It might be said both musicians and writers are both undergoing this same transformation for similar reasons. Monopoly’s in these industries don’t work like they do in retail or banking even though many have tried. The “supply chains” aren’t fixed goods produced by robots in either mechanical or human form. The forces of disaggregation have proven stronger than otherwise hoped by the oligarchy that seeks to dominate these revenue streams. It’s a hopeful place, where the few can no longer dominate the messaging. Oddly enough it could be argued it was the overuse of propaganda itself that tired so many people of mainstream media when it became obvious to anyone paying even the slightest attention, the Onion ceased to be parody and more like the real news about a decade or more ago.
My experience of the 6 o clock news in the 20th century exactly lines up with Network movie. What with the commercials it almost felt like the collectivising effect happened in the exasperation of the audience, we were together in doubting that we were getting context but waited until Late Night NBC to be sure, yes , no , haply we were bamboozled again. From 2005 til recently online newscasters have been willing to do a scholar yeoman's work at very seriously giving background context as a set-up to their reporting. That is beautiful, and for which reason I expect them to increasingly fly a few tribal signs in under 20 seconds and move on to the CNN fake position of being On the ground, why not? And O could be wrong about that because the now 16 year olds are very conscientious about imitating this larger- story scope when they ask you for permission togoto the bathroom. Wow. I see many fire-lighted possibilities, and I see the Bbc model winning out. By whatever funding method I wish that it comes out that a relatively few 24 hour news cycle outlets come to put live bodies next to the tickertape. Because despite I donot believe the newness makes the news, on the contrary, until a historian reports 4 days later on counterpunch I ignore the import of what fresh blood letting I hear, but Nixon finded the corporation for public broadcasting...I mean detente between three classes: the 5th estate, the wonks, and the loudest man , Prole! , in any room comes from having a journal of record. That seems to me to usefully be cable TV . My idea here has been that since Walter Cronkite, most of us expect each other to doubt the official secretaries. But the truth* needs some of us to be * social* do you dig? I think another competitor to the current cnn cnbc fox infortunately is liable to be Nth another 24 hours of special pleading, but another very editorially controlled new channel is what I say comes next. They will call it Univocal Nobody Knows Apocalypse Now. And it will feature 2 second segments of Apocalypse Now before going to crackly haphazard pretrnded end of the network interrupted commercials....aw, Local man does what?
I also feel fine. But less due to the structure and history and more due to how this system has resulted in so much fakery and lying. I know that traditional news media lying isn't new - what did Hearst say? "You bring me the stories. I'll bring you the war." But there's no use pretending that a large number of people haven't accepted that they tell the truth even if they know how to phrase this belief without sounding naive. (This being a blessing and a curse of the objectivity rule, which otherwise was one of that era's stronger suits: I don't agree that objectivity doesn't exist, just that it goes against the grain for certain people and journalists became good at finding ways to circumvent
it, like by simply not reporting on news that is inconvenient to them) Much as people like to gloat and say "pfff, ads don't work on me:" all right, then why do these companies pay millions to put out ads? It's because that's mostly just talk, and ads do work. The same with people's trust of the old news machine.
What Boomers in particular don't always get is that an influencer is a lot more accountable to their audience than a CNN host who has that middle-class job. There has been a lot of bs spread online, but there has also been a lot of the exact opposite: the very honesty and sincerity people wanted from mainstream media and never got. After having to just sit back and listen to a bunch of liars on the news, the ability and desire to directly support and influence information is almost narcotic to us. That's why we have the phrase "audience capture," a phrase that wouldn't mean anything in an objectivity-driven environment.
This moment is beautiful to watch, and I will enjoy watching the liars and their industry collapse. I hope this greater collapse eventually brings down the NYT after all they've done to unrepentantly enable the rise of the evil of Communism in the world, and of course the WMD lie: though I won't get my hopes up too high. But I do feel bad for my generation. This is one of those scenarios where it's easy to see how we were caught in the middle of a transitional time as well as a financial crisis. The Zoomers are truly the first internet generation. At least we're young enough to where the change won't hurt as bad.
Interesting, I just wrote a piece about the downfall of Pitchfork (sort of)!
The old model of a select few being granted a mass audience only seems to work when the pipeline to that stage is narrow and the pool to choose those select few is also small. Get too many qualified people involved, and the elites get exposed for being mediocre or biased and/or the outsiders just go and do their own thing. All the recent rage against nepo babies is partially about the rise in nepotism in coveted fields, but this has always been the case. But it's more about a bigger pool of people feeling that they're just as qualified, thanks to technology (e.g. easier and cheaper to make movies and songs yourself) and demystification of celebrity.
Maybe the dichotomy is if you want a world where writers and other artists can make a comfortable living, you can only have a few at the top and everyone has to accept that. Or you can have everybody with their own niche audiences, but then basically everybody has to do their thing as a side gig.
I think the dissagregation of audiences is also related to the rise of identity politics, which has been both a cause and an effect.
As the idea of a singular monoculture is deprecated, previously marginalized voices and audiences are served.
The conservative reaction to this is to force a return to a nostalgic idealization of a utopia with three tv channels, which is impossible, so they’re ironically becoming their own niche audience.
The changing & changed nature of “the public” is an interesting concept with manifold repercussions that continue to play out. Thanks!
