We Can Be Heroes, Just For One Day
Privilege. That’s what everybody in America is fighting for. You’re looking to climb your way up the ladder to the point where you’re above the fray, where you can piss on the hoi polloi, or just ignore the teeming masses.
But homey don’t play that no more.
It’s not limited to the bankers, the concept filters down from Wall Street to Main Street, from Domino’s to Universal Music. You’re now in the pit, with your customers. It’s like junior high school all over again. You might gain some traction, but there are always going to be people who want to tear you down. The only way you can escape is to live in a bathroom with the light out. If Michael Phelps, a denizen of the younger generation, got his ass kicked by the ubiquity of technology, what are your chances?
Newspapers are the biggest laugh. Reporters believed themselves to be the country’s arbiters. An indispensable filter for the minions, even if not all of them made a financial fortune. Then again, so many did! They leveraged their perch, their ubiquity into TV appearances and book deals. They were He-Men of the Universe! ENTITLED to their position.
You’ve got to read this Maureen Dowd column about Google.
I don’t know if you’re following this, but it’s hilarious. The newspapers say that Google is stealing their business and Google says it’s a simple feat to keep the papers’ sites from appearing in search results. This is not the Pirate Bay saying we’re going to take your wares without asking, this is a new company saying play by our rules or don’t play with us at all. You can create your own game, but if you want to play ours, don’t tell us how to do it!
That’s what all the oldsters want. TO TELL US HOW TO DO IT! They want to speak down to us, Goliaths keeping us in check. But they’ve lost this power, COMPLETELY! When Criss Angel attacks Perez Hilton from the stage, when Tina Fey criticizes online commentators in her Golden Globe acceptance speech, you know the game has changed.
This is what Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, had to say to Ms. Dowd:
"’It’s fair to say that there will be no heroes,’ Schmidt says. ‘Heroism requires understanding the person in the absolute best light. I’m not sure this is good. What was Barack Obama like in elementary school? "Oh, yeah, here’s a picture of him picking his nose. God, he’s no longer a hero."
Do you get it? Trying to break an act by making it appear ABOVE THE FRAY, special, BETTER THAN THE REST, is completely futile.
That’s a game you play with the usual suspects, everybody from radio to television to retail. We dictate, the public obeys. This is COMPLETELY untrue. You purvey, the public DECIDES! People do more than decide, they pick you clean. They research your upbringing, where you go, what you eat, who you hang with. And by time it’s all done, you’re revealed to be no better than them.
THIS IS NOT GOING TO CHANGE!
Don’t fight your battles in court, don’t think your money can buy you success, think of how you can win the school presidency. You need to appeal to everybody. You need to take everybody into consideration.
Or maybe nobody. That’s what true artists do. They don’t give a shit what anybody thinks. And this fuck you mentality is appealing. But it’s been rare in the filtered world of yesterday, where acts had to kiss ass all the way up the food chain, standing for pictures with MTV fucks, listening to what the promotion man had to say, the head of the label.
YOU’VE LOST YOUR POWER!
That’s what pisses off the reporters. And the old record company guard. They want their power back! But it ain’t ever going to happen.
I read the newspaper, I listen to major label recordings, but I don’t give a shit whether either survives. I’m a bit overwhelmed at the descent into chaos we’re presently experiencing, but I’m excited about this new egalitarian world.  Where how much money you have isn’t the key factor, where you can’t bully people, where the individual with a keyboard has as much power as the head of a Fortune 500 company.
People will still report and people will still make music. It’s just that those who succeed might be completely different. The old guard doesn’t have the stomach for the new world, many old wave winners will retire. Because it’s hard to start over.
The journalists don’t want to start over. The record execs certainly don’t want to begin again. In a world where everybody’s got the same tools and no one has unfair advantage. Where the college you went to and who you know are almost irrelevant. It’s not about relationships with gatekeepers, but relationships with fans. Who decide when they want to pay attention, who react to honesty and want to support you, but only if you’re real.
