He was so NORMAL!

I wasn’t expecting much. It’s not like the Boss has been holding his cards close to his chest. I mean how much more is there to know?

PLENTY!

But not what I expected it to be.

It was like sitting at the kitchen table with Springsteen. Two buddies connecting, revealing their inner truth with no holding back. And this is anathema to musicians. Forget that mystery is oftentimes key to their image, they’ve been interviewed so many times, been in the public eye for so long, that they’re media-savvy, aware of the pitfalls, always on guard.

And Stern’s style is to make you feel so relaxed, have the conversation be so intimate that he can ask the taboo questions, about your sex life, about your inner feelings, and when you walk out of the studio your adrenaline is pumping but soon there’s that little voice, did I really want to say that? The phone starts ringing, you start spinning, but it’s too late, there’s no editing, it’s already gone over the air, and even though Howard does his show multiple times per week, you’re lucky if you’ll be asked back within two or three YEARS!

So I both expected Bruce to be guarded and for Howard to be pushing, but neither was the case. Bruce was game from the get-go. And he wasn’t that different from me and you, except he’s BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN!

One of the peaks was when Bruce marveled at being on stage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction with Mick Jagger at his right and George Harrison at his left…JUST LIKE YOU OR ME! He was aware of how hard he’d worked, how long the odds were, but he’d MADE IT! Not that he thought he didn’t deserve it, it’s just that he remembered being back in New Jersey infatuated with these blokes and broke, and to come all this way?

It required a ton of perseverance. Which is more important than the idea. The talent, that’s just a start. But are you willing to endure the hardships?

I mean Bruce is talking about sleeping in a surf shop. He actually mentioned surfing himself! Yes, can you see him on a board off the Jersey shore, not in black, but with the long-legged colored trunks of the era?

And then there was that aside about Bruce being down at the beach, only this time as an adult, on 9/11. At his house on the shore, right? No, at the beach club. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN IS A MEMBER OF A BEACH CLUB? 

The celebrities don’t stop telling us they’re better than we are, that they don’t even live in the same world, they fly private and vacation on Richard Branson’s private island. But Springsteen is inviting the entire town to his house for Halloween?

And I’m not saying Bruce didn’t give some amazing performances on the show, but as good as those were, those were not the highlight.

As to whether his kids knew who he was and came to the show… He said that he and Patty have a pact, not to bring it in the house, and when he starts talking about his work she shuts him down. And we thought he was the boss…

Not that he knew how to have a relationship. He had to learn how, through therapy. When most boomers believe therapy is a sign of weakness, that you must work out your problems by yourself to be a man.

As for his initial marriage… Bruce complimented the woman, but said she was just the wrong person, no amount of therapy could make it work.

And then there was his back surgery story. Yes, his hands started to go numb, so he needed an incision in his throat to attack the discs in his neck to relieve the pressure. Come on, you have these conversations with your buddies on a regular basis, if you’re a boomer, but the stars are supposed to be inviolate, and if there’s anything truly wrong with them it’s a national crisis, the entire nation pays fealty and weeps.

So Bruce is caught by the bug. And unlike too many of today’s young wankers, he knows it’s a long way to the top of if you want to rock and roll. He talks about all the gigs he played. Ones involving the fire department that I’d never even heard of, we didn’t have those where I grew up in Connecticut. Bruce was like a session musician of the sixties or seventies, he’d show up wherever there was a gig, he wanted to PLAY!

As a lead guitarist. That used to be Bruce’s ace in the hole. His wailing, his shredding.

As for making it…

His parents moved to Californ-i-a and left him behind, alone and broke, with only his guitar and his wits. And most people don’t make it, Bruce said how hard it was.

And he talked about his reverence for Dylan, that “Blinded by the Light” was written on the beach using a rhyming dictionary. And how Bob had contacted him to play at the Kennedy Center Honors. Yes, it’s a club, and we’re not in it, but Bruce is our representative.

I don’t want you to wince. Bruce knows who he is, that he’s rich, but somehow you can’t shake the Jersey out of him.

Most people want to ascend the ladder and become beautiful. Bruce is laughing, you get the style of his speech, you can see the real person, which is SO different from the edited interviews we’ve been exposed to over the decades. The reverence for the Boss undercuts him being honest. And most people who do these takes are uninformed. It’s all grist for the mill.

