Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

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tepista
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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by tepista »

tepista wrote:
31 Dec 2018, 8:52pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
31 Dec 2018, 6:12pm
tepista wrote:
31 Dec 2018, 5:57pm
Rat Patrol wrote:
31 Dec 2018, 4:48pm
Wolter wrote:
26 Dec 2018, 12:11am

Who’d have thought he’d be the one to make it?
That must've been one helluva blow party once Charlotte Rae finally croaked.
I hear The Gooch is still going strong.
I went to school with a guy whose name was Gooch. In grade ten or eleven, someone seriously beat the fuck out of him—never heard the details of why—and for a couple weeks his face was massively bruised and swollen. He was a bit of a prick, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for him.
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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by Dr. Medulla »

tepista wrote:
31 Dec 2018, 8:52pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
31 Dec 2018, 6:12pm
tepista wrote:
31 Dec 2018, 5:57pm
Rat Patrol wrote:
31 Dec 2018, 4:48pm
Wolter wrote:
26 Dec 2018, 12:11am


Who’d have thought he’d be the one to make it?
That must've been one helluva blow party once Charlotte Rae finally croaked.


I hear The Gooch is still going strong.
I went to school with a guy whose name was Gooch. In grade ten or eleven, someone seriously beat the fuck out of him—never heard the details of why—and for a couple weeks his face was massively bruised and swollen. He was a bit of a prick, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for him.
#LeePeetForever
Lee would have been the kind of kid doing the beating (hopped up on sugar … or something). Gooch was named Shane something.
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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by Flex »

So, I quit ("quit" really, since I haven't deleted my accounts) Twitter a few months ago and decided to stop logging onto Facebook in 2019. So far, so great. Interesting feelings about the absence of both platforms.

There's a lot that I enjoyed about Twitter: I actually got a lot of info from there, and there was a lot of funny content. But the pace and micro- nature of dialogue there meant that it was basically just a perpetual rage machine. So, I've felt its absence some - I'm not as up to date on music recommendations, political news and analysis, et cetera, and there are some folks on there whose company I enjoy who I don't really have alternate avenues of communication - but the upside of getting out of the Twitter rage grind has been almost revelatory.

Facebook, conversely, features almost nothing I particularly enjoy but just sort of remained part of my life out of a zombie-like state of death-paralysis. The best feature about it - sharing photos - is done better on Instagram and the ability to remain in contact with folks can be handled just fine with e-mail, text or g-chat. I don't know what some of my old high school friends are up to, but I don't really care. In the short time I've been off FB, it's forced me to stay in better contact with the people I actually care about (including, not for nothing, starting to post here more) via other avenues of communication. The only thing I'm worried about missing is that FB is a great way to keep track of concert announcements from bands and music venues. So, I just have to subscribe to more newsletters and such, which whatever.
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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by Marky Dread »

Flex wrote:
04 Jan 2019, 2:06pm
So, I quit ("quit" really, since I haven't deleted my accounts) Twitter a few months ago and decided to stop logging onto Facebook in 2019. So far, so great. Interesting feelings about the absence of both platforms.

There's a lot that I enjoyed about Twitter: I actually got a lot of info from there, and there was a lot of funny content. But the pace and micro- nature of dialogue there meant that it was basically just a perpetual rage machine. So, I've felt its absence some - I'm not as up to date on music recommendations, political news and analysis, et cetera, and there are some folks on there whose company I enjoy who I don't really have alternate avenues of communication - but the upside of getting out of the Twitter rage grind has been almost revelatory.

