i'm not saying anything anybody doesn't know, but, for my own purposes, i just want to have it out there:
national wealth has been significantly erased and unrecovered since the crash of 08. share of income for those outside the upper %s have been flat or declining for a generation. future prospects for returns to labor are not good either. we have high, and chronic unemployment. *youth* unemployment and labor force participation are even worse, are as bad as they've ever been. the numbers for the non-college educated are even more terrifying.
innovations in delivery have rendered old physical media more expensive than they were once worth. turning a dime off ears and eyeballs was fairly easy when the desired information moved on a chunk of vinyl or a sheet of newsprint. bits are cheap, which is a benefit as far as it goes, but it means both the initial supplier (read: the artist/writer) and the middlemen&women have hugely reduced budgets to do their work.
and so, the music industry is collapsing. the media is collapsing. music media is suffering a double collapse, AND young people -- both as consumer and talent pool -- are in the worst circumstances they've found themselves in since we've had rock music. it's stunning to put it that way, you know? put all together i don't think we've seen a worse decade in terms of the headwinds to this particular li'l cultural enterprise. sorry lefsetz, the few bright spot successes of the new models (carly rae? pitchfork itself?) are minor countercurrents to an overall decline.
it's no wonder that music and music media are necessarily shifting away from a consumer-funded one to one more nakedly tied to advertising and PR (though that relationship was always core to the old model anyway). nobody else has any money.
look, the whole ocean is drying up. what's ott's great idea? try to pick off the last few little fish taking a drink? it's pathetic as analysis. get a job? what job?
confronted with this basic contextual blindness he doubles back and says the old media world was just as compromised (prostitution ads in the alt-weeklies!!) and nobody should have ever cared about the subjects of paid writing to begin with -- remember in his vid the contention was that those new boston bands didn't deserve or merit any "national" coverage in the first place, so obviously the women who wrote about them were just happy to be stooges for spinmedia's shadowy backers.
― napgenius (goole), Thursday, 5 December 2013 19:52 (ten years ago) link
you're pulling a sliver of rational sentiment out of ott's quagmire of nonsense, phrasing it in a sympathetic form ott would never use, and defending it as if that's what people are critiquing. but i'm glad you're admitting to playing devil's advocate.
― da croupier, Thursday, December 5, 2013 2:44 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
No, people were arguing with the idea that it is super easy to get another job, which isn't what he was saying, and they were arguing with the seeming double standard that you can use tumblr or youtube or twitter but somehow other large money making companies are bad. Yet his point was that those platforms give you freedom to cover what you want and in the way you want. So it isn't some contradiction. (There were a few other examples too.) So as I said I was just trying to keep it within what, as far as I could tell, was his actual argument.
― Evan, Thursday, 5 December 2013 19:53 (ten years ago) link
xpost yeah, he uses guilt by association a lot: Pelly basically worked for a prostitution ring, Droste is a Nazi because his song was in a Volkswagen ad, etc.
― intheblanks, Thursday, 5 December 2013 19:56 (ten years ago) link
meanwhile Ott appears to work for a multinational alcohol conglomerate
Booming poost goole
― 乒乓, Thursday, 5 December 2013 19:56 (ten years ago) link
Haha does Ott really work for InBev. That would be rich
evan, if ott was simply arguing that creative freedom is most easily found outside of channels where corporations have the most control, no one would be debating him
― da croupier, Thursday, 5 December 2013 19:57 (ten years ago) link
which I have no problem with, but it's a weird position to get on that particular high horse about
― intheblanks, Thursday, 5 December 2013 19:57 (ten years ago) link
yup! like i said, sub-breitbart. droste hates gays because he's gay and doesn't have kids, he must be against gay adoption. iirc that was his schtick for a few minutes there.
people who reach for whatever shit they can sling in the moment because they're in an argument and just have to win really get stuck in my fucking craw
xp to intheblanks
― napgenius (goole), Thursday, 5 December 2013 19:59 (ten years ago) link
off topic and not to be sycophantic but i am particularly grateful that katherine (on ilx and wherever i've read her) always fights valiantly in discussion on topics related to sexism and music crit to avoid paying the the troll toll and to keep basic civility a base protocol. it's rare and appreciated.
