Going Big
February 17th, 2006I’ve made a reference before about a music critic on the Sunday morning (Grandpa) show CBS News Sunday Morning. He talks about elitism, smallness and exclusivity, with the implication that being small and exclusive might not be the best way to get your music heard. He was talking about Coldplay. And I can hear the haters already:
“Coldplay sucks now.”
“Coldplay was never good.”
“You like Coldplay?”
Yes, I do. Whatever.
The part of the critic’s review of Coldplay’s album X&Y that really resonated with me was this:
“Since the 90s, a lot of rock has gotten exclusive and elitist and small.”
What struck me about this comment so forcefully last summer when I heard it, wasn’t just that it was so perfectly dead on. It was the universality of what it meant for who we’ve become. And why we choose things like bands and hobbies and movies and television shows and software and sites we visit and how we publish or perform or express ourselves publicly.
Something has to be little-known to be considered cool. Otherwise it’s mainstream. And mainstream sucks. Being big sucks. I used to believe this when I was younger. I used to embody this attitude. There was a kind of mean-spirited quality to it as well. For example, when I was in bands, we’d get pissy when another local band got to go to South by Southwest, or when another local band got a better time slot at a show, or recognized for some great work. Really stupid stuff that was very small. It didn’t make the other band smaller, it made me smaller. And it didn’t really make me feel better in the long run. It didn’t make me write better music or put better energy out there into the world.
I see this nearly every day in the online world. Comment threads and blog posts full of vitriol towards anybody remotely considered mainstream. I’ve been guilty of it as well. Whole sites dedicated to the belittling of the big. When it’s smartly done, and done without ire, I think there can be a valid and necessary conversation. Satire and sarcasm can be wonderful leveling devices. Humor is good. Anger can be good. For example, Enron or a governmental entity. Or Pamela Anderson’s boobs. But if it’s coming from a jealous place or a small place, it’s going to be small in six months or six years and who’s better off?
I’m married to a person with a fairly popular web site. She’s none of the things that the haters rant on about. So many of them fall into what David Pogue at the New York Times calls “online curmudgeons“. But beyond their opinions, however misguided, which they are certainly entitled to, there seems to be a general smallness. Which I think is why, in 2001, when I decided to pursue Heather and make some big life changes, I decided to consciously stop being exclusive, elitist and small. My experiment on this site with openness has often paid me back with huge personal satisfaction and an awareness of others. Others who often don’t agree with me. Watching the same thing happen with Heather and post-partum depression was a truly wonderful experience. Which made the tsunami of anti-advertising commments (and then a subsequent wave of supportive emails to Heather) all the more confusing. “You go girl” vs. “I liked you better when”, with the latter being tinged with precisely what I’m talking about.
To be sure, there is also an element in modern culture of the ever-changing zeitgeist and our constant need for new new new new. But I think that isn’t what I’m getting at today.
Going big isn’t about making money or not making money. For me it’s about not thinking small anymore.
This personal choice has made a huge difference in my life. I’ve been able to work through and get through some difficulties without going supremely crazy. I’ve been better able to wish others well. I’ve been less angry on a creative level. Success for others in my field(s) is only going to benefit the field as a whole, and what is my contribution? Anger? Negativity? Or good work? I’m hoping for the latter. o
February 19th, 2006 at 11:47 am
I really enjoyed this well thought out post, but I have to respectfully disagree - you sound like somebody who is trying to justify ‘going big’ without feeling like you are selling out.
I don’t mean for that to sound harsh as it probably does - I think it’s very cool that you and your wife are able to do what you do and make money from your talents. It’s a dream come true and nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing you should have to feel like justifying for anybody.
There are, however, tons of examples where bands (writers, too) were good (or at least true to themselves), then ‘got big’ and started to suck because instead of worrying about creating art, they were worried about selling CDs (or books, or web site posts, whatever.) I worked for a band and experienced this first hand - small, decent band gets signed to major label and is suddenly in the business of selling records, *not* making music. They were good at making music, but bad at selling CDs, so they didn’t make it.
This happens all the time. Can it be avoided? Sure, but I think it’s rare. The cases you point to - Coldplay and U2 - how many more of those can you come up with? I think it’s very rare that an artist has the amount of pull that those two have, and once you are working with an entertainment machine (major label, publishing house, etc.) you are more than likely ceding control of what you’re doing for the sake of pleasing as many people as possible. But that’s entertainment, I guess. I think it’s more of a problem with how entertaiment is sold and distrbuted than with small mindedness or jealousy.
