What I mean is that the infinite potential of the Internet, and in particular social media, seems at odds with the finite parameters that corporations like to put in place to protect their commercial interests. Downloading music is a good example of this – although the sensitivity of artist copyright makes this a far more complicated issue in reality.
That said, the broader evolution of music and its impact on culture is a useful benchmark to explain my point in full.
Specifically, the rise of punk.
Until relatively recently, if you wanted to play music in some sort of musical ensemble, you had to be a professional, trained musician. Music school was the only credible path to the stage, and any exceptions made for more of a novelty act than a noteworthy performance.
But then in the 1970s, punk happened. No longer did the old rules apply. In fact, no longer did any rules apply.
All of a sudden, anyone could play guitar. In many cases, the fewer chords you knew, the better. Bands like The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and countless others grasped the opportunity with enough energy to catapult themselves beyond the status quo and its restrictive social more – and whether or not you could actually play your instruments had no real bearing on the final outcome.
In the 1980s, local scenes like the infamous Manchester scene erupted in the wake of punk, followed in the 1990s by grunge with its roots in Seattle on America’s northwest coast. More recently, the Arctic Monkeys are a band who, like many others before them, started by first having to teach themselves how to play the instruments that they’d managed to acquire.
And even though punk may have started on the stage, its impact soon spilled onto the streets, and the effects on our society and culture are still felt today. Over time, it may have changed shape as the world around us has also changed, but its basic tenets and DIY aesthetics survive.
Nowhere is it more alive and well than on the Internet.
In the same way that punk meant that anyone could play guitar, the Internet has created a new wave of thinkers and writers, a world where anyone can be an author, journalist or social agitator of some description or other.
Who needs record companies when you have MySpace? Likewise, who needs publishers when you have blogs? That isn't to say those institutions are dead in the water, it's just that they can no longer rely solely upon maintaining the bottleneck that has kept them in business up to this point. New ideas are now being shared more freely than ever, and they now need to look for new angles.
The Internet is the champion of the individual, the home of the one-man band. There are no corporate patrons to please, no commercial agendas to follow. Where punk broke down musical barriers, the Internet has bulldozed constraints on how we communicate – and both have worked in ways that rail against our reliance on the so-called big end of town.
Anything is possible on the Internet. And as history shows, giving the masses free rein is not always good news for your average corporation.
God save the blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment