For my first blog, I was going to write some of my own ideas. But I decided to scratch that in order to share some ideas by a really awesome musician. So here we go...

"Lets get down to it, because it's gonna have to be said. FUCK MYSPACE. I've been waiting to see a punk critique of MySpace for a good long time now, and maybe I've been looking in the wrong places, but finally I decided "fuck it, I'm gonna give it a shot" I'll be the first to say that it's probably a little trite to write an article on why a website isn't punk. But it's a simple enough sentiment and I think it's worth voicing. The following is my attempt to explain why punk rock and MySpace should have nothing to do with each other. It's not a comprehensive explanation, but it's a start I give you:

THE ABC'S OF "FUCK MYSPACE"

If you're reading this you probably know a thing or two about the website. It's a social networking site. According to HitWise, it's the website that ranks as THE most widely visited website online. The most popular website on the internet. Not only that, but it is singularly the most popular website for bands and musicians to host their homepages, including most of the punk bands and musicians that I've come across. For that reason the website has inexplicablyt become a part of my life, as it's become a part of most of the punk communities I've encountered.

So what's so bad about it? I'll tell you this: If you agree with any of the following statements there's nothing more for me to tell you. We can agree to disagree and you can stop reading now. MySpace is the website for you. Let's try it out.

-Right wing corporate control of the media is a safe and nonthreatening state of affairs.
-Homogenization of the internet for the sake of convenience is the necessary wave of future.
-"Everybodys doing it," is a reasonable criterion, even within punk, to base one's actions on.

I know some people's ideas about punk exist completely outside of any radical critique of our culture. BUT if you passe dthat little screening you're probably something like me. For you punk is at very least a means of challenging the conformity, if not a radical critique of the status quo. Based on that common ground, I'd like to make an appeal for a punk-wide boycott of the website.

MONEY IN THE POCKET OF THE NEWS CORPORATION

The first and most flagrantly offensive thing about mySpace is who is behind it. MySpace is owned by a huge media conglomerate called NEWS CORPORATION. News Corporation is an umbrella company that owns 200 media outlets, including 43 newspaper companies, 34 magazines, 29 movie and television studios, 34 websites, and 72 television channels. Among those companies are HARPERCOLLINS book publishing company, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, the FOX BROADCASTING COMPANY, and the FOX NEWS CHANNEL. The corporation is owned by a man named Rupert Murdoch, a staunch supporter and financial contributor of the Republican Party. The company makes roughly 25 BILLION DOLLARS a year.

Along with other right wing conglomerates like CLEARCHANNEL, the News Corporation is leading a trend towards the consolidation of major media outlets in America. This, of course, is a scary idea. We are seeing public information in the hands of fewer and fewer people, and many of these people have explicitly right wing agendas.

The shining example of how News Corporation fits into this trend is their pet TV station: the FOX NEWS CHANNEL. There's a fantastic documentary called OUTFOXED, that illustrates the ways that Fox News has manipulated it's standing in the media to push Republican talking points. Point by point, the language and viewpoints expressed by Fox News, (and largely by most News Corporation media outlets), are repeated to excess in order to skew perceptions on vital issues.

The most extreme example of this that I'd like to bring up was FOX NEW's role in the 2000 Presidential Elections. The Elections between George W. Bush and Al Gore, as you probably remember, were extremely close and came down to controversial Florida election results. On Election night, as results were still being counted, Fox New's analyst in Florida called the election for George W. Bush. Despite previous errors and complications over voter analysis, Fox News decided to report the nonfactual information and declare George W. Bush the winner of the election. Within minutes, every other news outlet in America fell in line with with Fox's report. There are strong arguments that the distorted perception created of George W Bush as victor had more to do with him becoming president than any voter recounts or Supreme Court decisions.

Among all the chaos of these elections, one important detail was not widely repeated or reported. That detail was the identity of Fox New's voter analyst. His name is John Prescott Ellis, and he is George W. Bush's first cousin.

This is just one of many examples of how Rupert Murdoch's media juggernaut is influencing the world in a dark and manipulative way. Just to give you a taste of what MySpace's proprietor is all about.

So maybe you're thinking, "I get it. News Corporation is an evil right wing propaganda machine. What does this have to do with me?"

Well, here's the deal: MySpace makes its money from advertisers. Advertising rates are based on the number of hits a website gets. In other words, they are based on the popularity of the website. As I mentioned already. MySpace is THE most popular website on the internet. A lot of people think that if they don't clikc on the advertisements, they're just usinga free website, and not contributing financially. This is not true. EVEN IF YOU DO NOT CLICK ON THE ADVERTISEMENTS, YOU ARE MAKING MONEY FOR MYSPACE. By visiting the website you increase the advertising rates. By visiting the website you are making money for the NEWS CORPORATION, and by extension RUPERT MURDOCH. Effectively, BY VISITING THE WEBSITE YOU ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THE CAPAIGN FINANCES OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

THE CULTURE OF MYSPACE

Now you might be thinking "what can I do? I'm just one person! Surely my clicks aren't makinga difference." Maybe not a big difference, but what's already happening: There is a culture of MySpace as an exclusive channel for communication, and most of the punks, unthinking or not, are participating in it.

How many of the things sound familiar?

-Do you know anyone who's sole or primary contact information is MySpace?
-Do you know of any bands who's only website or contact information is on MySpace?
-How about tours and show dates listed only on MySpace?
-Have you seen shows or events promoted exclusively through MySpace?
-What about bands who book their entire tours through the website?

