Social Networking the popularity contest for the web... Seth Godin suggests...
As artists trying to build a fan base to bring people to our shows and to push some merchandise just to pay some bills and keep the machine rolling, you can't help but get caught up in the hype machine that is a necessity for artists, bands, brands, personalities, labels etc to compete for attention in this noisy and polluted world of lets-try-and-make-it-bid rat race. Hence the reason why if your a BAND in today's day and age the industry DEMANDS that you have a Myspace, Twitter and Facebook presence as a minimum requirement to even be considerd a leigt act. This doesn't even include all of the other parasitic snake-oil sites that are out there trying to become the digital middle men of the digital distribution and promotional age charging artists, who can barely survive to pay rent for their rehearsal spaces, tour buses, gas and other expenses, for the "opportunity" to finally GET NOTICED! Its like the High-School talent show all over again, Waiting for Guffman... Your BIG break will come!
In this short but eloquent little tidbit from Marketing Guru, Seth Godin sums up the meaning of having real friends and fans online as opposed to being another "hey guy! Lets have lunch.. your poeple talk to my people.." game of trying to gain as many "friends" as possible to somehow prove your inflatted sense of popularity: "Oh look, we got 5000 plays on MySpace Today! We must be blowing up! Please come sign us and make us stars so we don't have to do this anymore..." and how can you blame us? All of the bands out there trying to "make it" just want to make a decent living doing what they love to do without completely starving to death. Can you blame us for trying to go for the gold?
Don't get me wrong, the tools of the trade our great for marketing and promotional purposes, but there is such a concept as network fidelity that seems to become way more crucial and important above and beyond having a ton of alleged fans and friends on the web. I mean christ almighty, there are so many marketing services and "utlitlites" out there designed to game the mediums in which we are as artists and bands graded on even if people are aware of such techniques subliminally it works to inflate a bands or artists image. Even how Myspace generages PLAYS is suspect to being considered a legitimate source of measuring a bands popularity or worthiness. The fact that I accidently clicked on your profile and your bands track happened to "play" doesn't equate to me having any interest at all in having a taste. It would appear that there is more inflattion on MySpace and Twitter (for SURE) then people even consider.
Super Geek League has always and will always maintain that in this day and age of collecting friends in order to inflate your bands image like all things will ultimately wane in the face of the ultimate measuring stick of the 21st centuries succes story... LIVE ENTERTAINMENT is where its at and where it will always be. You like what we do, then you can be our friends and pay attention to what we say 1 person at a time. Don't inflate your numbers cause your just gonna open yourself up to more crap from all the other snake-oil salesman begging for attention in an attention depletion world.
Comments
Post new comment