Inclusion Is Addictive
Lichen, who’s had a great string of posts lately, pointed out Amy Campbell’s website, which opens with the following:
So I guess this myspace thing is going to catch on.
I resisted for a long time. These things make me nervous – myspace, messenger, emoticons… I can’t help but see it as some sinister forerunner of the complete degredation of language and of human interaction. I’m worried about a generation of people who’s definition of “friendship” consists first and foremost of an anonymous exchange of links.
Maybe it’s the way that words lose their meaning that scares me… “friend”, “buddy”, “comment” … These things used to require effort, investment, thought and emotional risk. At first I was sending a personal note, intoducing myself, with each “friend request” I made to an artist I admire. But within a week I came to realize that myspace culture doesn’t even require this… “add”, “approve”, “deny” … that’s all there is to it. But somewhere in the back of my mind, a little voice keeps chiming “Approval and the approve button are not the same thing”….
But let’s be honest, what scares me the most is how easily I’m getting sucked in. “Friend requests” inflate my ego… Pending requests hurt my feelings … Just a little, but enough to make me worry. The amount of time I spend (and could, if I let myself) fiddling around with this thing is truly alarming.
I want my music to be delivered by hand, to people in a room, whose faces I can see. I want to make contact using all my senses… And while I realize that the improved communication methods of the electronic age needn’t threaten that, I’m afraid of the day when we can’t muster the motivation to go out and make and hear music in real life.
It’s the search for deeper meaning I feel becoming obscured. And it troubles me that my first instinct in the search for deeper meaning is to google it.
That said, I’m still hoping you’re going to click the link above and give me some approval.
see you out there,
Amy Campbell
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