[News x Ideas] Online Media King Kanye Reminds of What Remains #Offline
Twitpic via Yancy Strickler.
It's indicative of the technological squalor we live in when multi-act concert titles begin to incorporate twitter hashtags (#) and not-really-kidding reminders that a concerts are "special" experiences. Perhaps it isn't generally understood these days, as I had hoped, that concerts are "special" because unlike most of our twenty-first century musical "experiences" (virtual, online experiences, that is), real-life concerts and their nominal markers of tickets, beer, sweat, and sound systems, are of the few music-involved experiences that remain outside the tightly encircling realm of virtual reality. You would think that sobering fact alone would be enough to keep the concert tradition alive and well, but evidently the youth needs a lesson and the know-betters need a reminder. To counter the internet monopoly, concert promoters have begun to outwardly react to an important consequence of our post-virtual consumptive consciousness: it is no longer enough to sell a concert on the fact it is a "live" experience. CONTINUE READING