Nothing Lasts

Taylor Swift was terrible on the Grammys. Maybe the worst performance ever. She was way off-key singing with Stevie Nicks, in front of the whole world. I'd been getting e-mail from people for years saying she couldn't sing, but had held back from writing anything. But here was evidence.

I thought it would end her career. Didn't Billy Squier dance around on MTV in a pink shirt and kill his career almost overnight?

But no, I was wrong. Taylor Swift wrote a song about me and she's bigger than ever.

Just like Donald Trump.

One of my favorite tweets of the past week said people have already forgotten that Trump was convicted of sexual assault only a few months back. You remember E. Jean Carroll, don't you?

Now there's a similarity between Swift and Trump. That the believers are true and everybody else doesn't care. This too is a difference from the past. Fan bases are narrower than ever before, and their members are more rabid than ever before. They have the belief that it's them versus the world. That others are out to get them. And they must protect their heroes and themselves at all costs. They must preemptively protect themselves. They're aggressive. And it's not only in politics, everybody feels put upon, with a need to self-aggrandize for fear they'll be marginalized.

In other words, nothing is going to convince Trump supporters to give up. That's not their nature, that's not the modern paradigm.

And Taylor Swift is the biggest and most talented artist in the world, and if you say otherwise... Well, I still get tweets and e-mails from fans, calling me a hater, over a decade since I wrote about that Grammy performance. I know that might sound contradictory, but when it comes to ammunition defenders know no limit. They remember every slight, perceived or real.

So what does this mean for you?

Your past doesn't matter. We keep saying your reputation is everything, your credibility. Not in the big time. Maybe at home, in your little life, in your little circle.

Cardi B throws a mic in the audience in response to an audience member throwing something at her and...

Mainstream media debates behavior. What was going through the mind of the thrower. The person hit by Cardi's mic's injury. But my audience? It can't believe that the music still played, that Cardi B.'s vocal continued, long after she threw her mic away.

That's the story here. She wasn't singing!

But does that make any difference?

Ashlee Simpson's career was killed overnight when she was found to be lip-synching on SNL. Today, do something like that and shrug. No matter what the brouhaha, your fans, your believers, will stick by you. And oftentimes they're the only ones who care, so over time your narrative triumphs.

As for Taylor Swift's voice...

The story this week is how her concert created an earthquake, how there was seismic activity. This was everywhere. But the "New York Times" reported today that this is a regular occurrence in Seattle, the Weeknd caused seismic activity, and so did the Seahawks. But let's not let the truth get in the way of a good story, of myth-building.

And then there's the Weeknd himself, Abel Tesfaye. Responsible for one of the most reviled TV series of the year, "The Idol." Every news outlet had a story about the impact on his career. How this would hurt him, indelibly. But these writers are not students of the game, it won't hurt him at all! I'm not saying he'll hit the height of "Blinding Lights" again, but his chart performance was in decline anyway.

Bruce Springsteen was castigated over ticket prices. Remember the blowback? Well, the dates played and everybody was happy. You could even buy tickets at the last minute for some of the shows. "Backstreets" closed down in protest, the joke is on the magazine, no one cares, it all blew over.

How about that famous band that scalped its own tickets? All over the news a few years back. You don't remember who it was and the fans don't care. Just like the fans of Motley Crue who overpaid to see the final tour, written in blood, and then the band went back on tour again. The believers believe, and everybody else forgets or ignores from the get-go.

This is a phenomenon that is incomprehensible to boomers and Gen-X'ers. It was never that way. If you screwed up on MTV, the whole world was watching. But now the whole world is watching nothing, it's an endless slew of hype, assuming you're paying attention to begin with. Everybody's selling and you're picky about what you're buying.

So it's not that Taylor Swift sings better, or Donald Trump is suddenly honest. It's that the crimes of the past don't matter in the future.

And even those who get caught in the quagmire and are convicted and pay their dues... Used to be they were experienced seers, worth listening to. John Dean has been commenting on TV for decades. Michael Cohen? No one is listening to him anymore. He had his moment and it's over.

Hell, Andrew Cuomo could run for office again. His only problem is that many people didn't like him to begin with, and he didn't have a whole hell of a lot of hard core fans. But as for his faux pas?

Louis CK understands the game, he got back in it. He knows it doesn't matter what you think, only what his fans think. He may be a pariah to you, but his fans are keeping him alive.

The only people still concerned about the Morgan Wallen n-word controversy are those who never listened to his music and never will.

As for Jason Aldean... This is the best thing that has happened to him in over a decade. He's added life to his career.

Then again, Aldean took a side. He wasn't worried about what you think, only about what his fans think. He didn't make the video knowing it was going to become a national controversy, it wasn't planned out, it was just a dog whistle for country bumpkins and gun-lovers, those who feel the denizens of the city, those lefties, must be held at bay, otherwise they'll take their guns, their lifestyle, everything they believe in. Sure, the left may continue to hate Aldean, but it doesn't matter. Aldean knows it's not about appealing to everybody, but just somebody, the passionate.

Remember when network television was all about appealing to everybody? That's a death sentence today. Today you want to be narrow and edgy, and maybe those who love the show will turn their friends on.

So if you screw up... Stay silent. If you don't amplify it, if you don't defend yourself, it will go away, buried under the tsunami of news that is spewed out of the firehose each and every day.

Nobody cares about you. Or shall I say those who do can provide a very good living.

And nobody is all-dominant today, no one appeals to everybody. I'll bet you haven't even heard most of the songs in the Spotify Top 50. Has anybody? Sure, there are youth that are focused on the hits, but there are tons who are only interested in the niches.

Chances are you haven't even seen "Barbie." Divide those grosses by today's high ticket prices and...not everybody went. Doesn't even matter how good or bad the film was, most people just shrugged, don't care, will never care. And you've got right wing bloviators trying to gin up the base by criticizing the film's values. When something you don't like gains traction, shut up!

That's the way to win in today's society.


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