To begin, its worth mentioning that I frequent the very websites I am complaining about, I have served as a blog editor, but I still believe in the romance of personal discovery. I like finding things for myself, sifting through used books, discovering music, trolling antique shops. I love the idea of vernacular, naiveté, and context – I love knowing there are people and crafts and reasons and wonderful mistakes behind the art we’ve the pleasure to experience.

As the internet has continued to (cough) mature, we find ourselves inundated with imagery, music, tweets, kitteh videos, good news, bad news, opinion parading as news, and an absolutely endless, dizzying, spell-binding array of mental traffic. As my good buddy Ben Pieratt recently put it, “endless scrolls make me feel agoraphobic.”

This sense of limitless imagery and information can make one feel daunted, if not paranoid – as if we’re missing out if we don’t see everything that’s made available to see. I take particular issue with image bookmarking services, which have devalued content in favor of this static. I frequently click images I like to find myself on another blog, another page with more blind reference imagery, or a tumblr with some serialized image title and a date – I simply cannot find the artist responsible for the work. The internet is rather fleeting as it stands, and we’re walking through a fog of stylized imagery devoid of artists, explanations, and history.

We no longer seek out the portfolios of incredibly talented illustrators and designers, writers or filmmakers, but the convenience of aggregated, often dodgy, mass sourcing. We rarely discover inspirations for ourselves because we’re busy letting others do it for us. To what degree do the tastes of the masses dictate what content editors choose, and inversely, will designers/illustrators create imagery to appease these editors? Will artists avoid experimentation at the risk of popular scrutiny?

Its a bit dramatic, sure, but as our industry continues giving itself to the masses – popular polling, crowd sourcing, design-by-committee, don’t-worry-my-cousin-knows-photoshop – I don’t want to have to think about the further homogenization of imaginations and the commercial systematization of our media. Instead of telling new visual stories, or codifying new ways of seeing or representing things, we’ll be commercially relegated to the fastest most efficient way of saying something as dictated by visual metrics combed from popular image pools that never credited the right person in the first place.

Anyway, the internet is equal parts pro and con, but there are certainly times where it feels like a big booby-trap. Would love to hear what our peers felt about the issue. Back to my tabbed browsing sesh!

by Mario Hugo

mzreport:

The following is an excerpt from The 50th Law, adapted for HuffPost.

When you work for others, you are at their mercy. They own your work; they own you. Your creative spirit is squashed. What keeps you in such positions is a fear of having to sink or swim on your own. Instead you should have a greater fear of what will happen to you if you remain dependent on others for power. Your goal in every maneuver in life must be ownership, working the corner for yourself. When it is yours, it is yours to lose — you are more motivated, more creative, more alive. The ultimate power in life is to be completely self-reliant, completely yourself.

You came into this life with the only real possessions that ever matter — your body, the time that you have to live, your energy, the thoughts and ideas unique to you, and your autonomy. But over the years you tend to give all of this away. You spend years working for others — they own you during that period. You get needlessly caught up in people’s games and battles, wasting energy and time that you will never get back. You come to respect your own ideas less and less, listening to experts, conforming to conventional opinions. Without realizing it you squander your independence, everything that makes you a creative individual.

