I have a good friend who’s using Kickstarter to finance the editing of a documentary he’s working on. Now, I have lots of thoughts about Kickstarter, most of which don’t really belong in this here newsletter; but the thing that caught my interest on this particular day was the fact that, apparently, some of my friend’s Kickstarter pledges are people he’s never met. That’s right, he’s gotten a little viral action out of the social aspect of Kickstarter – and I’ve gotta say, I still don’t get it. At all.
I’m pretty sure I’ve ranted about Facebook and Twitter at various points before, and perhaps you’ve been amused, in an “oh, look at the old guy shaking his cane at the children” sort of way. And certainly, I find my own vituperative contempt for both of them kind of entertaining, just as I laugh at my own jokes, and dance around the house playing the song I just finished until my wife, She Who Must Be Taunted, produces a weapon. But these social platforms just keep multiplying, like weeds: FourSquare (“Hi, I’m the mayor of my local convenience store, and yes, you may rob my house now”), Google+ (the plus stands for extra advertising), Kickstarter. I’m sure you can recommend groceries to other people on Peapod now. And I cannot for the life of me figure out why people bother.
The reason this comes to mind this morning is that there was an article this weekend in the Globe about the pressure people feel to feed their social media while they’re on vacation (“This waterproof phone is just the greatest – oops, shark. Call Aruba 911! I’m at the b”). And the next day, there was an article in the Globe magazine (see, I still read the dead trees every day, which may be part of the problem) about introverts and their issues with social media. And I’m thinking that there must be something to the introvert thing.
Those of you who have seen me on stage may be surprised to discover that I’m an introvert. But I am. Really, truly. My ego might be as big as a house, but I’m frequently, agonizingly aware of the effect it might have on others, and I can’t see why anyone would care to experience it. The reason I can do it on stage is that I’ve grown convinced that my act is genuinely entertaining, and my songs are genuinely appealing, and that it’s OK to own the stage under those circumstances; but blowing my own horn in other circumstances is somewhat foreign to me.
I remember one time I was at the Sittin’ Bull, hanging out with John Schindler, and I was bitching about not getting noticed, or some sort of nonsense like that, and he said, “Hey, there’s my friend over their from Worcester who has a folk radio show. Lemme introduce you.” Which he did. And I asked the DJ how the show was going, how long he’d been doing it, etc., when clearly the script demanded that I find a way to talk up my own music. But all I could think was: everybody must do this to him, and he must hate it. Why should I add to his misery?
At this point, the self-promoters in the audience will be nodding their heads at each other, and turning to their students, and saying, “Freeze the tape right there. See? Basic mistake. Never, ever care about whether your audience is interested.” And they’re right. I’m pretty sure Lady Gaga has never stood in front of the mirror and thought, “You know, these platform shoes with the goldfish swimming in them – that’s a little much.” It’s probably more like, “You know, these platform shoes with the goldfish swimming in them – can we make the goldfish glow in the dark?”
And then there’s the live performance thing. The only reason I bother with the music business is because I have just fallen in love with live performance. I’ve played to the items of furniture in my living room, and I can assure you that they don’t know how to applaud nearly as well as you folks do. And I’m not sure there’s any quantity of Facebook likes that could compare to the experience of a single good audience reaction. I was at the Lizard Lounge the other night, and I did my new song, “Salvation”, and I have no idea what those people were smoking, but they laughed harder, and longer, at that song than any song I’ve ever done, anywhere, period. There is no amount of Internet traffic that could possibly make me anywhere near as happy.
Vain? Sure. But you knew that – I’m a performer, after all. But trolling for Facebook likes is just another kind of vanity, and I like the live kind of vanity. And when you put that together with the introvert thing, and the fact that my day job has me spending more than enough time with computers, thank you very much, you’ve got pretty much the perfect storm of contempt for social media.
Now, I know what you’re going to tell me. It’s just another way of connecting, it leads to other opportunities, etc., etc., and I’m missing out by participating as little as I do. And I know that, at least intellectually. But I can’t shake the feeling that it’s all fake, that it doesn’t count. There are millions of housebound old folks, millions of gay teens stuck in white bread fundamentalist Middle America, millions of other people lining up to tell me I’m wrong. My wife is probably one of those people, along with all of my friends who get annoyed when I haven’t read their latest Facebook update. But I can’t help it. It makes no sense to me. It means nothing.
Many years ago, a friend of mine played for me a recording of Frank Sinatra singing “Mrs. Robinson”. It was God-awful – exactly how you’d imagine a lounge singer would sound singing 60’s pop music. It was not in his blood, and there was nothing he could do about it. And so it is with me. Sure, I have a Facebook fan page, and I’ll update it occasionally. And yes, I have plans to set up a YouTube channel, and get my music on iTunes. But it’s not real to me, and the people for whom it’s real are going to eat my lunch. You might think that it wouldn’t be so bad being Frank Sinatra – unless, of course, the world is expecting Paul Simon.