Not that the locals don’t say he’s changed. And Bruce said you’ve got to change, you can’t keep doing the same thing. Howard echoed this. You’ve got to progress, or you’re dead.

And how his entire career is a conversation with his fans. That’s what the new albums are about, not topping the chart. Turns out Bruce has a better perspective than those in charge of the machine.

As far as why Jon Landau became his manager… It was because of TRUST! You can’t buy trust. And trust is very rare in the music business. Everybody is trying to survive, and if they have to sacrifice you in the process, so be it.

Not that Bruce was a puppy dog, lapping at Howard’s feet. When Howard started talking about Patti, and how he wished she was there, Bruce said she had no intention of showing up because Howard had trashed her. She might get over it, but it’s going to take a ton of work by Howard. And Bruce ended up looking the bigger man. He didn’t even want Howard to hype his new album, that’s not what the interview was about.

Of course this appearance engendered awareness. But the listener did not feel manipulated.

As I’ve always said, I don’t hate Bruce Springsteen, I hate his fans. It’s a pecking order, how many shows have you seen, how much do you know. That uber-fan litmus test turns people off. I mean how in hell do you prove someone is a bigger fan. And if you show up and enjoy it, how big a fan do you even have to be?

Howard did ask about the sale to Sony for $500 million, but he did not ask about the Ticketmaster debacle. This wasn’t a gotcha interview.

And it wasn’t a lecture or a show either. It was more real than the recording of the Broadway show on Netflix, because you could feel the INTIMACY!

The Broadway show… So you went for $750-$1000. Good for you. But it wasn’t the second coming, nothing is. Get old enough and you realize it’s all about the individual, i.e. YOU! Nobody’s better than anybody else. It’s your life, you make of it what you want to.

And instead of enjoying the fruits of his success, living the fabulous life, Bruce is working every day in his studio. Even though the rock paradigm is dead, he is who he is.

And I’m not gonna get into showing up on David Geffen’s yacht… The lines start to blur. You want to maintain your credibility, your integrity, but that does not mean you always have to say no. And sometimes you make mistakes, EVERYBODY DOES, but we play a game of gotcha with our heroes.

So, writing all of “Born to Run” on the Aeolian piano given to him by his grandmother… Bruce was tickling the ivories in the studio, and you could get it, but I never thought of the album that way.

And how the muse comes and goes and he can’t control it, how years can go by before he writes another song. It’s so different from the Nashville model, you get together with others and pound out a song every day, whereas everybody truly in the game knows that the best work comes from raw inspiration. And you know when it hits, it’s a lightning bolt only you can feel, and you have to capture the moment immediately, or else you lose it. And if you’re beholden to the muse, that means something else has to be sacrificed. In Bruce’s case almost everything before he ultimately settled down and had a family. Turned out stardom was not enough.

Honestly, about ninety minutes in the effect started to wear off. Bruce was just another guy telling his story. You know the law of performance, leave them wanting more. But that’s if you’re more concerned about your audience than yourself, if you believe in manipulation. The key is to channel others through yourself. And if you remove yourself, if there’s too much smoke and too many mirrors, you can’t do that.

I’m not saying the interview was too long, it’s just that over time Bruce became normalized, he stopped being a star and became just another guy telling his story. And that’s how you do it in the twenty first century, you obliterate the line between you and the audience, it’s the only thing that truly works.

So Bruce has gone on record that he takes antidepressants. Or did.

And he owned up instantly to wearing hearing aids.

He’s getting old, and at some point you have to own it. And how bad is that anyway?

Will Bruce Springsteen be remembered? Unlike Paul McCartney and others, most of his material is unique to him, no one else can cover it, and this oftentimes shortens longevity, when the fans start to go there’s nobody, or not many people who are willing to put in the time to get it, and let’s be clear, you’ve got to put in the time to truly get Bruce Springsteen. That’s how it used to be with all of the acts, you had to play those albums over and over to get them. And you only wanted to get closer.

And Springsteen brought us closer than we ever were before.

Am I going to say I like the new material as much as the old?

No. Bruce is in a different place and so am I.

But at least he’s trying.

But I’m sick and tired of the media machine building up the story with each new release, like it’s manna from heaven when it’s just music, which at most will soothe your soul, get you through, and anybody truly in the game knows you can’t reach the pinnacle every time out, you want to, but 11’s are hard to come by, and the longer you’ve been around, the more you know, and it’s even harder.