I think if you are both talented and lucky, you can keep on doing what you love to do and be ‘big’ - if dooce’s style can appeal to x people on the web, than she can probably apeal to 10 times x in another market (a book, for example) without having to compromise herself. But most writers and artists are not in that position. They’ve got to do something to their art to make it more appealing, less them, and more ‘big’ - and for me, that’s a bummer, because I’d much rather listen to something ‘new’ and unique than another Coldplay or U2.
February 19th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
Jonniker & Blurb-
I think you are both talking about the same thing, just coming at it from different directions–which is the best thing to see in a comments section. This is how we learn about other people’s perspectives.
I just discovered blogs last summer (I’m a late bloomer)and the first blog I found was a small, intimate one where everyone talked to each other and was smart and funny and nice. I loved it. It gave me a sense of connection with the world.
Then the person who ran the blog got tired and quit and our little community fell apart. Well, that pissed me off. How could he just up and leave without consulting me? He took away _my_ connection to those other people.
I finally realized that the reason he had his blog was not to provide something _for me_. It was there to provide something for him, and when that something no longer worked for him, he went on to something else.
We have to let people we like and admire be who they are and not who we want them to be. And that is very hard.
Jonniker, you are right in that we insecure humans beings are always looking for a sense of community in this big, bad, baffling world, and we feel safe and secure when we find a group of people we feel comfortable with.
Blurb, you are right in that when people feel safe and secure, they start projecting themselves onto the person who makes them feel that way and start trying to remake that person into their own image, so they wil fell more secure. Another human frailty.
So the best we can do is to try to support those people we like and admire for who they are, cheer them on even when they are not doing what we want them to do, and know that we are not alone in this world, even when we disagree.
February 19th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Rex,
This blurb wasn’t meant as a justification of anything. And I don’t feel like I’m selling out if my site has ads.
My point is much larger. We project ourselves onto others in harmful ways. Both to ourselves and others. I don’t think my post will stop it (it was only meant as a meditation of sorts).
Sharbean,
There isn’t a human being alive who could respond to the volume of email that Heather gets and still have any kind of a life.
February 19th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
What a great post, and I really agree with it in life as well. There are so many things that can make you (me) feel jealous or angry or annoyed, but it only makes you (okay, …me) feel the smallness to indulge in it. It doesn’t actually change those things. (And would you really want to anyway, if you could?) You just feel better when you can be expansive about things. (Not that this is always easy.)
I do think, though, that it’s not completely unreasonable to be cynical about something that is Big. Often that means the band-book-whatever was put out there by a large corporation and it’s marketing dept and advertising millions. So it’s not “real.”
The irony is, not everything that goes big was corporately-engineered, and not everything that starts small is “real.”
Nor, for that matter, do indigenous and corporate always line up with quality - suck either.
Just usually.
February 19th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
“Going Big” does not = “Instant Crap.”
You’ve taken something you enjoy and you’ve put it to work for you. There’s certainly no crime in that. It’s the American Dream.
“Going Big” doesn’t even come once in a lifetime for most people. Grab these opportunities while you can - they won’t come around a second time.
To even consider staying “small” to please the people who are complaining . . . Well, what purpose would that serve? How many of those haters do you think would turn down such opportunities? Not many.
There are a lot of us who would like to see you you go big. Go huge. Go Absolutely Effin’ Brobdingnagian.
February 19th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
You’re right, Jon. I don’t envy Heather and the amount of mail she gets (the two of you would never be able to go back to dial up because you’d never be able to download all the mail).
This whole issue is very complex because people are complex. Dooce is the first true “superstar blog” with all the crap / wonderful things that go with it and none of us know where this is going. Will we see technology change because of it (like when Slashdot started to use overload servers to prevent slashdotting), will comments be structured differently (like with spam now - will there be known asshole lists), or will our dealings with Internet personalities change (Heather could eventually have a fan club or even a manager).
I think it will be interesting to see how things are 5 or 10 years from now. Right now the blogging world polices itself and that can’t continue forever.
Great discussion though my comment is now off topic.
February 19th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
78 comments and all you will hear from me this time is that it is nice to know someone else watches the grandpa show (aka CBS News Sunday Morning).
February 20th, 2006 at 5:53 am
I so agree with you, and I’ve been thinking a lot about this and a (I think) related subject lately, that is why it’s so out of fashion to like something for real nowadays.
I’m not sure that it is an global thing, but at least here in Sweden people ironically “likes” things that they are to afraid to admit that they _like_, they are afraid that it will be uncool of them. I find it really tiresome, even if I’m certainely guilty of this myself once in a while.
This also makes the people that actually have the gut to say that they like something vulnerable for ridicule. If you try to tell someone that you don’t appreciate being made fun of, you get rediculed for taking things to seriously.
What’s so dangerous about actually tinking that a band or an artist or whatever rally is good?
February 20th, 2006 at 8:52 am
Go Big or Go Home.
