masu-comi
An Interview with Hal Niedzveicki.
This guy is going to be at UW this afternoon. (at 4, in the STJ common room).
I'd really like to go, having read the interview. But I've got this work thing. Maybe I can duck out early. We'll see how things are going around 3:30.
This, though, is something that's been pre-occupying me for a while now. This is why I like the Internet. It's why a tightening copyright noose annoys me. It's not that consumption is bad, as some (Hal too, probably) would hold, it's that production—production of ideas, especially—is good. If people like bubblegum and popcorn mass-media, great! But there should be more, for the people who want more. And people will make more, if you give them half a chance. People should get involved, make their own stuff, explore their own ideas. I should be able to consume lots of crazy nonsense from all over the place. I should also be able to put my own crazy nonsense out there for public consumption. That's what Clone*Army was supposed to be about (in my mind, anyway).
"Adbusters and Negativland aren't a solution, they are part of the very same thing." I like this. When you obsess about corporate mass media, you're still buying into it. Why? If you don't like it, don't. Don't tell me I can't like something. Then what? Tell me there's something else out there that I might be interested in. Then I might start paying attention. I want to try different things.
Mass media gives a sense of belonging. It's unifying. That's what culture is. Mass media culture panders to the lowest common denominator, which is fine. All culture does. I'm sure people get frustrated and see conspiracy theories. I don't, really. I want to see smaller niche subcultures, though. Where the common denominator isn't quite so low. That may sound elitist, but I don't think it has to be. The trick is either getting enough people into those niches so there's critical mass to create something interesting, or making it so cheap to make things that you don't need lots and lots of people to start producing. The Internet facilitates both those things. That's not a pie-in-the-sky prediction. That's what it's doing right now.