The worm has turned, and this economic downturn marks the beginning of the end of the profitability of the publication of generic foolishness. Conspiratorial and propagandistic foolishness will continue, but legions of 'creatives' are going to have to eat mac and cheese for a long time. Sorry Messr Mondavi & Gallo, but your cheese eating market is shrinking.
The other night, I'm shuttling various offspring to dog-sitting duties for Mr. Jones and our dear friendly interviewer Terri Gross is slackjawed with her subject on the topic of stealing bytes. She and her guest cannot understand why the younger generation does not appreciate all of the work that goes into putting together productions. They are convinced that youth has and ethical defect. I am convinced that youth has a lower tolerance for bullshit, given the fact that they swim in deeper oceans of it than we ever did as youth. Bullshit yearns to be free, even if expensive people are producing it in anticipation of profit.
The other matter I don't think many in the cultural production business understand very well is the extent to which their ideas of property run counter to the ethos of those technologists like myself who have become the intermediaries in their 'arts'. Without electricity, 90% of today's 'creatives' can create nothing but the sort of navel-gazing bleating noises they are increasingly given to. Revenge of the nerds may not be inevitable, but the cost of technology is going up and the marginal utility of creativity is going down. Why? Because YouTube has proven that the only thing we are missing when we turn the cameras on ourselves, relative to the 'reality' programming that has substituted for artistic genius on all of the world's screens, small and large, is production values. Production value is no longer a valuable product.
We are on the verge, therefore of seeing the return of the freak show. And we are going to see some strenuously bizarre freakage in order to displace the waves of thin puke couched in elaborate sophistication. Tony Soprano is not going to cut it any longer. We're heading towards Overfiend territory, mark my words. In the meantime, expect more Johnny Knoxville style hijinks on a screen near you.
En passant, I will be employing the term 'screen' to encompass all visual media - because the world is a video. That is, the world I am mostly ignoring but must know like an enemy kept close. My expensive combination of audiobook and print book gets me through a wad of material on the swift, and makes for permanence and referencability.
The web will lock down and go private. Good information is getting sparser. Get your PGP keys and join my circle of trust. Allmuseri.
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