Like I mentioned yesterday in ‘TRADITIONAL MEDIA KILLED IT ALL,’ the quote that got me was, “(podcasting) started as a homegrown endeavor before traditional media got into the game.”
“Blockbuster was also constantly maligned as the corporate behemoth that bowdlerized mom-and-pop video shops.”
Oh, yeah, that’s right. The town I grew up in had several mom-and-pop video stores, one was run by people I knew!
But then Blockbuster rolled in, and the mom-and-pop establishments closed one by one.
It’s like maybe these corporate giants who waltz into our communities don’t have our best interests in mind (see also Conde Nast buying Pitchfork, Bandcamp left in the hands of Epic Games).
If you haven’t seen, UMG has pulled their music catalog from TikTok, and shit is hitting the fan.
This is from Bloomberg’s ‘Soundbite‘ newsletter, from UMG country artist Cody Fry:
“I feel like I’m a person standing between two colliding planets,” he added. “It’s just hard — as a hard-working artist — to see a budding, viral trend with one of your songs that’s really awesome, in its infancy, just, like, get crushed by multi-billion dollar corporations.”
It sure sucks to be at the mercy of mega-corps who own the rights to your music, but… this is the way it is.
This is what we signed up for: letting massive apps be the arbiters of taste and culture by way of AI algorithms, with content created for free by users using music licensed from giant label catalogs.
While out on a walk I thought of the last piece I quoted here, about the author wondering if editing a podcast or doing graphic design, that perhaps it is an “amateurization” of tasks that some people get paid lots of money to do.
“For his part, David says he doesn’t begrudge my amateur podcasting, and points out that the medium started as a homegrown endeavor before traditional media got into the game.”
I couldn’t write for MTV.com, but I could set up PHP-Nuke and try to set up a music based Plastic.com (I’m really showing my age here). Thankfully tools like Blogger, Movable Type, and WordPress came along.
That’s when we started HXC.com, Absolute Punk, Pitchfork, Stereogum, and Idolater.
The medium (music blogging) “started as a homegrown endeavor before traditional media got into the game.”
AOL Music re-launched Spinner.com in 2008, pulling it out of the clunky CMS and moving it to something even more horrible, from what I can remember (I started Noisecreep for AOL Music in 2008).
I’m sure other corporations co-opted the music blog world, but I can’t think of any right now.
There was an ocean of music blogs out there, a vast ecosystem of writers and interests and genres covered, sometimes catering to certain cities or regions.
Point being – these things WORKED. If they didn’t, corporate nerds with all their “forward-thinking ideas” (HAHA) wouldn’t have swooped in, co-opted the whole market with big budgets, and siphoned off exclusive interviews and video premieres from the little guys…
Holy shit, as I write that… damn, we destroyed it all, didn’t we? Damn.
Then it became too expensive to keep the house of cards upright, so they shut it all down and sold to Yahoo or Verion or whatever and made their yearly bonuses.
In the end we’re led to believe that music blogs (or blogs for anything) just can’t work anymore. The internet has moved on. And I think that’s bullshit.
Corporate interests moved on (hello, Conde Nast) and left us with… AI generated Spotify playlists, huh?
Re-start your blog. Go to a show. Buy a zine. Make stickers. Invite some friends over for dinner and put your phones in a basket – corporate interests ain’t welcomed at the dinner table.
“I mentioned my ambivalence about my amateur podcasting and graphic-designing. He assured me that the problem was a lot bigger than me, or Substack. ‘This de-professionalization is a huge part of the transformation of work over the past several decades. It has happened to all kinds of professions, academia being one.'”
I am LOVING the videos that Noah Kalina is posting lately. I know, I already wrote about this, but whatever.
If you don’t know, he’s the guy who took a photo of his face everyday guy, and he’s a pretty big photographer. He’s like, a big deal, which makes these new videos so fucking great.
Whenever the subject of “starting a podcast” or “doing videos” comes with friends, the conversation always goes, “yeah but, I’m not a loud talker,” or “I’m just shy and introverted.”
