today I clean up my Facebook account not exclusively because of the new Facebook… it's about preparation for the new internet.
yes, that's right… the new internet is upon us.
the one coming. where they turn your life into a timeline and ultimately like a t.v. show... and they follow you and share everything, not just what you want... and the privacy stuff will be so convoluted you'll need a tech degree to understand how they fuck you/sell you or perhaps a app that protects your other apps.
social media has been a great addition to communication and I'm sure will continue to be a useful tool. the evolution and greatness of, will depend on how free it is… free not only in cost, but more importantly, free in expression.
for me, I liked it just fine back in 2001 when I started broadcasting/streaming audio and eventually podcasting from my home studio… the only on-line tool that has improved my ability to communicate has been that of video technology implemented by youtube… the rest of it, the name brands, the social on-line hang outs… it's just more of the same shit.
for entertainers, authors ect. the new FB is no longer a good thing in my book. it can be, just depends on how we use and don't use these tools of communication... and more importantly how we understand how we are used by these tools or, who's the tool, tool.
the kind of changes Facebook is about to implement will finally and once again separate the pro's from the not-consistent yahoo's and morons who think posting a picture makes them a photographer, or who, because they can twitter to a steven king, because they hang out on-line "with" a great and accomplished author, they are now just as talented as said author.
greatness in art isn't aways agreeable, so maybe I should equate this to do'ers and do nothings and the fact that just because folks hang out with do'ers, doesn't mean they 've done anything… it certainly doesn't guarantee they'll even be inspired to do anything and if the do'er does inspire, it turns into the plagerism, today, in the social media landscape, inspiration equals plagiarism and theft of ideas.
talent by association is a virus created by social media.
doing by doing nothing is a plague created by social media.
inspiration turning to plagiarism has become acceptable thanx to social media.
like I said, the new internet can be a good thing... IF those who create beyond content, beyond the endless stream of cat photos and trivial complaints go their own way. the artist, the author, the creator, they need to hold back… it's time for the pro communicators to separate themselves from the virtual scrap booking and endless stream of BBQ and vacation photos.
if the creative elite can refrain from exclusively 'using' the free services available and house their work on their own website using their own server… this will define the professional creator/artist and separate them from the amateur. and they, the consummate consumer will come running for decent art vs. common content. if the pro's don't share it all, their 'friends' list will bore the consumer back to the movies, back to the artist, the poet, the author.
for me, I've always had my own server, but I came into this game having studied the internet. I was a publisher of books and was one of the first publishers on-line and one who embraced print-on demand technology… and I've loved playing and communicating on the myspaces and facebooks of the world. now as those "social" sites turn into a hub of entertainment over communication, I'm 90% out of there.
yes, I'll keep a presence, but I'll keep all my photos and words on my site and my server alone… I just don't want Facebook or whoever the new facebook/social hang out is, I don't want them using recipes and photos I post in some stupid timeline and presented as my life story. for some wild reason, if that books gonna be written, I'd like to have more control over it.
and then there's the "TRUST US, NOT YOUR FRIENDS LIST" kind of programing going on with so-called 'privacy' settings…. we set "privacy" settings against our 'friends' but Facebook, they're of course a-ok.
the paranoid in me also finds the timing and 'evolution' of FB as suspect, an election year and the individual message is getting lost and the propaganda is overwhelming.
in a world where the corporation runs the show, you really need to pick and choose the corporation that fits into your politics, into your belief system… for me, Facebook isn't the one.
I'm choosing to choose, me - a corporation of one.
my new website will be up and running by nov. 9th.
shanebugbee.com is that site.
