America is all about capitalism, materialism and owning stuff, nevertheless people are currently falling for streaming services? In a way, streaming is the equivalent of renting your music, you don’t own anything anymore, and you share it with everyone. Isn’t it weird America? I don’t know if it is a good or a bad thing, but is America turning… more socialist?
Don’t forget that streaming services like Spotify was born in 2008 in Sweden, a very socialist country… of course it is privately owned so we can’t really talk about socialism here because some corporations still make big bucks. But I am not going to talk about the good and bad aspects of streaming for artists and the fact that they get robbed while labels get richer, because at this level, there is nothing socialist about the system. But I am talking about the fact that people have now accepted the idea that they don’t have to own music to enjoy it, that they don’t have to own any material object related to music anymore… music is dematerialized, dispossessed, it exists in a non material world and it is very strange.
When did this happen? We used to worship vinyl and its large cover for the art – and of course the resurgence of vinyl is totally linked to this void created by digital music and streaming services – and we used to look at vinyl like art objects… then came CDs and we learned to adapt but it wasn’t the same. Still, there was an object to touch and caress, a booklet to read and some fresh print to smell. Now there’s nothing, just a click on your computer or any device and you get the artist and the song you want. At least with mp3s we still had the feeling we owned something, a little icon on a screen, you could see it, rename it, download it, displace it, it was still materialized on your computer screen, but there is nothing left with streaming services. And the strangest thing it that It doesn’t bother the new generation… but it bothers me because I am old. The vinyl then the CDs I bought were like music memorabilia, pieces of the artists I liked and loved, it was something to take care of, they would get scratched and damaged and I would worry. Nothing similar can occur when you remove the idea of artifact and ownership.
This has already affected the way kids see the world and their idea of ownership. The internet is full of reposting and reblogging and they don’t see it as stealing, rap and hip hop songs are full of sampling and once again they can’t imagine it as robbing. Sharing is an option everywhere on Facebook, the most popular of all social media, we reblog and retweet on other platforms, without really caring for crediting. It’s not the point, once it’s out there, in the blogosphere, it belongs to everyone and to no one, just like music.
I wonder if this new step will affect the way we see everything, as we own less stuff, will our desire to possess objects vanish? Will our society become less materialistic as a whole? Will we become less possession-obsessed individuals or will this only apply to specific area such as music? Will the idea of possession vanish from society and Lennon’s utopia become true? Is this a preparation for a future without possession? I guess we are not there yet but kids certainly do not regard art and music with the copyright label like older people do. Only the Don Henley of this world are suing while youngsters don’t care. It is a beginning toward a change in mentality, in one generation we have turned from vinyl hoarders to files-collective listeners with no possession.
The current way we listen to music may be more similar to a live experience, it’s often free just like a free concert when you are too far to see the performers, there is no object carrying the sound, and the music is totally dematerialized, you can’t touch anything but you can hear it in all its power. May be it’s a good thing after all, we have return music and art to its initial state, we have get rid of fetishism and just concentrate on the sonic experience.
You can still find plenty of greed and crooked people working the system to their advantage over most everyone else in even the most socialist countries with the best safety nets. And just because the tech industry uses the words “social” and “sharing” hardly means they’re involved in anything resembling actual socialism or the practice of sharing, the latter of which used to mean giving someone else a slice of your pie, gratis, not taking someone else’s pie slice and then reselling it or renting it to another while you put your hands in both their pockets.
I think, too, that if you look at the assets and homes of those who’ve made the social and sharing platforms, you won’t be surprised they haven’t given up owning nice, large and expensive things at all. That no one else can afford. Just like the rest of the super-wealthy.
“Will our society become less materialistic …” Will John Lennon’s utopia etc? There’s good data, years of it, now in on that. It’s called the Gini index (Google) and the country we live in has about the worst one, and trending worse, in the civilized world. I suspect John Lennon would be appalled by the progression of the country he adopted but that’s just a speculative mind game.
If there was an honest magazine that covered tech “social” and “sharing”, it might look like this…
http://www.dickdestiny.com/sharingpariahmag1.JPG