It might be said both musicians and writers are both undergoing this same transformation for similar reasons. Monopoly’s in these industries don’t work like they do in retail or banking even though many have tried. The “supply chains” aren’t fixed goods produced by robots in either mechanical or human form. The forces of disaggregation have proven stronger than otherwise hoped by the oligarchy that seeks to dominate these revenue streams. It’s a hopeful place, where the few can no longer dominate the messaging. Oddly enough it could be argued it was the overuse of propaganda itself that tired so many people of mainstream media when it became obvious to anyone paying even the slightest attention, the Onion ceased to be parody and more like the real news about a decade or more ago.
My experience of the 6 o clock news in the 20th century exactly lines up with Network movie. What with the commercials it almost felt like the collectivising effect happened in the exasperation of the audience, we were together in doubting that we were getting context but waited until Late Night NBC to be sure, yes , no , haply we were bamboozled again. From 2005 til recently online newscasters have been willing to do a scholar yeoman's work at very seriously giving background context as a set-up to their reporting. That is beautiful, and for which reason I expect them to increasingly fly a few tribal signs in under 20 seconds and move on to the CNN fake position of being On the ground, why not? And O could be wrong about that because the now 16 year olds are very conscientious about imitating this larger- story scope when they ask you for permission togoto the bathroom. Wow. I see many fire-lighted possibilities, and I see the Bbc model winning out. By whatever funding method I wish that it comes out that a relatively few 24 hour news cycle outlets come to put live bodies next to the tickertape. Because despite I donot believe the newness makes the news, on the contrary, until a historian reports 4 days later on counterpunch I ignore the import of what fresh blood letting I hear, but Nixon finded the corporation for public broadcasting...I mean detente between three classes: the 5th estate, the wonks, and the loudest man , Prole! , in any room comes from having a journal of record. That seems to me to usefully be cable TV . My idea here has been that since Walter Cronkite, most of us expect each other to doubt the official secretaries. But the truth* needs some of us to be * social* do you dig? I think another competitor to the current cnn cnbc fox infortunately is liable to be Nth another 24 hours of special pleading, but another very editorially controlled new channel is what I say comes next. They will call it Univocal Nobody Knows Apocalypse Now. And it will feature 2 second segments of Apocalypse Now before going to crackly haphazard pretrnded end of the network interrupted commercials....aw, Local man does what?
I also feel fine. But less due to the structure and history and more due to how this system has resulted in so much fakery and lying. I know that traditional news media lying isn't new - what did Hearst say? "You bring me the stories. I'll bring you the war." But there's no use pretending that a large number of people haven't accepted that they tell the truth even if they know how to phrase this belief without sounding naive. (This being a blessing and a curse of the objectivity rule, which otherwise was one of that era's stronger suits: I don't agree that objectivity doesn't exist, just that it goes against the grain for certain people and journalists became good at finding ways to circumvent
it, like by simply not reporting on news that is inconvenient to them) Much as people like to gloat and say "pfff, ads don't work on me:" all right, then why do these companies pay millions to put out ads? It's because that's mostly just talk, and ads do work. The same with people's trust of the old news machine.
What Boomers in particular don't always get is that an influencer is a lot more accountable to their audience than a CNN host who has that middle-class job. There has been a lot of bs spread online, but there has also been a lot of the exact opposite: the very honesty and sincerity people wanted from mainstream media and never got. After having to just sit back and listen to a bunch of liars on the news, the ability and desire to directly support and influence information is almost narcotic to us. That's why we have the phrase "audience capture," a phrase that wouldn't mean anything in an objectivity-driven environment.
This moment is beautiful to watch, and I will enjoy watching the liars and their industry collapse. I hope this greater collapse eventually brings down the NYT after all they've done to unrepentantly enable the rise of the evil of Communism in the world, and of course the WMD lie: though I won't get my hopes up too high. But I do feel bad for my generation. This is one of those scenarios where it's easy to see how we were caught in the middle of a transitional time as well as a financial crisis. The Zoomers are truly the first internet generation. At least we're young enough to where the change won't hurt as bad.
Interesting, I just wrote a piece about the downfall of Pitchfork (sort of)!
The old model of a select few being granted a mass audience only seems to work when the pipeline to that stage is narrow and the pool to choose those select few is also small. Get too many qualified people involved, and the elites get exposed for being mediocre or biased and/or the outsiders just go and do their own thing. All the recent rage against nepo babies is partially about the rise in nepotism in coveted fields, but this has always been the case. But it's more about a bigger pool of people feeling that they're just as qualified, thanks to technology (e.g. easier and cheaper to make movies and songs yourself) and demystification of celebrity.
Maybe the dichotomy is if you want a world where writers and other artists can make a comfortable living, you can only have a few at the top and everyone has to accept that. Or you can have everybody with their own niche audiences, but then basically everybody has to do their thing as a side gig.
I like how you pointed about that the last 150 years were the anomaly, not the norm. History can be so helpful!
Great piece, as usual.
I think the dissagregation of audiences is also related to the rise of identity politics, which has been both a cause and an effect.
As the idea of a singular monoculture is deprecated, previously marginalized voices and audiences are served.
The conservative reaction to this is to force a return to a nostalgic idealization of a utopia with three tv channels, which is impossible, so they’re ironically becoming their own niche audience.