So there’s a ton of stuff about Bruce’s dad. How Springsteen is living the life of his father in public, through his songs.

But at the end…

His parents are living in San Francisco. His dad is sitting at the kitchen table drinking a beer. Because some things never change, some people are locked into their ways, many, in fact. And Bruce reaches inside his coat and puts his newly-won Oscar on the table and says nothing.

He’s reached the mountaintop. Everybody seems to know it and acknowledge it but his father. He can’t get the love from his dad. But now he holds the ultimate trump card.

His father says he’ll never tell anybody what to do ever again…

And that feels good, but it’s still not enough, it’s not an acknowledgement, not love, but it’s as much as Bruce can get.

And since he could never get more he became an artist. To explore this pain, look for love, go on a journey of the other, since he was always considered the other anyway.

I didn’t listen as a fan, I listened as a person. I got some insight. It made me think. I don’t need to compare notes with the posse. I realized Bruce and I never would have been friends in high school. And even though we grew up on the same planet in the same era, his parents instilled completely different hopes and dreams in him than mine did in me. He and Howard talked about their relationship with their parents and…it wasn’t mine. Because each of us is different. The key is to be you.

If you love going to see Springsteen, great. Doesn’t make you better than the rest.

And the funny thing is the guy on stage, the perpetrator, he knows all this, he’s more developed than most of the people listening. He’s just doing what he’s doing. He’s glad you like it. But in truth, you’re completely different.

But ultimately the same.

There’s the conundrum, there’s the magic.

That’s rock and roll.

W. David Marx is the author of the new book: “Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change.” He posits the dearth of quality new music comes down to status. We discuss this and other implications of status in society. Put your thinking cap on!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w-david-marx/id1316200737?i=1000584913290

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/9f7fbc0a-109e-4461-a803-eba0541c874b/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-w-david-marx

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/w-david-marx-208197447

The casual listener is dead.

The best analogy is television. Boomers will remember when you watched what was on, even changing channels was a big deal, you had to get up off the couch before the remote.

And then came the remote and ultimately cable TV, with its plethora of channels. But recording was still done by VCR, which most people could never figure out, the VCR was mainly a playback device. So people would sit down at night to watch television, and click through the available channels, unless they rented a movie.

Then came the DVR. And the internet. And the ability to pick and choose your content and watch it at a later time. “TiVo” became a verb, remember those days? Ask a member of Gen-Z what a TiVo is and they’ll have no idea. They came of age in the on demand era. What you wanted to consume was at your fingertips, you only had to make a choice.

And then there’s today, we live in the on demand culture and there’s a plethora of choices! In TV, in music… And then there’s the internet, with its endless diversions, never mind TikTok, which is the Netflix of the young.

But the point here is there’s no more drive-by listening, never mind viewing. You choose what to consume, and if you don’t choose it, you never hear it.

No one wants to admit this. Because this means they’ve lost control, that the lunatics have taken over the asylum, that they no longer control the market.

The record companies had it good. They controlled radio and physical distribution. Most people didn’t know about it unless they heard it on the radio. Sure, there were active fans who consumed print publications, but ironically they were the most dedicated radio listeners! And sure, you could learn about an act via an opening slot at a gig, but all the money was in the recordings, the live gig was an advertisement for the record.

Today, terrestrial music radio means little. Because who wants to listen to the same damn station ad infinitum, never mind consuming twenty minutes of commercials per hour. I mean how many music-oriented stations are there even in your market? And they all don’t play the genre of music you like. And your car comes with Bluetooth and you can stream from your smartphone. The only people passively listening to music are the same boomers flipping the channels on their TV sets every night. Meanwhile, subscriptions to cable TV keep going down, people have cut the cord, and some never ever were connected, they’ve picked and chosen their entire lives. You go to college with a laptop, you employ your parents’ Netflix account. You borrow passwords for other streaming giants. Other than that, it’s the internet.

So how are you going to expose people to new music? YOU CAN’T!

Oh, you can strong-arm the media the same way you used to strong-arm, and probably still strong-arm, terrestrial radio. But the target audience doesn’t see it. They get the headlines on social media, they never drill down to your story. They evade it completely. If people can evade hard news, politics, what are the odds they’re going to see your promotional campaign, the reviews of records? NEARLY ZILCH!