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I rarely blog about personal shit but fuck it that’s what blogs are for. I’ve been growing my hair out since April with the intention of locking up…eventually. I’ve never really talked about it because it never comes up in conversations and I don’t like talking about myself. Recently though I was chillin with this chick I use to mess with and she saw my hair and asked me if I was growing “dread locks.” I said “yea I’m gonna lock up” and that I don’t call them “dreads” I prefer to call them locs as oppose to “dread” locks. I was always under the impression that the term “dreads” came from calling them dreadful locks, I’m uncertain of the validity of that but either way I believe in the power of words and the implication of “dreads” isn’t what I associate with locking my hair. She then said something that basically implied that locs are “played out” and that I shouldn’t do it…. She’s not the first person I’ve heard say this and I still don’t understand the basis for it. People locking their hair has spiritual implications that go back centuries it isn’t a trend or a new fad. Yes, that means Bob Marley wasn’t the first person in history with locs, people have been locking their hair before Lil’ Wayne did it, not all people with locs are “goons” or thugs, not everyone with locs smoke ganja, and all people with locs aren’t necessarily Rastafarian either. I wasn’t motivated by any particular person besides myself when I decided I wanted to lock up. For me it’s based on my own personal affinity and specific to my journey, it’s an outward symbol of my own beliefs that resonates with my energy. I realize that locs invite both positive and negative assumptions but it’s deeper and more personal to me than someone else’s perception of it. I understand that for some people locs are a fashion statement, or a political statement and there’s nothing wrong with that but people fail to realize that not everyone that looks similar or do similar things are subscribing to the same philosophies.  We all embrace what our own spirits recognize as truth for us, and everything else gets disregarded and left for others. This is what makes each person unique. Someone shouldn’t be afraid to do something because they’re worried about it being “played out” or how others will perceive them. This applies to clothes, piercings, tattoos etc. At the end of the day it’s just hair or clothes or tattoos and that’s all the more reason why I don’t feel obligated to follow someone else’s example or justify my appearance to people. I’ved learned that people are gonna judge you no matter what you do so let them think what they want and embrace what you personally connect with. Heavy emphasis on WHAT YOU PERSONALLY CONNECT WITH not just a trend that you’re blindly following. I’ve never allowed someone else’s closed mind to be my roadblock and I don’t think anyone else should either. / rant

I just had to get that off my chest now I’m gonna go smoke the rest of this J and play COD 2. Peace.

gregenemy:

i mean, i understand, 12” vinyl is not the preferred format of the masses, and physical CD sales continue to dwindle, so i can see how they could come to the conclusion that album art isnt as important because people dont have to look at it beyond an itunes icon, but just because people like their music in MP3s does not mean the visuals that are paired with it should suffer.

I had a similar thought the other day when I was watching that Embedded show on Current TV with Mos Def. Listening to him talk about his new album and seeing how passionate he was about it really made me appreciate it that much more. The way he explained the concept of it and the meaning behind the album title, you can tell he put a lot of consideration into his music and the presentation of it. It wasn’t just a collection of songs but the whole package was an extension of his beliefs and thoughts. Even though CD sales aren’t what they use to be he still approaches his art carefully and doesn’t put out sub par material (subjective opinions notwithstanding). Most current music is disposable so there isn’t much effort put into the presentation of it because it isn’t meant to be appreciated for any extended period of time. At the end of the day there are a lot of people that make music for money and fame so they’re willing to compromise/settle/conform if it means they’ll sell more.

Some artists dont care and will release an album just as long as there’s a couple of guaranteed hit singles on it even if the rest is just filler tracks, put together a half assed album cover in photoshop and release it because they know people don’t buy music the way that they use to. But you can always tell the musicians who are passionate about what they do because despite the current state of the music industry they don’t let their art suffer. When the intention of the music is coming from a pure place you can always tell because it seems more honest and organic in the whole presentation. I always appreciated and supported artists that catered to people that valued the music but also enjoyed the experience of being stimulated visually. I remember when some artists would release an album and 2/3+ years would go by before they released a follow up album (Shit I’m still waiting for Outkast, Lauryn Hill, D’angelo, and Dr. Dre to come out with new albums). But as a fan I didn’t mind waiting because I knew the basis behind it, the work they put out had a deeper value to them and they weren’t gonna share it unless they felt it was up to their standards. They created when they felt inspired and if they weren’t inspired they didn’t create. The artists that eat, sleep, and breathe their art are usually the ones that will take the time to make sure every aspect of what they put out is well thought out. When they put their album cover together they realize it tells a story thats tied to the music it represents. Nowadays most artists drop an album or mixtape every other month so there’s no real thought put into the visuals that represent it because the music itself is thoughtless and uninspired to begin with.