You see? If I'd wanted to I could have given a keynote talk at Manchester's FutureEverything festival/event thing. All you had to do was invoke the now widely held belief that t'internet is fundamentally changing society in ways that only Manchester's Digital Creatives truly understand. The message was simple: Teach the peasants we are not going back; the 'Spinning Jenny' is here to stay. Oh, and while you're at it, make some money off those farmers and land managers who think they have to keep up or else the crop will fail for good.
Okay, so let's leave the Industrial Revolution metaphors behind (if only the majority of speakers at FutureNothing could have taken that advice) and step back a bit.
Yes, society has changed and is changing. Very quickly. Ask your grandparents what was happening in sixties and they'll tell you the same; spaceflight! television! Ask your parents what was happening in the eighties and they'll tell you the same; the VCR! compact discs! But, you know, none of these things actually changed human social behaviour. We just had more to talk about.
And there are those of us who cast a jaded eye on the kind of events of which FutureEverything is a perfect example and think the same thing. Is there actually more content in the world nowadays? Some observers, perhaps even most people wouldn't hesitate to say "of course there is". But, if you can think back before the Web, to a time when taking up a new hobby invariably meant popping into W H Smiths to browse the hobby magazine section, a sobering thought might occur to you. Whether it was trains, amateur photography or rock climbing you were faced with a range of mags all vying for your immediate attention and after glancing through the pages you were reluctantly forced to purchase a single copy of a single title. But, of course, what you may have noticed is that all the magazines on a particular subject would carry advertisements by the same advertisers; the same new products were being reviewed; the latest news and events were being promoted... Yes, it was the same amount of information being thinly spread out and presented in different ways in a handful of similar magazines.
Now if I can drag you out of that newsagents into 2011... The Web is the biggest W H Smith you can possibly imagine and under 'Amateur Photography' you will find more 'magazines' than you could browse in a hundred thousand lifetimes. But it's just the same amount of information being spread ever more wafer thin. A new camera will have ten thousand reviews, all listing the manufacturer's specifications. An advertisement for a photographic exhibition will be potentially seen by a million viewers.
And so to FutureEverything, an event that is almost completely self-promoting in that not only those involved in it, but even those merely interested in it, will endlessly blog and tweet in the preceding weeks leading up to the event (though, perhaps rather peculiarly, appear to then fall dead silent once it's finished). The plethora of techie, geeky, digerati-related blogs and websites will fill up with 'news' about the event, announcements of guest speakers... and even during the event the humble hash tag will mean they can all txt and tweet to each other - even when they are separated by tens of yards.
"speakr just said something really interesting"
But guess what - and I think you understand where I'm coming from now - IT'S THE SAME STUFF BEING SPREAD EVER MORE THINLY.
There is something quite repugnant about the media-consultant types who attend festivals and conferences like this one. Vested-interest professionals, they habitually liken everyone else as peasants in the face of this Digital Revolution, promulgating the idea of 'free' content for all, whilst trousering their public speaking/consultancy fees. They tend to shrug off the idea of a flattened mediocre mass culture crayoned by a multitude of ill-informed amateurs - the direct result of Web 2.0, but when it's all over will be found sitting in their first class train carriage listening to music or watching video on their iPhones that could never, ever have been produced by such an under-achieving, lacklustre underclass of 'hopefuls'.
And the final irony of all this is that it is now finally blogged about by yet another wannabe creative artist who, in spite of tweeting some belated advertisements linking to it, will be lucky to get a comment.
*By the way, this only applies to the speakers - the Music and Art at FutureEverything were excellent ;/)
5 comments:
There is definitely an idea worth pursuing here, but Web 2.0 is hardly responsible for the glut of talentless no-hopers presently filling our screens.
I largely agree with your idea though.
No no no no no no!!! Did you even go to FutureEverything??
FutureEverything is a celebration primarily music and art - the speakers were largely superflous to the real creative talent that flocked to the event. Wouldn't you have been better off tackling the kind of event where there are nothing but media consultants than something which by and large had a lot of integrity?
YOU ARE ATTACKING THE WRONG TARGAT! Couoldn't you of at least added another blog entry about the art and music you liked at FurtureEverything?
You know, in hindsight, perhaps I need to restructure this entry to draw attention away to the music & art of FutureEverything which - as I keep having to say - I THOUGHT WAS VERY GOOD.
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