Then there’s the playlist… Never has there been that much concern about something with so little impact. Talk to Spotify, read their screeds, most people pick and choose their music, they don’t want to listen to endless playlists with so many tune-outs. Come on, ever try? If you’re a music fan it’s excruciating! So people make their own playlists. And as far as being turned on to something new, they depend on their friends, they constantly have their ear to the ground taking the temperature of the buzz.

But buzz mostly works for the unknown. People’s time is so limited that if they’ve already sampled and didn’t like it, they don’t go back. Yes, there’s that first impression, and after that good luck!

Having said that, there are rabid cults. But they don’t cross over to the general public. I’d say much of the population is aware of K-Pop at this point, they’ve heard of BTS, but they’ve got no desire to listen to the act’s music. That’s for a hard core who live and die, who are invested in BTS. And they punch above their weight. They’re so busy talking about BTS, and going to the shows that media and insiders believe it’s a widespread phenomenon, but it’s not! It’s just a very large cult.

The vaunted acts of the past fifteen years, they’re all like this. They don’t appeal to everybody. They’ve got a hard core, and that’s it. No one’s even a casual fan, why bother, why spend the time?

As for those who do listen to playlists, they are the least active consumers, the last one to stream one track ad infinitum and pay for a ticket to the show. These are the people who employ playlists as background music, at home or at work, they may not even be able to recall ever hearing the track, never mind that it played.

There are other cults. Public radio. Rabid fans who follow deejays and then stream what is featured. Like WFMU or KCRW. Listeners know it, but no one else does. So, when the hipster band comes to town an elder audience will show up, but the act will never play arenas on the first tour, the cult is just not that big.

As for all these sellouts…

Let’s say you play fifteen stadiums. Let’s say you sold out at each, 50,000 seats, never mind many stadiums today hold fewer than that. Sounds impressive, but…

That’s 750,000 people in a country of 330 million. It’s a drop in the bucket. Apple doesn’t even wake up for that number. It’s bupkes.

I’m not saying it’s not good business, there’s a lot of money there, but if you think there’s endless demand to see that act, you’re wrong. Never mind there being additional acts on the bill to turn it into an event so people show up to begin with.

Festivals? 100,000 a day? Good money, not much impact.

This is very different from being on “Hee-Haw” back in the day. Or even MTV. TRL was a club that moved the needle, there has been no replacement, there can’t be, because everybody is no longer on the same page.

And then you’ve got the history of music competing with the new. And a lot of those acts are still on the road, albeit not that much longer.

Once again, there’s plenty of money to be made, but don’t confuse this with IMPACT!

So you have a #1 record. Big deal. Most people have never heard it. Morgan Wallen’s album “Dangerous” has been in the Top Ten for over a year and I bet most people reading this have never ever heard a single track and couldn’t pick Morgan out of a lineup. Sure, they might know about the n-word controversy, but that’s part of the cancel culture, gotcha, political sphere…that’s the entertainment now, much more interesting than anything anybody is putting down on wax. And don’t get me started on the touting of vinyl records. A tempest in a teapot. Many people are never even listening to them, they’re a souvenir. And the numbers proffered are not reflective of reality. It’s all calculated on suggested retail. And retail for a vinyl record these days can be $40. How much comes back to the record company? Maybe $20, assuming there are no discounts and people actually pay the suggested retail price. And then there are all the costs involved, manufacturing and shipping…the only good thing is vinyl is sold one way, and if you don’t know what that means that means you’re not burdened by the record company economics of yore, which no longer apply today. When the label gets paid by a streaming company that’s NET! And other than the usually de minimis royalties paid to the act, if they’re even in the black, it’s all profit. As in there are no costs. No manufacturing, no shipping, no returns. So to compare vinyl to streaming is like yes, comparing apples to oranges. I’m not saying there’s not money in vinyl, there’s a good amount. But it’s not as high as they say it is, cut the number in half right away, that cash is going to the retailer, and it’s still a fraction of what is made on streaming. People LIKE vinyl. They want to FEEL it’s successful. But vinyl itself is just a cult. How many people own record players these days? And many own them as fashion, and you know fashion is evanescent.

But the vinyl story is paraded everywhere. You’d think Tower Records is still open on Sunset and there’s a line to get in, but there’s not. In many cases, vinyl is positively cottage industry. Small acts sourcing a few records to sell at gigs. Good for them, just don’t tell me it’s a big deal. Never mind that getting your albums pressed is so difficult because of the lack of capacity. There’s almost no capacity because people stopped buying records!

