Me Me Me and Me, Too…

I love to write, but I’m having a hard time figuring out why I’d want my own 15 minutes of fame in the form of a blog. Stream of consciousness here…bear with me.

I know how to criticize and analyze (having spent the last 20 years or so doing just that for a living), but I am struggling to define my POV. What’s the angle? What’s the benefit, not just for me, but for the readers (assuming that I find some)? Simply writing a blog feels so self indulgent, so ME ME ME. Who really cares? My friends, my family? Maybe my colleagues? Me? It makes me think of those YouTube videos with adolescents jumping on the bed playing their air guitars to a hit from their parents’ generation. Why not write their own music or jump on the bed to music of their own generation? Music repurposed. Where’s the soul in this? So why would I, too, want to do it? Why be a Me Too?

I’m practicing my freedom of expression. But more than that I’m looking for like-minded adults who care about entertainment but don’t have as much time for it as they would like, who struggle to find music to listen to because we no longer listen to radio (or only to talk radio). I was part of the 60s Cultural Revolution and I fear this one will pass me by due to its incredible irrelevance. Yet I know there is something here for me.

iTunes, YouTube, MySpace… Three of the biggest brands in digital entertainment. These website URLs at least hint at what they are about. But Bebo, Mebo, Ziddio, Vimeo, Blip? The army of nonsensical names seem to march on, endlessly. I read about these MeToos at least five times a day. In the old world, branding companies would have had their work cut out for them. But in this new world, viral marketing can take a site from 60 to 60 million in months--even weeks. And I am not one of the 60 million. So what happened to my generation? The MyTubers and YouSpacers can at least argue a certain degree of originality (YouTube did something completely new; iTunes and MySpace only copied something, but made it much better).

I fear we are living in a kind of redux remix, taking what is old news and trying to make it sound new. That’s worse than those B movie has-beens who actually never were, living in crummy little motels and apartments on the fringe of Hollywood! The wannabes don’t even try to disguise their lack of innovation: youwitness.com, brought to you by Reuters and Yahoo. Or, itsyourshowtv.com (launched by NBC and talk show host Carson Daly). The big, old, established brands can’t do better than that? The Me Toos catering to the Me Me Me generation. Those lost souls (our kids, I’m embarrassed to say) who spend their time hunting for virtual friends on MySpace, tracking them down on Dodgeball, or sitting for hours watching silly UGC (user-generated content) on YouTube. Doesn’t anyone work?

I guess not. One of the Me Toos (Yahoo, to be precise) was kind enough to leak an internal memo to the press, so we heard their true viewpoint in the now-famous peanut butter manifesto: “We lack a focused, cohesive vision for our company. We want to do everything and be everything--to everyone. We've known this for years, talk about it incessantly, but do nothing to fundamentally address it. We are scared to be left out. We are reactive instead of charting an unwavering course.” But what I really want to know is: Where is it all going? And what’s in it for me? I’m talking about those of us from the Age of Aquarius.

Therein lies the crux of the problem, my problem with all this new old news. What would someone my age even do on MySpace? Someone who works long hard hours, someone over 40 with too many friends to keep up with, other than at Xmas (if I can even find time to send those snail mail cards). Someone like me who uses chat sparingly to speak to aging parents or family members on a budget. Well, I do use it for work, too. But other than that, what does someone like me do on the Internet?

Do I love the sound of my own voice? Or reading my own words? Even when I have nothing to say? Not really. It is kind of painful. I’d rather read a good book. But I do love criticizing things (a more polite person would have said writing “reviews”), and I do have an iPod… finally. And dare I admit that even though it is beautiful, the battery died several times before I got up the nerve to ask a colleague how to turn it off!  Someone needs to take the best of the iPod and make it better (not worse, like the Zune). There is room for a little healthy competition and an even better user interface.

Anyway, I can’t even find the music I want to listen to on my iPod. iTunes would be great if I knew what I was looking for, but what if I don’t? And I don’t want to be just an aimless follower, listening to what everyone else is listening to, pulling from the iTunes’ Top Songs, New Releases, What’s Hot (according to who?), and Staff Picks. I don’t feel most of that music. Maybe I am an iconoclast, but there are many more like me where I come from (the adult world). iTunes has no sense of randomness or discovery. It’s more a vast machine, the very thing people of my generation used to fight against.

And don’t get me started on MySpace. I want new, good music, not some unsigned band that is unknown because it deserves to be! Thank god for Bob Lefsetz  and my colleagues in the music business. I don’t know Bob personally, but he suggests artists that resonate with me (must be a generational thing). My colleagues know me and bring me dusty CDs from their closets, music from my golden years of music consumption (adolescence), or artists they know I’ll love. So the first is a “trusted source,” and the second is a “trusted source.”

There it is. I don’t want to be a Me Too. And I am too old to be a Me Me Me (that possibility went out the door when my son was born). So where in the iTunes, YouTube, MySpace universe does that leave ME?

Posted at 04:11PM Jan 09, 2007 by Shelley Taylor in Social Networking  |  Comments[1]

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