A tatoo artist friend of mine had this framed in his studio, but it works for lots of things!
February 20th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
My husband and I were talking about U2 this weekend and I think his insight might be valuable for thinking about the larger picture that jon raised as well. He was saying U2’s first big effort to write a huge rock song was “pride” on the unforgettable fire album. which, when you listen to the album, clearly doesn’t fit in that sonic landscape, and it did bring them their first taste of commercial success - it was a precursor for joshua tree no doubt. some, especially in ireland, thought pride was a sellout. but pride was a song about MLK and bono clearly felt passionately about issues of social justice at the time. so was he going big - Yes. but was his mind open to thinking big and using the exposure for the good - yes. now, fast forward to the present and are U2 still doing the same? thinking Big because they are absolutely Huge? I don’t know. is “vertigo” a big thinking song? it doesn’t seem so to me. my point here i guess is that by going big, like u2 did with pride - can have wonderful results. the challenge will always be to not let being big alter the quality of the work itself. i think u2 has lost something with this last album musically. as a band, and as humanitarians (which they have always always been) being big just keeps making them better and more effective.
February 20th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
“All that is real…melts into air”: that is the paradox posed by the substitution of commercial exchange for other social forms, isn’t it? And with the rise of commercial/industrial culture has come a loss of heterogenaity in human affairs. We are now witnessing the passing of thousands of languages, as well as the knowledge of local environments, resources, and strategies for survival that they held. Homogenaity has advantages; true, delivering as it does efficient distribution of food (albeit at the expense of a large quantity of energy and other resources), and freeing people, in its way, for non-farm work. A therapeutic ethos helps to ease the transition to an anonymous and impersonal bureaucratc industrial social system, with its attendant culture of consumption.
February 20th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
I think I used to be that way too. I didn’t realize how elitest and snobby I was actually. I used to cherish my privacy and not want to share anything about my personal life. Imagine how well that went over with small town midwestern coworkers. I’ve found now that if you share a little bit of yourself, unasked, people feel closer to you. It also makes me feel like we are all connected in some way.
February 21st, 2006 at 3:23 am
If you haven’t seen the Shirky article on the power law distribution and blogging, check it out:
http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html
The #1 blog gets something like twice the attention of the #2 blog, and 100 times the attention of the #10 blog. Is #1 100 times better than #10? Probably not. But it gets an inordinate amount of attention for being at the top.
It’s not to say that the top blogs, or Coldplay, or Starbucks aren’t amazing at what they do - but at some their popularity balloons out of proportion with reality. How else is Colin Farrell making $20 million a picture?
February 21st, 2006 at 4:18 am
Hi Jon, it’s taken so long to login it to the Type Key thing I can barely remember what I wanted to say. I have only recently discovered yours and Heather’s blogs and through you others. So I am one of the thousand/ millions that have ’stolen’ you both from the elite group that ‘owned’ you in the past. But on the other had I have been a U2 fan since 1980 when I bought the WAR album. I now share them with millions. The first concert I saw was U2 in Dublin a couple of weeks before Live Aid which is often seen as their arrival on the world stage.
Yes it can be difficult to get tickets and yes there may be days I will find it hard to get on your site, but that’s life. Big is sometimes good.
I am not sure how to define my relationship to the bloggers I read, I am not sure if it is a relationship. I don’t comment on every posting, but I am disappointed if there is not a new post since my last visit which in your’s and Heather’s case is daily (sorry for the high expection level). But then I understand that bloggers are human and whatever their reasons for writing I have only one reason to visit and that is to read and most times enjoy.
When others grow ‘Big’ and I continue to enjoy their output then I will not desert them because they are now ‘mainstream’ I just have to content myself that there are more people on this small planet that have similar likes to me. The more of us that recognise what we have in common the greater chance we have of spreading that opinion and maybe then we can all concentrate on the similarities and stop fighting over the differences. (Sorry for the preaching but I was on a roll and couldn’t stop.)
Glad you enjoyed Amsterdam.
February 21st, 2006 at 5:46 am
This reminds me of the time when a person I respect ridiculed me for admitting that I like Sheryl Crow. I felt so small. Don’t I have a right to my own taste even if it is not “hip.” I also like the Beatles, Marvin Gaye, Etta James.
I say add ads if you want. I personally never even notice. I do not think you “sell out” if you start to make money. I DO think you sell out if you lose quality in order to make money. I read both you and Heather everyday. I would only stop reading if it became less interesting. So as you say about your comments, “Don’t suck.”
February 22nd, 2006 at 12:27 pm
I am in tears. You have no idea how much I needed that today.
February 22nd, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Dave Eggers had a smiliar rant to this here:
http://www.armchairnews.com/freelance/eggers.html
February 24th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Bravo! Bravo!