The truly universal acts of yore… They don’t exist. Whether they be from the British Invasion or the MTV era. Come on, every boomer and Gen-X’er knows Men Without Hats, AND THEY ONLY HAD ONE HIT. But it was on MTV.

I’m not saying the music business at large is suffering, that’s not my point at all. It’s just that the music business is built on hype, about saying so and so is the biggest and brightest. NO ONE IS THE BIGGEST AND BRIGHTEST ANYMORE, NO ONE!

So I don’t want to hear about your chart numbers, bumped by selling souvenirs. And I’m supposed to applaud you for selling multiple albums to the same customer? That’s a grift, that’s consumer abuse, it’s only youngsters are so immature and myopic that they spend their allowance this way, or get their parents to lay down the cash so they can stop hearing about it. I mean do GM or Ford or Tesla or Toyota try and sell four cars to a single person? No, that’s not a perfect analogy. Do these same companies try to sell a car to someone who lives in MANHATTAN? Where there’s no parking and in truth you don’t even need a car. Yes, people are buying physical product that they can’t even play. Quick, look around your house, do you have a CD player? I bet most of you don’t. They’re no longer in cars… Hell, most people no longer even have a DVD player, WHY?

So the music industry and media keep telling us that there are these monolithic stars, that rule, that everybody knows and pays attention to. WRONG! There are some big cults, that’s it. And even worse, if people even know about the act, they often HATE IT! Just because a cult is enamored that does not make it good, never mind not having broad acceptance.

And speaking of acceptance, this is something the aged boomer and Gen-X acts can’t get over. Well, I used to make so much money, but Spotify has killed my income stream. No, that’s not it whatsoever, Spotify is just a reflection of reality, and in this case a scapegoat, you’re competing against everybody who recorded music in history and not that many people want to listen to you. Sorry. Sure, you might have a million streams, but there are acts that have a billion, that are still cults. Come on, sing an Ed Sheeran song, I doubt you can do it. Oh, there are millions who can, but there are many more people who can’t! Yet the guy sets all these streaming records…

I won’t even judge the quality of the music. Even if you’re talented and great at most you will be a cult, if you’re as successful as you can be.

It’s time to reset our barometers. But no, the music business wasn’t built on truth, it’s all smoke and mirrors. The industry wants you to believe there are these huge stars that dominate the culture, are bigger than “Stranger Things”… But “Stranger Things” is much bigger and broader, and most people haven’t even watched THAT!

So take everything you see and hear with a giant grain of salt. When they start touting numbers, put them in perspective. The devil is in the details, never mind outright lying.

But no one wants their balloon punctured. No one wants the truth. Because then, concomitantly, how powerful are the major labels themselves, never mind the people who run them. The average American has no idea who runs the major labels, and now there are only three! Same deal with the movie studios. Many more people have heard of Ted Sarandos, never mind Reed Hastings, than anybody working in music. The heads of labels were titans! Remember in the “Sopranos” when Christopher called out to Tommy Mottola outside the club? Do you think today’s Christophers are going to be calling out to Rob Stringer, head of Sony today, never mind Lucian Grainge?

This is where we are. Acknowledge it. Because it’s hard to march forward without knowing and accepting the truth. And once again, everything is a cult today, EVERYTHING!

Case closed.

It’s a blip on the ass of social media. For a self-selecting group who need to keep up on the news, evidence their opinions, and haters who want to undercut anybody who participates.

In other words, the story of Elon Musk BUYING Twitter is more important than the platform itself, because almost no one uses it.

Really, it’s all about TikTok. We were told the internet would surface untold number of overlooked musical acts. The concept was right, the genre was wrong. In other words, creativity is on a rampage. And it’s coming from the grass roots. But it’s not about music.

You see TikTok has unleashed the creativity of America. 

This is not Instagram, where you post polished pics to demonstrate how groovy and privileged you are. Nor is it YouTube, with influencers hawking their brand ad infinitum, sans soul.

First and foremost, TikTok is different because you don’t have to be a winner to play. You can be no one and your post can be boosted to everyone. I’d say it’s like a lottery, but it is not. Because it all comes down to your creativity. And you can’t buy it, not like beats online. And you can’t fake it. It’s all you, from inside your brain, and the less polished it is, the more authentic it is, and authenticity is everything. This boost in the creative side of the brain, in these millions of short clip endeavors, has been overlooked by the mainstream for two reasons… One, they do not fit in a traditional, established, anointed vertical and two, the mainstream decries TikTok, they don’t even investigate it, they just pooh-pooh it as a backwater of young amateurs that deserves no attention, like toddlers playing in a sandbox. But that’s not what it is.