Facebook, conversely, features almost nothing I particularly enjoy but just sort of remained part of my life out of a zombie-like state of death-paralysis. The best feature about it - sharing photos - is done better on Instagram and the ability to remain in contact with folks can be handled just fine with e-mail, text or g-chat. I don't know what some of my old high school friends are up to, but I don't really care. In the short time I've been off FB, it's forced me to stay in better contact with the people I actually care about (including, not for nothing, starting to post here more) via other avenues of communication. The only thing I'm worried about missing is that FB is a great way to keep track of concert announcements from bands and music venues. So, I just have to subscribe to more newsletters and such, which whatever.
I've never been on Twitter and I'm not likely to be. But Facebook just turns most people into morons.
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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Is it just a matter of constantly moving on to a newer platform as current ones become too contaminated by trolls and the narrow marketing demands of those in charge? It seems like there's something parallel to the life and death of music scenes/subcultures. People come together because of an absence in their social lives, build a cool community, it gains momentum and attracts a second wave of joiners with a slightly different interest, as well as record company interest, which poaches bands from the scene, and finally what made things cool and fun get compromised and the originals mourn how it ain't like it used to be and start dropping out.
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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by Flex »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
04 Jan 2019, 3:04pm
Is it just a matter of constantly moving on to a newer platform as current ones become too contaminated by trolls and the narrow marketing demands of those in charge? It seems like there's something parallel to the life and death of music scenes/subcultures. People come together because of an absence in their social lives, build a cool community, it gains momentum and attracts a second wave of joiners with a slightly different interest, as well as record company interest, which poaches bands from the scene, and finally what made things cool and fun get compromised and the originals mourn how it ain't like it used to be and start dropping out.
Yeah, Facebook has sucked since they started letting Boomers use it.

Addendum: And on Twitter, part of it is that I've pretty much lost interest in internecine Left micro-dustups. Life's too short for that shit.
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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Flex wrote:
04 Jan 2019, 3:06pm
Yeah, Facebook has sucked since they started letting Boomers use it.

Addendum: And on Twitter, part of it is that I've pretty much lost interest in internecine Left micro-dustups. Life's too short for that shit.
While I've never gotten into all those platforms, my very superficial sense of things was that it encouraged more of an echo chamber than a gathering of diverse views. Everyone's free to join, but then they bundle up with those with common interests and interpretations. Which makes sense—that's largely the basis of our real world friendships. It's not like the workplace where you have to figure out how to be productive with people who you wouldn't want to hang out with, which, in the best cases, leads to exposure of diverse viewpoints. The voluntary and self-selecting aspect of it all ends up being harmful to pluralism. Like so many things in a free market, what's great for the individual may be harmful to the community. I know I'm overstating and generalizing here, but I do regard social media has having a similar corrosive effect on a civic-minded community as the free market does.
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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by Flex »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
04 Jan 2019, 3:28pm
While I've never gotten into all those platforms, my very superficial sense of things was that it encouraged more of an echo chamber than a gathering of diverse views. Everyone's free to join, but then they bundle up with those with common interests and interpretations. Which makes sense—that's largely the basis of our real world friendships. It's not like the workplace where you have to figure out how to be productive with people who you wouldn't want to hang out with, which, in the best cases, leads to exposure of diverse viewpoints. The voluntary and self-selecting aspect of it all ends up being harmful to pluralism. Like so many things in a free market, what's great for the individual may be harmful to the community. I know I'm overstating and generalizing here, but I do regard social media has having a similar corrosive effect on a civic-minded community as the free market does.
I read an article about a study done recently (can't find it now, think it was at Vox) that exposure to competing worldviews/etc. on social media platforms actually makes people more intolerant of those views, so I'm thinking there's another layer to the problem.
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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Flex wrote:
04 Jan 2019, 3:40pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
04 Jan 2019, 3:28pm
While I've never gotten into all those platforms, my very superficial sense of things was that it encouraged more of an echo chamber than a gathering of diverse views. Everyone's free to join, but then they bundle up with those with common interests and interpretations. Which makes sense—that's largely the basis of our real world friendships. It's not like the workplace where you have to figure out how to be productive with people who you wouldn't want to hang out with, which, in the best cases, leads to exposure of diverse viewpoints. The voluntary and self-selecting aspect of it all ends up being harmful to pluralism. Like so many things in a free market, what's great for the individual may be harmful to the community. I know I'm overstating and generalizing here, but I do regard social media has having a similar corrosive effect on a civic-minded community as the free market does.
I read an article about a study done recently (can't find it now, think it was at Vox) that exposure to competing worldviews/etc. on social media platforms actually makes people more intolerant of those views, so I'm thinking there's another layer to the problem.
Huh. That's remarkable and raises the question of how one becomes more pluralistic intellectually. Or does it just suggest that social media is a hindrance to intellectual development?
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by Flex »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
04 Jan 2019, 3:43pm
Huh. That's remarkable and raises the question of how one becomes more pluralistic intellectually. Or does it just suggest that social media is a hindrance to intellectual development?
Yeah, I'm not sure. The deeply cynical might suggest that intellectual pluralism is basically a myth, although I'm more inclined to think there's just something deeply, structurally toxic about social media. Hence the quitting.
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a rolling hoop
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a ton of lead
Wiggle - you can raise the dead

