and constant.
I love pizza but can't eat it every day. The glut of things I like has turned me off of them. I can barely stand going to design websites anymore. I'm just sick of the everything-ness.
As for Facebook, I understand that certain people can find much of value in that kind of connection. But the fact is that, even if I like you, I don't want to know your every move. Barely anyone in the 176 people on my "friend" list seems to have anything in common with me. If the site is about having an ego (inarguably it is), then for me this is a problem. I try and post mostly about projects I'm doing, or things that I"m putting out into the world. Very few people do that, choosing instead to talk about how they're playing cards, or at the mall, or in a car.
If I was interested in knowing you are at the mall, I would be at the mall with you. What this sort of blurted, scattered thought means to me is that the person writing it is not "in the now" of their life. They could be enjoying what they are doing. Why type that on a cell phone? Just keep playing cards with your friends instead of texting. Just go to the store with your family without letting me know about it. Just drive for goodness sake! There are other things to pay attention to! That traffic light, for instance! LOOK OUT!!!
Hey Josh, some great thoughts here, as usual, and reading this post has gotten me thinking about my own reliance on the Internet as a lifeline to the world.
Of course, you and I met over the Internet, and that's just one example of the kinds of interactions that the Internet has made possible that would have been absolutely inconceivable otherwise.
The thing is, the Internet itself isn't the problem, but as with most things, it's how you use it. I've had multiple heated debates with a family member who is adamantly anti-Facebook. The thing about a site like Facebook is that it's NOT a universal experience. We're just now entering into this world of highly personalized web experiences. The experience these kinds of sites deliver is changing rapidly as they develop their applications, but it's also highly dependent on the nature of the people you've surrounded yourself with in their virtual world. The main reason this family member hates FB, I'm certain, is because she was only encountering people she didn't WANT to interact with, and who were not adding anything positive to the experience.
I think there's always a tendency to see the present as the pinnacle, to think that we've "arrived," but this stuff is in constant flux. The Internet is not going to go away, and I think overall it is a net plus... maybe we've lost some of the magic of hunting down obscure albums at dingy used record stores (and believe me, I used to relish that experience), but I think what we've gained in terms of access to new "stuff" (of all kinds) far outshines the antiquated hunt of the old days. The problem is, and will probably always remain, separating the wheat from the chaff. But that doesn't change the fact that the amount of "wheat" I have literally at my fingertips at this very moment is far beyond anything I'd have imagined possible in the real world OR online even when I started working as a professional web designer in 1996.
Another factor that probably profoundly influences my perspective on the relative merits of this new accessibility is kids. The added burden of managing the care and feeding of two young dependents has had unforeseen consequences for my ability to do anything outside of the house not directly related to my work or family. There just isn't time. But the Internet brings those things to me.
In closing (since this has turned into an extensive essay, sorry about that), here's something you might like, proof that the Internet might just be doing us all some good after all:
http://putthison.com/post/231001982/episode-1-denim
Sadly, musical whining is NOT an invention of the Net; neglected musical Genii have always complained - and usually more so than usual under the influence of several beers. The Net has just allowed them to receive widespread instantaneous gratification without the additional expense of a bar bill.
Years ago, Wen gigged almost continuously for 4 years, and made a full-time living from music - but it's that non-stop playing-out under always crappy conditions that pays off. There are newer models available that don't require that anymore (good news for recluse musicians) but they take just as much work as that gigging thing - and most folks don't want to put in the work... which is really what it all comes down to.
That said, you damned well better not be blocking us on Facebook. We'd be seriously bummed. ;)
k&w