So the story of Trump on Twitter is purely access. To a large group. Trump played when the staid establishment did not. In an era where all news junkies, most importantly the reporters and commentators, were addicted to Twitter, so that his impact on the short message service was overblown. Believe me, if Trump comes back to Twitter the impact will be minimal, although never underestimate the media’s ability to make a small story big, by amplifying it. The media was complicit in the election of Trump in 2016, by giving him all that oxygen. A similar thing is happening with the midterm reporting. The establishment media has decided Republicans are going to win and that’s the story, even though the underpinnings of that opinion are slim, just some polls that have been notoriously inaccurate since Trump’s election. The media is so fearful of missing a big story outside the liberal domain of its members, that it is overemphasizing stories about the unknown on the right.

So, for the past few months the story hasn’t been about Twitter, but Musk. Musk was feeling his oats on Twitter, with his follower count of bros, so he decided to buy it. It’d be like you going to a carnival, riding the Ferris wheel and raving about it and all your friends being enthralled with your experience. MOST PEOPLE DIDN’T EVEN GO TO THE CARNIVAL! MOST PEOPLE WERE NEVER EXPOSED TO IT!

This is the dirty little secret of Twitter, most people never see your tweet. Follower counts are nearly irrelevant. Someone has to either be on Twitter when you tweet, or be so interested in what you say as to go back in time on your feed. Furthermore, most Twitter addicts follow so many people most of the posts are lost in the shuffle.

Which is why I rarely tweet. Let’s see, right now I have 66.3k followers on Twitter. Sounds like a lot. But if I tweet it’s like pissing in the wind. I can say the same thing to my mailing list and my inbox can go wild. Because it’s a direct connection. Twitter is not a direct connection, it’s not used that way by most people.

As for the number counts… It was a fad. People signed up and signed off. This is a bigger issue than the bots. The bots are a sideshow for most of the people on the platform, and in truth most people are not on the platform!

And, even if you are using Twitter on a regular basis, it’s confusing.

Twitter tried to make it easier by employing an algorithm, like Facebook, which selected posts that most appealed to you. In theory. In practice, the algorithm is so poor, it overemphasizes some people and de-emphasizes others, who you are interested in. And if you miss a post on Facebook about someone’s afternoon activity, who cares. But if you’re on Twitter for news and you miss a big story, that’s a huge loss.

You see people on Twitter base their lives on being informed. And since Twitter is instant, that’s where stories break. And, all other reporters are on the service. How many people in America are reporters, or comprehensive news junkies? VERY FEW! If Twitter was a sport it would be Monster trucks. No, that can get TV exposure… Well, Twitter is bigger than backcountry skiing, but it generates less enthusiasm than Pickleball, which is on the way up, whereas Twitter is on the way down. You only get a chance to be brand new once. And the hardest thing is to bring someone back who gave you up, it’s nearly impossible, if for no other reason than there are so many other entertainment/information options.

So, what you’ve got on Twitter is writers with no direct connection with their audience. They’ve got no mailing list, they don’t know who their readers are, so they post to make themselves feel good, by gaining followers and getting a reaction. And then they’re stunned when there is evil blowback. Hello, this has been an issue online FOR OVER TWENTY YEARS! It’s just a matter of whether you have direct connection with your audience. To complain about this hate today is laughable. You’re a muckety-muck, people don’t like your status, they don’t like your attitude, and they want to bring you down. Period.

The funny thing is these establishment wankers are too stupid to look at the follower count of most of these haters. It’s anemic, they reach almost no one. And anybody with any experience knows you never respond, that’s exactly what the haters want. And they never back down, if you think you can set them straight you’re wrong.

So, what you’ve got on Twitter is not the hoi polloi, but an elite group, which cries that they’re now subjected to all the vagaries of the internet. And the haters keep piling on, because they can reach these people.

And it’s a tempest in a teapot, most people don’t see it and don’t care.

So Musk is forced to buy Twitter. To honor his deal.