― Strangers look on with a discernible, barely contained ‘wow’. (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:02 (ten years ago) link
goole otm+
― reggie (qualmsley), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:03 (ten years ago) link
― da croupier, Thursday, December 5, 2013 2:57 PM (50 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Yeah I agree that isn't all he was arguing, though I was trying to clear up the phantom arguments he never made in the first place. Saw some stuff misinterpreted imo and wanted to redirect energy to the shitty points that actually deserve it.
― Evan, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:03 (ten years ago) link
i do wonder how this week would be different for this lil circle of critic and critic-adjacents would be different if the videos were just "i like it out here. just a man, his camera, his pride in his trade, and his thoughts on curve. no paycheck on the line. no editor telling me the elders of zion want me to be nicer to curve. i hope someday you'll join me, and the world will live as one."
― da croupier, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:05 (ten years ago) link
good one
― you are kind, I am (waterface), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:06 (ten years ago) link
forgive the second "would be different" there, the perils of no editing
― da croupier, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:06 (ten years ago) link
I actually watched one of his Vimeo things from start to finish because that was literally what he was doing. Chris Ott, sitting in a chair framed by a sullen Massachussetts winter background talking about Curve
Or was that what you were referencing
― 乒乓, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:08 (ten years ago) link
indeed it is
― da croupier, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:09 (ten years ago) link
no editor telling me the elders of zion want me to be nicer to curve.
idk, do you have to do this? he's indulging in a whole lot of down-punching foolishness but not this particular socialism of fools.
― napgenius (goole), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:10 (ten years ago) link
it was a low blow and i apologize. but my point is that stuff is beautiful. he's got a decent visual sense for a vlogger and a decent on-screen persona, but no one watches it so he has to get closer to the camera and call out all the assholes tainting the love between a man and his shoegaze albums by writing listicles for money
― da croupier, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:12 (ten years ago) link
"No, people were arguing with the idea that it is super easy to get another job, which isn't what he was saying"
no, but he was telling everyone who gets paid for music writing that in order to be morally correct they should get another job, as evidenced by his pulling himself up by his bootstraps and getting one of the most competitive entry-level jobs in the world. and if not, then... forfeit all their income in the name of moral correctness? I said this earlier but if you want to tell me how I can and cannot make money then at least offer me a paycheck so I can do what you say
― katherine, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:12 (ten years ago) link
re: the "elders" bit pretend i wrote "the advertising-pr-industrial complex" or something
― da croupier, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:15 (ten years ago) link
no thanks
― you are kind, I am (waterface), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:16 (ten years ago) link
(man, why did i write that post here and not on my own tumblr? i coulda made something of myself, no hustle. oh well, it's all my employer's dime anyway. during daytime hours at least)
― napgenius (goole), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:18 (ten years ago) link
look, I don't know who you are, and I don't have any issue with you, and if I've said something wrong or bad or entitled or upset anyone, I truly apologize. this isn't sarcastic, it's sincere. but it just seems like as a writer, and as a writer who wants to do the right thing and not be a terrible person, one is at a loss
― katherine, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:19 (ten years ago) link
i think this dude's got some good ideas in the mix but now that he's found god he'd be better served delivering the word more like pope francis and less like reverend phelps.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:20 (ten years ago) link
Reminder that ILX is funded by ads and that stet drops the guillotine on anybody InBev tells him to
― 乒乓, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:20 (ten years ago) link
question: why are people so fascinated by / willing to engage with chris ott? hundreds of posts. days of twitter analysis. etc
― rap steve gadd (D-40), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:22 (ten years ago) link
beats workin i guess
― napgenius (goole), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:23 (ten years ago) link
because he's an extreme example of an familiar impulse and ideology, with sexism and bullying as garnish
― da croupier, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:23 (ten years ago) link
real answers: what he's saying are ideas that are kind of 'in the air' about the industry, what he has said has been needlessly crude and offensive to a lot of people, what he's said are particularly bad answers to good questions.
