Sunday, March 15, 2020

The People Take Over | Lefsetz Letter


What kind of crazy, fucked-up world do we live in where the best information about the coronavirus comes from a humor video?

One in which the government and the news media have lost control of the narrative.

This is what all the anti-social media screeds are about, this is what all the anti-smartphone, anti-technology wanking is about, the oldsters missed the technological revolution and don’t understand the schism between the young and the old. Hell, if you extrapolate, this is why the youth vote for Bernie Sanders and the old vote for Joe Biden.

D.C. talks to itself. Reporters talk to D.C. The people talk to each other.

Friday was freak-out.

Saturday was acceptance.

Sunday, today, is about humor and blowback.

Oh, you get these same insider nincompoops railing against Twitter. That’s where information is spread! It goes from one to many and then those many spread it to many more. This is completely different from the top-down distribution of news in the past. Now the public is in control of the news and those who used to dominate don’t like it, it’s no different from the record execs denying Napster and the internet back at the turn of the century. You either get on board or you’re left behind. Hell, look at music development today…the label comes LAST! You break it yourself on Tik Tok or YouTube or Soundcloud or all of them and when you reach a fever pitch, the major label signs you. And before they do, they want to know all about your socials, your impact in the world. The major labels just amplify your presence, they don’t develop it, certainly not from scratch, this is a sea change.

But, once again, the rest of media refuses to learn the music business lessons.

Newspapers are not the only ones who can gain and distribute evidence. Furthermore, with the cutbacks in manpower (and womanpower!) and the decrease of the newshole there’s a limit to how much news a paper can distribute. So, today there are stories broken online that the papers pick up AFTER! As for television…it’s all opinion all the time. The TV “news” outlets are all about ratings, advertising, so it’s all combat all the time. The edgier you are, the more people tune in. It’s really not so different from the WWE.

So, the people take over.

I don’t know about you, but today my text feed and e-mail inbox are full of observations, solutions, humor…

I mean look at the video above. It explains the situation better than any news story I’ve seen.

And, if you go online, you’ll see the video of Italians singing Rihanna from the windows of their building:

A whole neighborhood in Italy singing “Bitch Better Have My Money” by Rihanna while on lockdown

The graph showing the difference between R’s and D’s when it comes to the virus:

(and scroll down and watch the entire video here:

Sixty percent believe worst is yet to come for the U.S. in coronavirus pandemic

The inane video wherein Devin Nunes tells everybody to go out to a restaurant when Fauci is saying just the opposite:

 

You see online, the news is not slanted, you do not only get one side, but all of it.

And even if you think you can narrow your feed, you can’t, the other stories seep in. Which is why those online, like the youth, are more susceptible to change and those not online, the oldsters, are not. Oldsters watch Fox or MSNBC, youngsters are grazers, sponges who get their info from everywhere.

Furthermore, the newspapers are so busy with their false equivalencies and their boring writing styles that the young don’t cotton to them, they want their news in plain English. Give Trump credit, this is one of the reasons he won. Furthermore, he’s not afraid to employ emotion. Meanwhile, the oldsters want a return to normal, yesterday, not knowing the world has changed and online conversation is coarse, primarily because the public is punching up, they’re pissed at the rich and those with power, and those at the top are not used to this. Want to know how to cope with blowback? Ask an online king or queen, they deal with it every day. If you think you’re better than everybody else, forget it. Meanwhile, it’s the public, the mass, which decides who is anointed. And those who are know it’s only temporary and they’re still just a member of the group, not above it.

Trump tries to make a deal with Germany for exclusive rights to a vaccine and it’s everywhere.

Youngsters, the web-savvy, know that privacy is history, that your whole life is laid out online. Oldsters believe they can turn back the hands of time, isolate everybody and their information once again. As if you wouldn’t be able to Google someone before you had a meeting or a date. There’s good and bad in every tech development. Ride with it, the future is coming and the past is never returning.

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