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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by matedog »

Flex wrote:
04 Jan 2019, 3:06pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
04 Jan 2019, 3:04pm
Is it just a matter of constantly moving on to a newer platform as current ones become too contaminated by trolls and the narrow marketing demands of those in charge? It seems like there's something parallel to the life and death of music scenes/subcultures. People come together because of an absence in their social lives, build a cool community, it gains momentum and attracts a second wave of joiners with a slightly different interest, as well as record company interest, which poaches bands from the scene, and finally what made things cool and fun get compromised and the originals mourn how it ain't like it used to be and start dropping out.
Yeah, Facebook has sucked since they started letting Boomers use it.

Addendum: And on Twitter, part of it is that I've pretty much lost interest in internecine Left micro-dustups. Life's too short for that shit.
Facebook really should be overwhelmingly dominate. Particularly because it does everything instagram and twitter do, but all at in one place. I still use it, though I have been tapering gradually for some time. Just posting pics of the daughter for the relatives and stuff to see. The layout has become awful. Ads litter the page. I'll post most of the blame on going public and the need to appease shareholders. But yeah, having my mom on, I don't post as freely as I used to.
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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by Kory »

I pretty much use Facebook, as Flex mentioned as a one-stop repository of band info, and Twitter as a comedy delivery system. They work pretty well if you immediately filter out the stuff that melts your brain.
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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by revbob »

Flex wrote:
04 Jan 2019, 3:47pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
04 Jan 2019, 3:43pm
Huh. That's remarkable and raises the question of how one becomes more pluralistic intellectually. Or does it just suggest that social media is a hindrance to intellectual development?
Yeah, I'm not sure. The deeply cynical might suggest that intellectual pluralism is basically a myth, although I'm more inclined to think there's just something deeply, structurally toxic about social media. Hence the quitting.
Yeah this.

I never liked Facebook as it seems to require you to have an account to view anything. Say what you will about myspace but I could view band pages without having an account. I think the required brevity of twitter lends itself to garbage. I guess I probably have some antisocial tendencies and that colors my view of the stuff.

As for following bands I use two apps on my phone Bandsintown and Songkick and both work pretty well to alert me of artists I've entered or shows in the area I set or you can go in and browse tour dates for specific artists.

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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by Dr. Medulla »

revbob wrote:
04 Jan 2019, 5:22pm
I guess I probably have some antisocial tendencies and that colors my view of the stuff.
I'd describe myself more as insular, but I might be deceiving/flattering myself. But I agree with you that my own bullshit influences my wariness—I'm far from dispassionate in my skepticism about social media.
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Re: Return of the Mighty Observations Thread

Post by Marky Dread »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
04 Jan 2019, 3:04pm
Is it just a matter of constantly moving on to a newer platform as current ones become too contaminated by trolls and the narrow marketing demands of those in charge? It seems like there's something parallel to the life and death of music scenes/subcultures. People come together because of an absence in their social lives, build a cool community, it gains momentum and attracts a second wave of joiners with a slightly different interest, as well as record company interest, which poaches bands from the scene, and finally what made things cool and fun get compromised and the originals mourn how it ain't like it used to be and start dropping out.
Possibly all the above. However the world really is full of assholes.
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Forces have been looting
My humanity
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We're the flowers in the dustbin...
No fuchsias for you.

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