xp yeah, that
― napgenius (goole), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:24 (ten years ago) link
that's like asking "why are the kardashians famous"
― katherine, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:25 (ten years ago) link
plus goes without saying he solved the serious k + bennies code
― reggie (qualmsley), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:25 (ten years ago) link
Well I'm not about to go start reading the Marvel Puzzle Quest Support Group thread
― 乒乓, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:26 (ten years ago) link
JOIN US
― SHAUN (DJP), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:26 (ten years ago) link
― katherine, Thursday, December 5, 2013 3:12 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Actually, I'm honestly asking here cause I don't remember exactly how he put it- did he say "You're morally scum unless you get another job" or "don't delude yourself into thinking you're DIY or punk if you have this fabricated corporate force using you"? Because the freshest thing in my mind is that interview with him upthread which I think was closer to the latter. And it seemed to imply a "don't let yourself be used" angle.
― Evan, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:28 (ten years ago) link
hey did you guys hear they dropped the punisher cover today
― Strangers look on with a discernible, barely contained ‘wow’. (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:30 (ten years ago) link
issue 1233?
― reggie (qualmsley), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:34 (ten years ago) link
"Q: What else are you supposed to do? Especially for young people right now. I know tons of writers who are freelancers making so little money, or they're just flat-out unemployed.
A: Get a job. That’s what I did. I got a job.
Q: What about the people who believed they’d some day end up as a full-time writer, then a big shot editor, and they’d fulfill everything they’d ever dreamed of?
A: They’re fucking deluded. I didn’t think that when I was 22, so that’s why I didn’t try to do it. I got a job as an administrative assistant at a book publisher, making twenty-two grand. Everything else has been the sweat of my labor in my career."
― katherine, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:35 (ten years ago) link
We all better rally the wagons and write Tumblr posts and agonize over Twitter and get Impose to do an interview because some guy who hasn't logged a legitimate clip since 2006 made a video with 3,547 views.
― tuostprophets (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:36 (ten years ago) link
That video only got 3,457 views but every one of those viewers would later compromise their purity by writing a blurb promoting Deafheaven for InBev ad bucks funneled through a venture capitalist firm
― 乒乓, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:38 (ten years ago) link
Katherine, I guess I interpreted it as they're deluded if they don't want to compromise their writing for the sake of ad revenue and demographic targeting and whatever else would manipulate your ability to write freely and get paid that kind of money.
― Evan, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:39 (ten years ago) link
did he say "You're morally scum unless you get another job" or "don't delude yourself into thinking you're DIY or punk if you have this fabricated corporate force using you"?
4:25 of the vid, re: people writing for these companies, "I completely hold you in contempt"
― da croupier, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:39 (ten years ago) link
someday all this tribal warfare may cease
http://m.apnews.com/ap/pm_5067/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=1Gk7456P
― reggie (qualmsley), Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:39 (ten years ago) link
Took a while to get to the point where people are posting about this guy to ask why people are posting about him.
― Position Position, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:39 (ten years ago) link
I interpreted it as "you're deluded if you had dreams of having a successful career and wanted to achieve your dreams. I certainly didn't when I was 22. Instead I got a assistant job at a publishing house [ed. note. lol] and pulled myself up by my bootstraps."
― katherine, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:42 (ten years ago) link
I know he wouldn't put it this nicely but I still think the core point was: You're going to have to play that game or you're going to have a really hard time being successful as a pro writer.
― Evan, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:44 (ten years ago) link
da croupier- Ah yes, thanks. I don't know. Feel like the interview is a slight back pedaling after being challenged for the shit in the video. Only slight.
― Evan, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:45 (ten years ago) link
I just don't see that as his core point, or maybe that'd be his core point minus the moralizing.
― katherine, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:46 (ten years ago) link
I blame Bill Hicks for all of this
― wk, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:50 (ten years ago) link
To clarify: obviously there are people who are successful full time writers, he wouldn't deny that. So I think the context he's driving at is that if your dreams involve not having your opinions edited to cater to your sponsors that dream is really tough to achieve in this day and age.
― Evan, Thursday, 5 December 2013 20:52 (ten years ago) link