Last night I caught Vampire Weekend on the Letterman show. They were awful.

It used to be important to be first, to be on the cutting edge, to KNOW! And those who knew weren’t so interested in letting the hoi polloi in on their newfound favorites, but they laughed when the mainstream finally caught on. There was a clear division between who and what was hip, and the unwashed masses.

Then, in the late MTV era, the mainstream and the hip merged. We all watched the same shows, we all reveled in the economic run-up of the late twentieth century.

Then the Internet era hit.

We’re on media overload. No one can keep up. Everybody’s an expert in their own little niche. Still, there are those who sit on high, mostly baby boomers and fortysomethings, divining what is hip, what is cool. Only this time, they want to let you know how cool they are. They want to TELL YOU!

Used to be it took years for a band to reach public consciousness. Now it might take a month. From insiders to the casual listener, within that period of time, we can all know. Because of modern communication methods. Furthermore, there’s no screening process, no winnowing of the wheat from the chaff. Everything can be served up right now. It doesn’t have to break through because of its essence, the hype can deliver a ray of light to almost anything. And when you take a look at this something…too often you’re disappointed.

Used to be I didn’t want to feel out of the loop. I had to be on it. But that doesn’t make any difference anymore. Oh, I might be interested in the news, Microsoft’s hostile offer for Yahoo, but when it comes to art, everything’s fresh when I find it. Whether it be today or two years from now. Still, there are people dunning me for not being on it, not being in the know. Didn’t I get the memo?

Like a baby boomer rock critic yesterday. Chiding me for only picking up on "Raising Sand" this week. Well, that’s not exactly true. I was aware the album was coming out long before it was released. Heard some songs I didn’t love on the radio before the album hit the store. Even had a disc copy. I didn’t want to spend the time digesting the record, not based on what I’d heard already. But, eventually Sirius served up a track and I found it. When I was ready. That was fine for me. But not for the prognosticators of cool. I was behind the curve.

I could turn this into a pissing contest. And speak of what I’m following, what I’m up to the minute on. But that’s not the point. The point is we’re all following our own muse, our own interest, with 300 TV channels and an endless Web, never mind video games, cell phones…

I feel self-satisfied that I didn’t fall for the Vampire Weekend hype. I laugh at those who’ve been trumpeting the act, like it’s the second coming. THIS IS IT? You’re spending all your time working THIS?

Yes, the trendmongers need something to hype, to make themselves feel good. The rest of the world tunes in, for a brief moment, and then tunes out. Sure, an occasional work is great and sustains, but almost nothing does.

It’s like the movie business. Films are here for a weekend or two, then gone. You remember who you went to the theatre with, maybe even what you ate, but not the flick. And those flicks you do remember seem to start off off the radar and grow slowly, like "Juno". The cognoscenti weren’t on "Juno". The newspapers weren’t saying to watch for the opening weekend gross. Small movies can’t make it. But this one did. The AUDIENCE BUILT IT!

So those of you trying to generate buzz, trying to be first and superior, that game is done. We’re just looking for SOMETHING good. We don’t care if we’re first or last, we just want fulfillment.

Kind of like that anti-Tipping Point screed making the rounds. Used to be that trends were started by individuals and grown from the center. But now there is no center. If you believe there’s a center, you’re missing the point. There are a thousand points of light. Growing slowly. Will they all merge into a homogeneous whole? Maybe. Maybe not. And, if not, that doesn’t mean the work is substandard, just not ubiquitous.

At this point in time, if I’m being worked, if all the hipsters are hyping me on something, I’m turned off. It’s like I’m from Missouri, the SHOW ME state. I end up laughing at you.

Like this ridiculous Obama video with will.i.am that a zillion people have e-mailed me in the past twelve hours. What the fuck do I care. I can pull a ton of Obama info myself, whether it be from TV, the Web or the "New Yorker". I’ve got options. I don’t need famous people cramming their opinion down my throat. Kind of like the celebs at the Kodak Theatre for the Democratic debate. How did they get the good seats? Isn’t this what’s wrong with America, a divide between the winners and losers?

The top down world is coming to an end. The individual, if not quite as powerful as the self-styled famous, is just as important. People have tools to make art, and a smorgasbord of entertainment options. You must penetrate their temples trepidatiously. You must use permission marketing. You must reward them. You must not bang them over the head and make them feel inferior. You must knock on their door and ask them if they have the time. And you must be selling something more than momentary, or they’re not interested. Oh, they’ll look at a train-wreck, but avert their eyes to a new distraction very quickly.

We’ve been living with a class of professional, holier-than-thou trendsetters, who believe they determine what is cool. Cool is not so important anymore. Attention is king. And the longer you can keep someone’s attention, the more you’re going to win in the twenty first century.

Vampire Weekend’s album might be better than their live show. But last night on Letterman, I just saw more white boys playing thin rock. I laughed to myself, wondering why everybody was wasting so much time on this evanescent act. I switched the channel.