And I always tell these friends that that is the reason they need to start a podcast. They need to upload videos on YouTube because there’s enough videos on YouTube with loud talking big mouths. There are quiet people out there who like to watch and listen to other quiet people!
So that’s why these videos are so great.
These videos are permission to set up a camera and just talk, or do whatever you want, really.
Like, Noah has around 50,000 followers and his videos “only” get around 1,000 views. If you’re doing it for the numbers yes, it’s hard. But I think these videos do a lot of good, and can inspire a bunch of people to set up and start doing their own thing (I know I’ve got ideas).
I’ve followed Gary Vee from waaay back. He can be a bit much, but hey, that’s all of us.
I don’t know anybody on this episode – and I love how he mentions that some people in the chat (he live streams all day now, I guess) were like, OMG, “I can’t believe you’re in the room with them,” while some people were like “who the heck are they?”
That’s ALL OF US, and being around other people from other worlds is a GOOD THING.
I met someone in 2019 on a Zoom call during a cohort class, and we’ve literally been talking every week since, and they work in a MUCH DIFFERENT world than me. Like, they’re in rooms with pro sport CEOs and shit. That ain’t my world at all, but I’m better for it.
The internet is a big place. Build your circle with intention!
Don’t rely on digital records.
My advice is to download your Instagram feed now! Print it out in a book (there are online services that will do this for you). Write your memoir and self-publish it; print out photos of your art, bind the pages yourself and hand copies to all your best friends and family; share your work! And share it widely and generously.
Peter Kirn at Create Digital Media talks about SoundCloud and Bandcamp, and how they’re devolving into money machines for corporate shareholders.
“It’s a simultaneous reminder that we need to build something new, maybe this time not for the investors, but for the eu-IVs – for each other.”
Let’s stop waiting for the next publication or platform to save us. The fix isn’t waiting for tech bros to share a tenth of a penny more in streaming payouts – the power is with people reading newsletters and creating websites.
“Yeah, but Seth, these things cost money!”
Well, buy a domain name or wait by the phone for the next big platform – I turn 50 soon and I ain’t got time to wait.
The mass scale of social media was a mirage and we all fell for it. Going viral is the draw to get you in the casino, and you pay with hours of your precious life feeding the social monster for your chance at 12 likes.
Let’s start using the internet as a tool to find our freaks and build our communities. Make things and launch projects.
Make the weird shit you want to see in the world, and don’t just do it for likes or shares – reach out to the other weird shit people and start conversations.
It’s like we’re meeting at the mall food court – find your fellow weirdos and then get the hell out. Go to the record store downtown, go to a friend’s house and watch skate videos, hang out at a park – these are all the things social media platforms are afraid of.
Are we replacing Pitchfork tomorrow? No.
Will another site become the new Bandcamp?
Probably not.
But why have we become compliant little pawns in all this?
Are we so powerless to change the current situation that we sit back and hope somebody else fixes everything?
And then what? That person will sell the company to a Nabisco+Tide hedge fund subsidiary, and we’ll be back where we started.
Maybe centralized kingdoms of power and influence aren’t the answer.
Local music scenes seem to get along without local press, huh?
Gallery openings keep happening with zero coverage from local media.
I’ve seen individuals host creative Zoom sessions with 45+ people spanning several time zones.
I see artists speaking directly with their fans with reliable email lists, selling tickets and albums in the process.
Now imagine if all these pockets of culture and art and magic started organizing and working together.
“If not Pitchfork, with more daily visitors than Vogue or Vanity Fair or the New Yorker – or GQ – then who in music journalism can possibly thrive in this economic environment. And if no one can… then all we’ll have left are streaming platforms, their algorithms, and the atomized consumer behavior they push on us. A self-checkout counter for music, with a scanner going beep – beep – beep –”
“My goal with my content is to teach people how to use technology to pursue their best lives. Technology can help if used wisely. Social media works against that goal. If, as a society, we’re starting to think about ways to put some constraints on social media, sign me up.”
