waking up

Social networking, blogging, file sharing, e-mail, and YouTube have become some of the dominant forces in our culture (duh, you’re reading this right now). These days, if you step outside any of those, and you will often find yourself missing a relevant piece of the conversation. Like living in a cave, being somewhat detached.

That’s a real cave, by the way.

This is not necessarily a good nor bad thing. It just means that culture is changing a whole lot faster. It’s also mutating in more complex ways. For instance, these days, there is an internet forum for anything with fringe ideologies that unite people in otherwise diverse tribes (Seth Godin). Old ideas get recycled at an alarmingly fast rate. The speed of culture is quite evident when one peers into the music industry, where new becomes old very quickly, where remixes and covers and critical acclaim/heat happen within hours. With the advent of Dropbox, I’m collaborating with my bandmates via internet sync. I’m also a perpetrator of this phenomenon with my YouTube channel, where new Radiohead songs age a little bit faster for my subscribers whenever I show people how to play something that was just played. For some, a song can become old only days or weeks after it goes public, or in cases with leaked albums, even before it’s released! A friend in the music industry recently commented on how the hype for Passion Pit, a “new” electronic pop group, has already died down a few months after blowing up on indie music blogs. They’re now touring the world, and yet it seems to him that people have already moved on. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of their tour, attendance for their shows began to drop noticeably–not because the music isn’t any good, but because of how fast music culture changes. Blogs, labels, and regular joes alike all helped Justin Vernon/Bon Iver skyrocket to international popularity almost overnight.

And with more changes in culture, advertising/promotion/marketing strategies need to change as well. Bands who are on top of Twitter/Facebook/YouTube/blogging are more likely to develop the type of relationship with their fans that will survive all the noise of the music industry. To many, CDs have become relics and almost irrelevant. Digital music needs to be given away as a means of promotion, rather than locked up in a supermarket showcase that resides behind the counter. Digital music is not a cigarette, it’s like the water, or air. It’s pretty much unlimited. Sure, people still buy bottled water, and people even used to visit oxygen bars (remember those?), but what are they really paying for? They are paying because the product/packaging somehow reflects what they value, regardless of whether or not the content is really all that unique.

Celebrities on Twitter are intensely personal as opposed to what their press statements disclose or what their publicists say. Even media companies like CNN or KCBS show more of their humanity in the way they tweet, perhaps showing that the line between blogging/news is harder to draw. Public and private, professional and informal, it’s like these things are starting to mesh. Are they doing this 100% intentionally? Who knows, but it seems that this service, and other phenomena like Facebook Pages bring the world of information that much closer to human conversation.

So, in a culture that is always changing faster than we can blink, what remains the same?

I think the answer is, real human relationships. This is funny. It’s like we’re moving closer to authenticity, transparency, vulnerability, community, and whatever else true relationships exhibit… and it points us to what our deepest needs have always been (even if it’s only in a vain way).

While we may not always value a witty quote in a friend’s Facebook profile, we will always value their compassion and wisdom in person. While watching a live concert stream is great, nothing compares to the musician performing his tunes in your house.

People are learning more than ever the value of sharing a meal together. Talking on the phone for more than a few minutes is a big deal. I think this is why Haven does church the way we do it: over a meal, over a hike, just being with others and showing them that they matter.

And on the flip side, people feel lonely and isolated even faster than ever. We send someone an e-mail/instant message/SMS, and when there is slow/no response, and we find it difficult not to be frustrated or even take it personally. And for those of us who already struggle with self-esteem, lulls in correspondence/comments/mentions equate to a little bit of social death.

What this means is that we can continue to distract ourselves and be enamored by this changing world, but absolutely nothing will replace real connections with people. And if we can cut through all the noise, the internet world will remind us of our condition more than detach us from it.

When our attention is being divided more than ever, wouldn’t it be spectacular to just listen to someone else share their lives? To ask them questions? To encourage them? To just shake a hand or hug?

I felt like I failed big time while I was out getting a sandwich at Ike’s with my mom. She was telling me about her trip to Chicago, and all I could think about was the e-mail I didn’t check that morning. What a fool I am!