but this was a spider

Billy Corgan at SXSW 2012

My sense is Billy Corgan can't say word without immediately being crapped on. This comment from SXSW, for example: "I was part of a generation that changed the world - and it was taken over by poseurs."

Corgan was discussing the Internet's effect on musical fame and artistry, and the obstacles that keep new artists from emerging. As the author of this Billboard post put it: "If there was an overarching theme, though, it's that both musicians and technology are feeding the mentality that fame is what should be hoped for, leaving artistry in its wake."

Corgan's comment is mostly laughable because it's such a hyperbolic generalization. But one angle of it may be something: Corgan's generation created Alternative music. Although that label now is as meaningless as Indie is, Alternative* music originally meant that outcasts, i.e., Freaks and Geeks, now had their own community in which acceptance was a foregone conclusion. You like Jane's Addition? You're in. You like Dinosaur Jr.? You're in. The only ground rule: Don't judge based on appearances.

Now, jump ahead to the new generation: To make it today, bands are forced and encouraged to act out, to create online selves so as to be liked; to one-up the next guy to get passer-by traffic--the ultimate in disinterested attention paid on unequal terms--something not altogether unlike the stripper-customer relationship.

The Alternative scene of Corgan's day obviously wasn't the first to welcome outcasts and losers (so to speak), but it was the first to, arguably, make them the mainstream. If nothing else, I think Corgan said something worth considering rather than just venting the bitterness of a has-been or the histrionics of a megalomaniac.

*I mean Alternative music to the extent that such a thing is reducible.

Notes:

• You could also say the when an out-group becomes the in-group, they soon adopt and enforce social rules and prejudices like the previous in-group.

• Internet-wise, as part of Generation X, Corgan's generation could maybe claim to have pioneered the common usage of the public Internet and with having populated it with its earliest content, giving it shape and color, meaning and appeal, from early social networking to wiki-style content development. But, whatever the accomplishments of the next generations, they likely can't be called poseurs.

Blackout

Communities plan to protest passage of PIPA and SOPA by staging web site blackouts. Wikipedia and Reddit, for example. Presumably a blackout shows the result of the bills' passage, which could force such sites offline. The black screen represents an electronic abyss, which metaphorically is apt as a symbol of what the internet post-PIPA/SOPA might be.

But this method, instituting a blackout, feels like negative reinforcement: If you don't protest, this will happen! A more productive tactic might have been, for example, replacing the site's usual content with a simple search that allows a user to quickly find his representative's contact info so that he can call or email his opposition to the person most capable of stopping passage.

Note:

• Wikipedia's message to its users states "But although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not."
• Links: Press release and message to users

Suspicious Googling

Started reading The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry) by Siva Vaidhyanathan. The first few sections feel redundant. But the author's insistence may be justified.

Google earned immense popularity with its reliable search engine, and many tech news devotees appreciate the company's political and market identity. For these reasons, the author must first convince his audience that his concerns are valid and healthy, not hasty or ill-informed. But in his prose we see him walk a fine line; because Google is so popular and Vaidhyanathan doesn't want to alienate readers, he quickly denies having any intent to brand Google either good or bad. But in announcing his advocacy of regulation, possible legal action and ethical inquiries, the author and his subject come into opposition. And Vaidhyanathan does not sound like the reluctant harbinger of trouble he purports to be.

So far the book reads like an expose posing as an institutional analysis by an academic. I'm not against reading either of those books. And it's early still, so my impressions could change.