People will cluster into cultural "regions" based not on physical proximity but on mutual attitudes

[koganbot]

At the very end of my Why Music Sucks broadside of February 1987 I wrote a paragraph that in retrospect might seem supernaturally prophetic. Whereas now, such a paragraph, with a few of the words changed, would be the common, received wisdom. However, despite almost every sentence of it being right, I think it's fundamentally wrong. But see for yourself:

A prediction: Music will (continue to) become more local, regional, less mass media. But by "local" I don't mean tied to a physical locale; by "regional" I don't mean a physical place. The locales will be mental. Due to the ever-increasing availability of cheap recording, cheap photo-copying, cheap communication, people will communicate easily with other people all over the country and all over the world. Without going through the mass media. People will cluster into cultural "regions" based not on physical proximity but on mutual attitudes, tastes, hobbies, beliefs, etc. It's already happening; indie-cassette-fanzine culture is one example; the Moral Majority, I think, may be another. I'm sure there will be more. THIS MENTAL REGIONALIZATION IS NOT NECESSARILY A GOOD THING. IT MIGHT BE HORRIBLE. A couple hundred years ago many people were tied to locales, only seeing people from the area, the nearest village. This could have been very constricting; one only got to deal with a small group of people, most of whom had the same religion, values, etc. Nonetheless, a person would have to deal, to some extent, with ALL the people in the locale. Now, one is likely to live very near people with whom one has little in common. But, thanks to modern communication technology, networking, all that shit, one can avoid dealing with these people. Especially once one has gotten out of high school. Or one can deal with them superficially day-to-day if one has to on the job but then go home to a supportive people-like-me communications network for "real" interaction. This may be the true meaning of indie-cassette-'zine culture. This is why I can't accept its self-justifications, its self-congratulation. Even though I'm part of it, perhaps need it.

[This paragraph was something of an elaboration on a more interesting passage I'd written the previous year for an aborted book on punk rock: "It is a social achievement that parents can't understand their kids' slang or that one child will become a punk and another a Mormon and a third will go into interior design (and discos and cocaine) and none will have much to say to the others. Each incomprehensibility is a kind of vengeance."]

Comments

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Anyway, I think to a great extent we still have to deal with those unlike us, not just in a professional or "official" context that can be cordoned off from the rest of our existence. Like, you still have hear music in the grocery store; you still might watch the news occasionally; you still might _______.

Also, it's odd to assume that when people cluster into regions based on "mutual attitudes, tastes, hobbies, beliefs, etc.," they will cluster in such a way that they all share all of those things -- there's no reason why people with the same hobby would also hold the same beliefs or have the same tastes. I mean, we're all yammering on about music on the Internet, but we're not all yammering about the same music, and we're not all doing it for the same reasons. Even when you retire to your "supportive people-like-me network," you still have to encounter and deal with people who are unlike you.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I've always been pissed that S. Reynolds never really fought back on my terms during the Paris Wars because "what do I stand with if I stand with Paris?" is a question that deserves answering. Who actually listened to it, and how, and what did they think and feel about it? Who are these people with whom I seem to be identifying? (This is, again, why strawmen can be important, too -- I'm not convinced there IS a cogent audience for Paris, it's probably an incredibly diffuse and disparate one, but there's a perception of a "mass" of consumers who idolize her in a positive way. I argued at the time that "no one admits liking Paris Hilton without reservation," but I have no evidence for that, just as the haters had no evidence that anyone DID like her without reservation.)

[koganbot]

I like Paris Hilton's "Heartbeat" without reservation.

Well, it's possible that some Astrud Gilberto type could do it better, but the chance of Alexander, Steinberg, and Storch writing it for such a person or that person wanting or allowing it to be a Scott Storch production are pretty small.