Unfortunately these things are starting to typify the punk experience. As someone who plays in a band, I've experienced it over and over again. When someone wants your contact information, they assume you have a MySpace website. Without asking, they'll say, "I'll look you up on myspace." Band after band will get up on stage and say "If you like us check out our MySpace." It's become the defacto contact info for band sina culture that's relying more and more on digital communication. I even saw a band whose involvement in DIY hardcore predates MySpace by years and years get up on stage and profess how the website was "saving the scene."

The website is purposefully structured to create an exclusive channel. If you want to contact someone who uses MySpace, you cannot do so without you yourself also signing up for a MySpace account. This creates a spiral effect. The more people who use this website there are: the harder it is to be in touch with people without signing up for the website yourself the harder it is to be a part of certain communities without getting involved with the website.

The realistic effect that this monopolization of band contact information creates is that the majority of THE PUNK COMMUNITY IS RALLYING AROUND A WEBSITE THAT GIVES MAJOR FINANCIAL BACKING TO THE MOST RIGHT WING MEDIA OUTLETS AND POLITICIANS. Again, I understand that everybody's definition of punk is different, but for me, that just doesn't add up.

BUT IT'S SO EASY!"
SO IS WAL-MART

Let's address some common defenses of MySpace.

The most common sentiment that I've heard voiced is, basically: "It's just so convenient." Compared to other archival websites and social networking websites. MySpace is actually very poorly designed and difficult to use. But the fact is, since everyone uses it, it's the most convenient way to network with the most amounts of people. It can be yours website, your e-mail account, your mailing list, whatever. Yes. It's convenient. Should convenience be prioroty # 1? That's the real question.

I could wax about how laziness is THE most consistently appealed to human condition in efforts to maintain the status quo, but instead let me offer an analogy:

What's another corporate outlet, where you can get everything you'd possibly need in one place? You guessed it!

WAL-MART!

In my experience, most punks are somewhat familiar with the labor practices and monopolizing efforts of Wal-Mart. Most punks that I know have a basic understanding that supporting Wal-Mart is a no-no. Does that mean that no one I know ever shops there? No. But you would never see Wal-Mart advertised on the back of nearly every punk CD like you do with MySpace. The argument for convenience would never stand up against the evidence of social destruction caused by Wal-Mart, so why do you let it slide for MySpace?

Here’s another similarity to Wal-Mart: Much like the homogenized landscape that Wal-Mart has helped build in America, (through repetition of identical strip malls all across country), MySpace has homogenized the landscape of the internet. Think about it. The Possibilities for band websites are as vast as the internet itself, yet the majority of bands settle for the exact same cookie cutter design with maybe a change of background. Isn’t punk about sticking it out and doing something different?

OK, now I can hear the second most common defense coming to surface. “I don’t know how to design a website, so this is the only way for me to get my music out there.” I can sympathize. I don’t know the first thing about website design. I have some friends that do, but not everyone is that lucky. That still doesn’t lead for an argument for MySpace. There are plenty of other websites that you can host homepages on that carry a fraction of the political impact that MySpace does. Furthermore, since when have punks had such a defeatist attitude? Where’s the DIY ethic? DIY punk and independent music has always prided itself for existing outside of the corporate media channels such as major record labels and clubs. Doesn’t the punk line go: “We don’t need those corporate record labels! We’ll start our own!” Where is that fire when it comes to learning how to design your own webpage?

Finally I’ll hear the MySpace defender resort to the defense of “we’ll everybody’s doing it.”

I’ve heard explicityly anarchist bands defending their participation in MySpace by citing other anarchist bands who use it. That kind of deflection of responsibility is ludicrous. Hasn’t punk always been a rejection of conformity? The day that “everybody does it” become a legitimate excuse in punk, is the day that punk loses any value.

“BUT WHAT WE DO WITHOUT IT”

It’s important to remember that punk existed before MySpace, I hope too punk, survives MySpace. Punk existed before the internet. Countless bands say, “I don’t know how people booked tours before MySpace.” But the answer is simple. People used e-mail. People used telephones. The punk scene thrived then just as much as it does now, if not more. BLACK FLAG didn’t need MySpace to tour the country, neither do you.

What do I propose? Well, since this is a punk critique of MySpace, I propose we start at home: a punk-wide boycott. MySpace isn’t going to just go away. BUT it will certainly continue to grow as long as it has the unquestioning support of anyone using the internet to promote their music. We can create a counter example. Like the record labels we start, and DIY venues, record stores, and infoshops, we can create a separate online network by supporting DIY web designers and focusing our communication through their channels. This is a very real possibility. MySpace only thrives because it fills a perceived need for convenient online networking, If we stop settling for the half-assed corporate solution MySpace gives us, then someone else could step in to fill the void. WIKIPEDIA is an excellent example of an egalitarian non-profit motivated website that saw a void and filled it. It can be done.

There are arguments against the internet as a communication device altogether, but that’s not what I’m interested in. I would like to offer the idea though, that MORE COMMUNICATION DOES NOT EQUAL BETTER COMMUNICATION. And I’d like to challenge anyone reading this to try and differentiate between those two things when you use the internet in the future.

Thanks for reading my rant about a dumb website. FUCK MYSPACE.

Hey! This is a rough draft so criticism and counter arguments are welcome! Please get in touch!

No personal judgement here. Just trying to share ideas.

Word.

This was written quickly by spoonboy. Get in touch@ thespoonboy@riseup.net If you’re interested in the documentary OUTFOXED I can help you find it for cheap."

Personally, I can't find too much wrong with this, as a matter of fact I agree with it 100%. Share your thoughts and ideas.