Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Myspace blogs, Get rid of commercials, Thank You.

I went looking today for Blogs on Myspace that actually say something... thinking that a Blog is actually a journal or diary or something, or even a media in which people actually have some sort of civilized conversations about something... A Blog for all seasons.

I'm probably wrong in the conclusion that there are no people out there that actually have something to say that the world wants to hear. When I looked at the most popular blogs, I saw that people want to hear the words of famous people. So you have to be famous to be paid attention to. In today's society, that makes sense. You transfer to the Internet, a place where everyone is equal and can speak their mind, the heirarchy of fame, fortune, and fortunateness that people have in real life. Sure, there are places on the Internet where the oppressed and the minorities speak. I know of a few of them, but they are also places you must find, seeking vigilantly. And those are the places that the Internet is actually built for. But if you look at MySpace, it is a commerically created format for people who are already famous to "get in touch" with their fans, or for everyday people to put silly photos, call each other names, and interact with each other in the way they would in real life, except for they aren't. It brings about the paradox of the Internet. A new way of communicating, and in effect, it has brought in a new kind of incommunication. And in part, capitalism is to blame.

In the past, each new medium of communication has brought in a wave of capitalistic ventures, that, while effective to some extent, basically it litters the medium with useless, barely tolerable information. Starting with radio (actually, newspapers, but I won't go back that far.) the airwaves are filled with commericals that actually take up more time than the program their trying to pay for. Trying to listen to Steve and Vicky in the morning on Star 94 is a futile exercise, unless I just want to hear the traffic (at 6:45am). Between the endless commericals and the truly awful songs (thank goodness the Fray are still getting some playtime), there's nothing coming out of my speakers but noise pollution. Information that must be weeded out and discarded like so much junk.

Same thing with TV. Commercials on TV are simply time for me to get something to eat or to pee. There are times that the commericals are on I forget what I'm watching and try to find something else on. The only good part about some commericals nowadays is that they are often better than the show that is playing. No one watches the Super Bowl for the game anymore. It's for the commercials.

Another medium invented for communication... the telephone. Enter in the capital venture of Telemarketers.

And then the computer revolution. E-mail particularly is a medium that is awash with uneeded trash from businesses and (often illegal) other schemes to take your money. SPAM. It gets so that people don't want to check their e-mail or even give it out because they don't want their mailboxes polluted with junk. (Which goes for snail-mail as well. I get so much junk mail now, but it all goes into the trash, just like the Spam goes into the Spam folder and then deleted. No problem for me, but others see it as a burden more than Atlas had to bear.)

So the solution for all this? Invent ways to climb over the advertisements.... and charge for it! Make money to get rid of the people trying to contact you to make money. It's a self-fulfilling cycle. For phones, there are those telemarketer zapppers. For e-mail, countless spam programs (some scam ones actually act in the opposite way, telling you to get rid of spyware and spam, but actually, it collects your information and sends you more e-mails and spyware.... ) have been created, and while some companies have free ones, it still doesn't make any sense why we have to put up with it in the first place.

The radio has XM, Cable has HBO and premium channels, programs like Eudora will get rid of advertising if you pay them money. The medium becomes purposefully aggrivating, so that you pay that same medium money to get it to shut up! It's like that Merriachi band in the Mexican restaraunt. They play for your entertainment, but they are also playing for you so that you will pay them money to make them go away!

So where was I... oh yes... back to MySpace. I look at some of my friends pages, and they simply are advertisements for one company or the other, or for some band or whatever, and while I do wholeheartedly agree that supporting the businesses you use is great, the medium of MySpace is supposed to be used for communication with friends, classmates, business prospects...etc. Instead, all you have are advertisements, people sending spam , flashy graphics that have a link to the graphic makers website..etc.. The communication breaks down. The real person is no longer there. Instead, it is replaced by capitalistic nonsense. That's why my MySpace page looks so dull, because I will not have that stuff littering my page unless I put it there myself. I endorse Neopets, and Transformers, and all the music I listen to. They can stay on my page, but that's it. If I want to know what's going on with a band I listen to, I'll go to their page and look. They don't need to send me anything. Obtrusiveness becomes an interruption. Uneeded communcation leads to noise pollution and discarded information.

I look over at my blog totals, and it says that 341 separate looks have been made on my blogs... And while I want people to read it, I cannot help but think that there are programs out there that are scanning blogs for keywords so that they can send an e-mail to my box advertising this or that. I hope that people are reading this... but I don't care whether anyone actually is or not. I'm sharing my journal cause that's what I want to do. No one's ever responded to them, out of 341 people, so what makes me think that any of them are actually reading it. (I know that my friends are, from time to time, so some of them are real, and I greatly appreciate them.) If someone likes what I say, send me a note and say so. That's true communication, that's what MySpace is for. All I see on other pages is mostly junk.

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I wanted to say something about Christmas, but since Orson Scott Card has said it so wonderfully on his "blog," and that since I agree with his statements, I'll refer you to his page. That is a blog that is worth reading every week. Amazing insights, and I value his movie reviews above most other critics out there. I can't wait to see what he thought about the Eragon movie. Go see this weeks review at this page, and read some of the rest of it too. His analysis of the Middle East conflict is amazing as well.

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On a small review note, you must go to Germany and buy a copy of Declan Galbraith's new CD, Thank You. He takes contemporary classics like Eric Clapton's 'Tears in Heaven" or Art Garfunkel's "Bright Eyes" (a hit in UK, not here) and blends in his spectacular voice. You might be able to pick it up (here in the US) from Amazon or from Half.com or Ebay, because they're not selling it yet here. You can download (legally) songs from his first album, or buy it off Amazon as well. I'll put a link of that one here.

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