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9:49:00 AM EST
Hearing These Days -- 10,000 Maniacs
Technoslaves
Here are a couple of stories which accentuate the idea, forwarded by the existential philosopher Tyler Durden, that the things we own soon come to own us. The first relates to TiVo users who feel trapped because they record more shows on their TiVos than they can possibly watch, yet feel obligated to watch them:
"For something that is supposed to be relaxing and unwinding at the end of the day, you (think) 'Wow! I have a lot of shows to watch,'" said Scott Bedard, technology director at an online media company in San Francisco. "Will I ever catch up?" he worries aloud.
Really, these people need to beaten harshly back into the direction of reality. And yet, I understand -- I have a PVR through my Dish Network setup that's filled with movies that I haven't gotten around to watching, and I feel like I should watch them, since I recorded them. But, you know. Life. More imporant than TV. Strange but true. I end up tossing a lot of stuff I've recorded. There are 43,000 channels these days. It'll almost certainly be on again, at some time, somewhere, for the rest of my life.
Second story: People who are worried that other people will judge them by their iTunes playlists, which can be viewed by other people on one's local words. In other words, once they see how much Billy Joel you've got in your musical library, you'll never date a hot chick again. This leads to much editing of playlists by those concerned with appearances:
"I had a lot of show tunes I had to get rid of," [Wesleyan student Stephen Aubrey] said. "And a lot of punk pop from my earlier days like Green Day and Blink-182."
Losers! The lot of you! In the spirit of flagrantly being who I am (and because I'm 34 and married and just don't care), allow me to list The Uncoolest Bands I Have on my iTunes Playlist: A-Ha. Bee Gees. Doobie Brothers. John Denver. Journey. Enya. Iron Maiden. Paul McCartney. Matchbox Twenty. God help us all, I've got the Carpenters. Why? 'Cause I like 'em, that's why, and not just in that ironic, smirky Gen-X way.
Your turn: Tell me the uncoolest music you have on your computer. Clearly, I won't mock you for it. Unless it's, you know, Styx.
Written by johnmscalzi Blog about this entry |
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We don't need no steenken itunes playlist - we have 500MB of wav, midi, mp3's and <gasp> mods! Can you say "Dark Ages of personal computing" or perhaps "Life on the rusty edge"?
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I had the same problem with my VCR. I was setting the timer and recording a lot. Finally got tired of it, but have boxes of stuff on tape.
The Doobies aren't cool? Well "Black Water" is still cool, right? I'm not worried about my music seeming uncool. I've never cared too much about the popular music. My kids have put some bad songs on the computer. The one I put on there that I would have the hardest time explaining is Richard Thompson doing Britany Spears's "Oops, I Did it Again." -
Well I've encoded my whole CD collection to mp3 and run the resulting 7,200 +/- tunes off an iPod clone plugged into my stereo. And I get embarassed when the two Billy Joels, the Eagle Eye Cherry, the couple of AC-DC tunes that accidently followed me home from KaZaa, and just about anything by the Eagles pop up in rotation and there's someone else around. Oh yeah, and the Turtles doing It Ain't Me, Babe. I lay that one off on my wife.
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Whoever thinks Showtunes aren't cool hasn't listened to "Avenue Q" -- I think "The Internet is for Porn" is required listening. Then again, my playlist has that Chumbawamba song on it, so perhaps I am not the best musical authority.
1/23/08 10:01 AM
welcome to the technocracy....now rant on the technoslave arm of big brother. We're entering an age that in a scary way futurists like Huxley and Wells predicted we would.