Mass That Is Not

Are you excited about the eclipse?

I'm not. Furthermore, wasn't there a once in a lifetime eclipse just a few years back?

But the media industrial complex hype has been building and building and... Who knows, the weather might not even be good. And if you look at the sun unaided/unfiltered you'll go blind, or damage your eyes irreparably. Furthermore, as the techies say, there is friction, you've got to buy these eclipse glasses in order to view the phenomenon, or else build some refractory hodgepodge device from a cereal box... Does any adult other than Seinfeld even eat cereal? I certainly don't have a box in my cupboard.

And if for some reason you're not interested in the eclipse, or just hunger to be part of something when there is nothing, when no center truly exists, you can glom on to the "Cowboy Carter" hype. It's endless. Story after story. Makes you not want to listen to the damn Beyoncé album. And who's got time to do that anyway?

Meanwhile, if you want to talk about a true superstar, with longevity, we can discuss Emma Chamberlain.

WHO?

I didn't know either, until I read this story in yesterday's "Wall Street Journal":

"Emma Chamberlain Won't Be Putting Her Kids Online - The YouTube star talks about combating perfectionism, being a boss and the food that frightens her"

Free link: https://shorturl.at/wxIX5f

Let me remind you, we live in a pull economy, not a push economy. You can continue to push it on us, but we can very easily ignore it. This is one reason the mainstream media has such a bad rep, it seems to be playing to people that don't exist, or that we don't want to be associated with. I mean I'm gonna travel to see some natural event that will be better in photos anyway? That I might not even be able to see because of clouds?

As for "Cowboy Carter"... It's like we're living in the last century, in the physical world. There's no longer a Grammy bounce, and that's what all this "Cowboy Carter" hype is about, well, partially. Hoping looky-loos will... Exactly what? In the old days the goal was to get someone to buy the CD. After that, who cared what they did with it, even if they listened at all. Today, you go to your streaming platform of choice and you stream the entire album one time, which you won't do, because it's so long, and that counts as...twenty seven streams? Talk about a pebble in the ocean. Today's music business is all about consumption, CONTINUED CONSUMPTION! Do you know what I'm interested in? What the numbers for "Cowboy Carter" are a year from now!

Like the inane Luminate charts published every week in old school media. Number one is an album that most people have never heard of. And are not interested in hearing. And they get there through an arcane system of counting that the labels manipulate. Did you see that Billie Eilish complained about the multiple versions of physical albums used to game the chart? She said it was waste, even though she did it too. You've got to go to number one to appear to be a star... But that's a big issue amongst the younger generation, waste, the climate, the environment. And the music business is on the wrong side here. Eilish believes the acts/labels are preying on the fans and the byproduct is physical waste. I mean how many copies of an album do you even need?

So I started asking around, was anybody else obsessed with the eclipse?

So far I haven't found anyone. Sure, that's just the people I know, but that's the point, it's the people I know, and those are the ones I care about.

I mean who are these doofuses pushing these stories we're not interested upon us. Ever hear of backlash? We've got a whole political party running on it. They're angry about what the other party is doing, and the anger is oftentimes stoked in media that is far from mainstream. Even the "Wall Street Journal," the right wing paper of record, is not fully onboard the Trump train, blowing the locomotive whistle.

So I pull the news. And if you don't...you're victimized by what is pushed to you, which can be inaccurate. But the reason I mention I pull the news is because after reading about Emma Chamberlain, I researched her, I went to Wikipedia, I watched some of her videos. And I can see why she's a big star, she's relatable. In a world where songs are written by committee, fodder for AI scrapers, Ms. Chamberlain is an individual. She evidences her personality, her quirks. And her brand extension is into coffee, which for years she has testified about, it's a core interest of hers. Far different from the "musicians" going into any vertical that will pay. One of the most successful brand extensions ever was Beats headphones. The sound sucked, with overemphasized bass, you couldn't find a single good review, but the story was great, that this was the right thing for Dr. Dre to put his money, time and attention into.

So the news makes me feel like an alien, or at least alienated. It is written for someone... Who exactly is that someone? A person who only gets information from approved news sources, the last century behemoths, who buys what they anoint hook, line and sinker?

And the mainstream media is anti-smartphone and anti-social media. They want it stopped. They want kids off their devices. Instead, they should look at why kids, adults, everybody is on their devices. Their feed is personalized to THEM! That's the future, getting the news you want. Isn't that the essence of TikTok, the algorithm, which even Instagram/Facebook hasn't been able to replicate? And not only are we all interested in different stuff, we love the humanity of social media, we love seeing what other people are doing. Meanwhile, in the "New York Times" we see wealthy wankers at charity events. The hoi polloi are never invited and believe these no-name rich people are empty vessels.

Our world has been decentralized. And the mainstream media acts like it is not. And that is confounding.

The luxury of the present era is you don't have to experience anything you don't want to. No Drake, no Taylor Swift, no Beyoncé. This is not Top Forty of the sixties or MTV of the eighties, never mind the three TV networks of yore. But legacy media keeps believing that this is the era we live in, the past, when we positively live in the future.

Meanwhile, we keep being told to be scared of AI, when we're already using it. That predictive text on your iPhone? That's AI. As is the info telling you how long your return drive will be, even though you didn't ask. As for musicians... Sure, we can talk about the scraping of your wares the AI companies are employing, that's a legitimate issue. But AI will end up just being another tool, like the drum machine before it. They keep telling us the sky is falling, but it doesn't. Meanwhile, how am I supposed to pay my bills? This is another disconnect, Biden and the news keep telling us the economy is roaring, the stock market is soaring, but grocery bills are out of sight. Don't tell me it's not Biden's fault, don't tell me by almost all metrics the economy truly is good, what has that got to do with me? Once again, the people parading in power are disconnected from what is happening on the street.

So if you want to watch the eclipse, be my guest. That's another feature of the new century, do what you want, as long as it doesn't affect me, cool. And I'm going to do what I want. All this hogwash about the Democrats taking away our freedom... We do have to manage misinformation, otherwise...we're in the world we're in right now. But in truth, you've never had so much freedom, so much access at your fingertips.

So I ain't gonna make an effort. I might notice some darkness if I go outside, but this is not my first rodeo. During that massive eclipse of just a few years back I peeked out the window, saw it was kind of dark for the time of day, and went back to sleep. Back in 1970 I skied through an eclipse. Got a bit dark, but it didn't bother me. And people have been telling me my entire life not to stare at the sun, why would I do so now?

And the eclipse isn't the only thing I can miss. I can miss movies and TV shows and records... They don't appeal to me, I don't want to spend the time. And no one I know is making a valid case that I need to spend the time. There are very few people I trust. Hell, every week I read Ron Charles's e-mail on books from the "Washington Post." And then I research the books and reserve at the library those that appeal to me. I changed the email for my WaPo subscription and somehow the Charles e-mail disappeared, and I missed it. But so much I don't miss. They could stop writing about "Cowboy Carter" and the damn eclipse right now.

But I will look at the pics after the fact. For a second or two.

And then I'm going back to my own life, with a zillion choices, personalized to me and me only.

This is too big a paradigm, too big a change for traditional news outlets to get their grip on. So what do they do? NOTHING! Just repeat the old formula and push back against change. Meanwhile, in most cases their audience keeps shrinking.

As Jim Carroll once sang, "I'm just a constant warning to take the other direction."

Although in truth, you already are.

Eclipse, schmiclipse. NEXT!


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