He’s lost all credibility in the process. He made a deal with no strings attached and then wanted to add strings after the fact, and this don’t play when you’ve got a legal contract, homey won’t allow that.

And now Tesla is in trouble in China and everybody knows the automobiles are poorly built and…

In one fell swoop not only has Elon messed with his image, but with Tesla’s too. As for rehabilitation… I expect a mea culpa when Kanye gives one, which is NEVER!

Elon thinks he’s untouchable, that the rules don’t apply to him. And since this story was all over the news for months, the public is aware of it. They’re not ON Twitter, but they know the business story. It’s better than almost all TV and definitely better than all records. Only streaming television can compete.

So, because he’s not on Twitter 24/7, because he has other obligations, Musk doesn’t really have a feel for the service. And his lack of knowledge means he’s living in a vacuum and is unaware of the issues. You can’t let everybody say whatever they want whenever they want, BECAUSE OF THE ADVERTISERS! Advertisers are conservative. They don’t want to be where one single customer can be pissed off. And believe me, these companies often make decisions based on very little feedback, it’s not like they get a million e-mails, maybe ten or fifteen. But they’re scared.

So, Elon has to make money, he’s going to charge for verification. WHO CARES! Who is that dedicated to Twitter that they need their identity authenticated? Almost no one. And no one is stealing the identities of the big players anyway, BECAUSE THEY PLAY SO MUCH! And the supposed advantages of a blue check mark are de minimis.

And then there’s the right, the Trumpers. They started supporting Musk under the rubric of “free speech,” but once Musk gained control of the company he found out there had to be content moderation. So now those free-speechers on the right are mad at him. Musk has succeeded in pissing EVERYBODY off!

And then there are the wankers who talk about competition, a new Twitter. Give me a break, take a look at Truth Social lately?

First and foremost, Twitter is not good business. But the history of the internet tells us new platforms are based on new ideas! I.e. TikTok vs. Instagram. And the thing that is most interesting is Instagram has tried to imitate TikTok, with the same features, AND IT’S NOT WORKING! People have TikTok, why do they need to post videos on Instagram? What is the problem, other than Instagram’s waning business, which users couldn’t care less about.

And building an audience is almost impossible these days. Everything scales much more slowly, because there’s so much in the channel. So you’re going to start a new business from scratch when we’ve already got Twitter?

As for people leaving… Didn’t take down Amazon. It never works. There are just not enough people who care enough to go without.

Do you know how many people would have to leave Twitter before it impacted my usage of it? I can’t imagine it ever happening.

And then there are those who use the service as a personal megaphone. I don’t want your damn opinion, give me INFORMATION! That’s what the complaining posters don’t realize, we don’t want to hear what you have to say, just give us the news, right away. So the service is inundated with endless detritus. My feed has too much b.s. in it. And the more b.s., the less I look at it.

And Lists are just for pros, which is almost nobody.

And as far as what is trending and general news and entertainment…the stuff you click on that is not based on following anybody specific? Idiots create these trends, no one with a brain cares. And there are much better places to get news and entertainment that is not of the moment.

So what happens now?

WHO KNOWS?

Can Musk make the trains run on time, make Twitter a burgeoning business?

Possibly. BUT THAT’S NOT GOING TO AFFECT THE SERVICE!

Once again, users don’t care about the profitability of your business. They just want to know about the utility to them. And nothing Elon has said or done in the past year has directly affected the utility of the service, the business story is separate from the utilization of the service!

So no, there won’t be a Twitter competitor, not one with any traction.

And no, most people tweeting will not sign off, or if they do, they’ll come back on.

And nothing Musk can do with Twitter will turn it into a powerhouse, attracting new users. Sure, he could turn the app into something else, like WeChat… But in truth, that’s about building a whole new service, there’s not that much there at Twitter to base a new effort upon.

So, Elon tries to clean up the business, bloviates how great it is, then takes the company public once again and GETS OUT!

So far, Musk has not done anything to improve Twitter, not a single thing. So one guy owns a social media outlet that most people never think about? He bought it on impulse, he didn’t think it through, which is why he wanted to get out of the deal. This is who Elon is. He demonstrates this over and over again, he shoots from the hip and ignores the law and social mores. It’s just that this time there was tens of billions of dollars involved.

Let him pay the price. Not only the cash spent in the acquisition, but the burden of owning this moribund social media service which stumbles along but no one has been able to blow up into boffo business. It’s his problem. GOOD LUCK!