tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-677792144395177915.post1365276448702287710..comments2012-04-10T22:08:17.659-07:00Comments on Radical Reality: PIPA, SOPA, and the Lifestyles of the Rich and the FamousAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14296398243906599074noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-677792144395177915.post-27482604262864038002012-01-23T20:26:48.810-08:002012-01-23T20:26:48.810-08:00Right, but my point is to clarify that this perenn...Right, but my point is to clarify that this perennial strength of this material culture lies in its importance to large-corporate profits, that the internet is a transformative tool for freeing information flow from these cultural structures, and is therefore anathema to corporate interests generally. Well, maybe I'm not so radical to you - but I do feel that online piracy is an inevitable and indeed necessary response by the population to the stranglehold of Big Entertainment on intellectual property, which should continue until the artists themselves create new, more equitable and less norming structures which profit off of creative info legitimately, while acknowledging the fundamentally collective ownership of almost all of it, and at the same time but bypass media multinationals.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14296398243906599074noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-677792144395177915.post-46711419191614807172012-01-23T19:35:02.339-08:002012-01-23T19:35:02.339-08:00Corporate America is a general reference to corpor...Corporate America is a general reference to corporations, which may refer to an acute portion of America's population but refers to a large force in America's economy, hence the nomenclature developed. <br /><br />With your responses and clarifications, you make a sound argument. That said, your argument doesn't really come off as radical to me. The fact is that while children may not realize it 10 years after being born into this culture and while they watch Hannah Montana, I think most adults come to understand the materialist ideologies that provide 21st Century American culture with its foundation. That is why this culture is so threatening and pervasive. People tend to understand that a powerful few are feeding pop-culture, and they realize the shallowness of such a culture. But they still want to be a part of it and they still conform to almost predetermined archetypes. Transformers 3 is widely criticized for lacking merit in a number of areas, but those same people flock to theaters to see it and be a part of it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-677792144395177915.post-83313659460152797232012-01-23T19:16:09.445-08:002012-01-23T19:16:09.445-08:00Hipster culture is merely an example of cultural v...Hipster culture is merely an example of cultural value systems being created that attempt (with mixed success) to bypass the control of corporatism on culture - it is natural that wherever cultural norms are in place there will arise contrarians. However, to see why such practices are not adequate to threaten corporate mainstreaming, one only needs to think of the most common ideological judgement made by MOST non-hipsters about hipsters: "They're just people who think its cool to listen to stuff no one else listens to". This narrative, which is also of course a construction, undermines the radical potential of such a culture while entrenching the norms of the mainstream. In other words, the mainstream responses to hipster culture ("They don't stand for anything") highlight the value that our culture places on "listening to what everyone else listens to" for its own sake.<br><br />What I'm definitely NOT suggesting here is a corporate brain-washing strategy, as though these corporations were the only forces behind the construction of a cultural entertainment mainstream. What I'm arguing is that our culture, as 21st century Americans, is first and foremost a culture of large-corporatism, and that the existence of such a mainstream is the result of that culture. In such a culture, music/movies are essentially investments, which exist for profit. Entertainment is therefore culturally valued by its profitability, and hip-hop, the epitome of the value system of modern entertainment, demonstrates this most succinctly. The internet, because it distributes information in a non-centralized and (for now) uncontrollable manner, threatens this culture. I'm not saying I have the answer to why our values and entertainment choices are the way they are, I'm just trying to give a radical look at why internet neutrality is such a valuable entity in a world dominated by the logic of late capitalism.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14296398243906599074noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-677792144395177915.post-36357106047775234622012-01-23T19:15:55.016-08:002012-01-23T19:15:55.016-08:00Well, to answer your last question first, which is...Well, to answer your last question first, which is really the crux of your comment, I will say that corporatations ("corporate america" seems to me a dangerously misleading name for them when you consider that these arebarely more than a handful of people in a nation of hundreds of millions) mainstream America through several tools, all of which require the media (which, let us remember, is almost completely in the hands of a few multinationals, besides internet media). One such tool is advertising. Advertising promotes a culture where worth is based on material wealth, and hip-hop culture is an excellent example of the carry-over from this materialist ideology to the entertainment tastes of a population: those who are rich and espouse richness for richness sake, whose art is a celebration of flashy displays of welath, are culturally valued because the culture shares these values. <br> <br />Further, advertising actively norms and promotes normed standards of beauty; the result is a culture which values people based on their physical match to these normed standards; entertainment value choices are made as a result. Look at those top 40 artists - very, very few are anything less than "good looking" and most are "very good looking". This is because the entertainment desires of the mainstream are not inherent but constructed, constructed, that is, to value not only musical considerations but considerations such as wealth and beauty - and celebrity. Celebrity culture, also a construction of the media, is another way that media (i.e. corporatism) constructs values and mainstreams desires. <br><br />The entertainment itself actually does much to contribute to this process. For example, TV shows produced by Disney, one of the world's largest corporations, and marketed to pre-teen girls, present a version of adolescence and pre-adolescence in which values such as conformity with friends (i.e. shared musical tastes) and obsession with celebrity culture are valued. Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers are good examples of a constructed celebrities. It doesn't matter what you think of their music, the point is they are popular because Disney corporation decided they should be popular and constructed that popularity, which is now a social reality: millions of teens idolize these figures not directly because Disney says they should, but because they were born into a culture/value-system which Disney had already had infiltrated.<br> (con't)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14296398243906599074noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-677792144395177915.post-10032150526594766062012-01-23T18:46:31.640-08:002012-01-23T18:46:31.640-08:00While certain music does seem to satiate a univers...While certain music does seem to satiate a universally broad audience, how can you discredit the popularity of independent artists? The whole counterculture hipster movement thrives on little-known artists and independents. <br /><br />And while an enormous corporate infrastructure exists that endorses cookie cutter artists and redundant Hollywood garbage, essentially "directing the interests of the masses," this same infrastructure actually promotes a wide variety of artists IF it is profitable. But this same corporate greed is what motivates many artists to pursue their passion. The prospect of wealth and prosperity is enticing. What musical variety would there be if no artists became widely appreciated enough to hit top 40 charts? I argue that fewer artists would even attempt to pursue that passion.<br /><br />And if there were no top 40 charts, or massively universally popular "mainstream" artists, people would be left to search through itunes based on genre and other determinants, or to discover music through live performance. Which is what they still do, and how non-mainstream artists are discovered. And when people tell their friends about how good this music is and their friends listen to it and the artists blow up, they don't become mainstream. They don't alter their identity. Mainstream adheres to them. And in that regard whoever becomes the next big poster band for big studios actually directly reflects the interests of the masses. And these poster musicians vary greatly in sound, style, genre, and persona.<br /><br />How does corporate America dictate the interests of the masses, and push the mainstream on us again?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com