Let's Rave On; Podcast Up the Volume

I just got a shiny new ibook laptop, which means I’m officially a ‘switcher’ or am now ‘batting for the other team’ or ‘out of the closet’ or whatever people call it these days. I switched from a windows operating system to an Apple one, and I did so because I felt that all of the features on a Mac would make me love computers in a way a window’s machine never could. Immediately I found a deluge of programs and applications waiting to be caressed by supple manipulations. Things were exactly as they said they’d be. With a little help from my friends I was soon computing in a way the prophecies had only ever mentioned in passing.

One application that can absolutely be overlooked by the average consumer but beloved by those who desire to take advantage of the process is the built in microphone (or the just-as-easy external one) which is compatible with garagetunes, the music mixing program bundled with the basic programs. This essentially allows people to record their own voices and whatever music and/or funny noises to an mp3 file, which are all the fundamental ingredients to this relatively new form of media called podcasts. Ever since Adam Curry launched the very first one in 2004, there have been roughly 10,000 people follow in his footsteps. That’s a lot of Christian Slater wannabes.

This is actually a lot like the end of Pump Up The Volume, where even though Slater’s show got taken off the air, a bunch of other kids decided to try it out for themselves and give ‘free speech’ a shot. Podcasting gives everyone with recording equipment a voice. And people are listening, According to MSNBC over 6 million people are tuning in. That’s an enormous audience for a grassroots form of media in its infancy.

And while it’s only a matter of time before the big giant companies get a hold of a proper way to make money off of it, it’s going to stay relatively independent. The fact is there’s just nothing illegal or immoral about getting a couple of friends in your room to discuss the latest episode of Grey’s Anatomy. What’s great is that there’s clearly an audience who wants to participate in this sort of thing. Are you one of them?

So we’ve got a bunch of eager kids who have stuff to say, an eager audience starving for radio (and still unwilling to pay for premium streams from either Sirius or WOXY or others) a great portable way to carry these things around, an induction into the Oxford English Dictionary , and it’s very own class action lawsuit. It looks like we can officially call this thing a success and move on to more pressing things, like completely ignoring its existence.

Yes, it’s alluring to think that at any moment you can get the news or tv shows or analysis to either for free and on demand, but what is that really going to give us? It’s going to give us what the internet promised years ago; a community where knowledge flows everywhere to everyone. Democracy. Freedom. But are these things we really want?

This has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with consumerism. Forget the 6 million people who have already done the podcasting thing. If this is really going to be a cultural phenomena it has to be available to a wide variety of things while at the same time not confusing people with way, way too much choice. There’s a cliché that states “given too many options, people tend to choose none.” There’s also a book of research done by Barry Schwartz called “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less.” In it he states “Faced with choice overload, people typically respond in one of three ways: We freeze and make no choice. We make the wrong choice. Or we make the right choice but question our decision. Even though you have no reason to be displeased, you’re just sure you could have done better.” Now, he’s talking about financial plans and things like that, but the same ideas apply. Does the internet, with it’s limitless array of knowledge, offer us too much choice?

I feel this when faced with a site like myspace, a blog site that offers profiles and mp3’s for 138,733 bands at press time. That turns me off for three reasons. The first is that I absolutely do not have the time to even begin going through that kind of list. The second is that I know if I do try, I will probably spend three weeks before finding something I like. The third reasons is that if I end up finding lots that I like, I will never find time for anything else ever again, much like the vast population of emo kids as of late.

So when I hear that there are 10,000 podcasts, I know that it’s a pointless venture. Sure, there’s probably some really good stuff in there somewhere, but I just have way too much going on in my life right now to care. That’s why there’s only 6 million podcasters out there (several of them very, very Christian) and over 20 million people that own ipods, let alone other mp3 players.

And in this we have the paradox of Pump Up the Volume. With Christian Slater being the only guy with a guerrilla radio show, everyone listened. When everyone else decided to do their own, there is absolutely no possible way it would work in the same way. Another old cliché still holds true; if everyone is doing it, it can’t be cool.

But at the same time I have to argue my own point, because really my point is a very totalitarian one, and saying that Christian Slater’s side of Pump Up The Volume is better is saying that having no choice is better than having every choice. I hope podcasting works, and I hope that everyone finds one that suits them and they support it. It is really a very remarkable media and it has the potential to give a voice to regular people in a way text on the internet only hints at, since using your real voice or your real face gives you way more authority on the internet than simply your words. Once, the net had a chance to give its words real authority, but was ruined by people posing as other people. You can’t really do that with a podcast.

I don’t have a conclusion for this story, so much as the means for a discussion. I want you to really put some thought into this as an idea. What is better; absolute authority when it comes to our entertainment, or absolutely no authority? One the one hand you have a corporate world of professional newsmakers, entertainers, and surveyors. On the other is a loud and messy group of regular people doing their best at something new. Is there a possibility of the two working together? Or will one inevitably crush the other, regardless of public opinion? What side would you be on, if it came down to it?

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Michaelangelo gives us the skinny on one of them myspace bands, The Sounds.

Mathan says exactly what I wanted to say about hip hop this week. Interesting note about it. In my theatre class the monday after the award shows, just about everyone there agreed that 3 six Mafia deserved it. Bizarre.

Tom gives praise to Slipknot, something I haven’t seen since 1999. But he’s proving me right from two weeks ago. There’s nobody in the indie sphere that’s this nice to their genre.

Gloomchen delves into the thick deadly rainforest that is myspace to help the children. Bless her.