Modern Life is Rubbish - discuss (not the album)

Cupz · Post by **Cupz** » Mon Jul 08, 2013 3:31 pm

Torn n Frayed wrote:I refuse to get a smart-phone or I-phone; for me it's the very definition of disappearing up ones own arse!

This has been my thoughts towards them as well, until I got one for my birthday. Its now a very expensive portable music-player that can receive phone calls and make notes.

GH · Post by GH » Mon Jul 08, 2013 5:33 pm

We all tend to spend more and more of our lives looking at screens of some sort. That seems to be what life is about these days which is sad.

Young children are now being given smart phones at a very young age, so they have the internet with them at all times.

It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

fujee · Post by **fujee** » Mon Jul 08, 2013 6:30 pm

GH wrote:It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

Then its fun and games you can't see

Mexicola · Post by **Mexicola** » Mon Jul 08, 2013 7:27 pm

IanRedpoint wrote:I can honestly say that I didn't miss connectivity to the outside world once while camping in Dorset this weekend.

Agreed 100%. Was a bloody relief to be entirely offline and not even have the option to be honest.

Treefingers · Post by **Treefingers** » Mon Jul 08, 2013 8:35 pm

Kids with smartphones and tablets is too weird.

fujee · Post by **fujee** » Mon Jul 08, 2013 9:25 pm

Yeah really glad I grew up at least into my mid teens before I got a mobile phone of any sort.

Lens Larque · Post by **Lens Larque** » Mon Jul 08, 2013 11:37 pm

mono wrote:
Lens Larque wrote:Human experience appears to be a commodity for a Social Market. People, it seems, are trading on their lives in this market. Glamorous experiences have a higher value. The internet is the platform for this.

Currency is friends, likes, follows etc..
Are you into Bourdieu? There are a couple of easier books where he introduces this idea. They're pretty good.

Haven't read but thank you for directing me to some research my insights are generally shallow.

mono wrote: edit: don't mean to offend anyone, but what do you think of the "your Boards of Canada collection" thread with respect to "modern life is rubbish"? some pretty extreme stuff there.

Its interesting to see what has been available, like the mhtrtc cassette in the white case that looks like it could be swallowed by a dog.

But its a pretty gross thread. Very empty. In my opinion.

Jonse · Post by **Jonse** » Tue Jul 09, 2013 8:25 pm

I see nothing wrong with social networking and I see nothing wrong with smart phones. Any and all negative results that occur from them should I feel be addressed by a cultural change in how we use them. To abandon them entirely would be abandoning invaluable tools of communication.

The writer of the article asks: "Is this still about music?"

To that I would say it depends on the band. It's obvious that Boards of Canada isn't on facebook to have a like-fest circlejerk. I also wouldn't presume that the bands that are using facebook for that purpose were ever about the music to begin with, even before facebook.

Techboy · Post by **Techboy** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 1:32 pm

Treefingers wrote:It links to ebay when I type iP*d? FUUUUUUCK

No you have malware, run a virus scan. microsoft security essentials comes recommended.

GH · Post by GH » Wed Jul 10, 2013 6:56 pm

Techboy wrote:
Treefingers wrote:It links to ebay when I type iP*d? FUUUUUUCK
No you have malware, run a virus scan. microsoft security essentials comes recommended.

No, it did the same for me. If you hover over the unwanted link it says Link added by VigLink.
It may be a plugin used on the forum.

I'm going to type the word ipad, and it will become a link.
Try it yourself..

GH · Post by GH » Wed Jul 10, 2013 6:58 pm

^ ok that's odd. This time, although it was a link when I previewed my post, it is not a link after posting.

zeitgeist · Post by **zeitgeist** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 8:21 pm

Treefingers · Post by **Treefingers** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:22 pm

GH wrote:^ ok that's odd. This time, although it was a link when I previewed my post, it is not a link after posting.

IT'S SELF AWARE

Cab Dreaming · Post by **Cab Dreaming** » Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:30 pm

I'd say I mostly agree with the quote Fujee pointed out and the idea of "I was there, man" to whichever greater or lesser degree of one-upmanship that comes in at, but personally I feel it comes down to the art of storytelling. There are some of us who can go on holiday and really spin out a good yarn full of dynamism and nuance, and then there are people who come back with 10 reels of snaps and can only express themselves by showing you a picture or Mr. and Mrs. outside the Acropolis and saying "Ooh, look at this one!" and letting the picture do all the talking for them.

I don't think social media is to blame per se, I see it as giving a much wider voice to the holiday snap people who are are in the majority. Pretty much everyone has a camera at hand now thanks to mobile phones and, as annoying as it can be to see all these objects being flashed around at gigs, it's just an extension of the holiday snap frame of mind: people want to be seen as being interesting, so they fill up their twitters and facebooks and whatever else with things that people will see and go "Oh cool ,they were at the secret XYZ gig (or whatever)" and by inference that makes them cool. But, regardless of how you choose to tell your story, either orally or otherwise, I think it's still the same nucleus that instigates it: everyone wants to feel that they're liked and good company, but for some people a click on a like button is enough to do that.

As a case in point, one of the girls in my department came back recently from her honeymoon in Tokyo and started flashing pictures willy nilly, but I said tell me about it, don't just show me a picture of Shinjuku and say "Yeah, we went there. It was fun" and when she started actually recalling her memories of it, she was so much more animated and engaging about the whole experience, much more than trotting out the pictures could ever hope for.

FernieCanto · Post by **FernieCanto** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 1:36 am

I've been reading articles and opinions like this one for a while now. While I don't think it's all wrong, I do have one doubt. This thing about "human experience being a currency", "being there just to show the others"... are you guys absolutely sure that this only became true in the last 5 years? In my view, this has always happened. Ever since society became what it is, the status is more important than the experience. Way, way before people could even imagine something like Facebook existing, I already saw people wearing T-shirts from cities they visited, showing off pictures or other things. R.E.M. sang "take a picture here, take a souvenir" in the 80's, not last year. What I think is that Facebook and smartphones only made that fact more obvious and ubiquitous. We cannot ignore that truth anymore. It's all around us.

But of course, instead of taking a step back and wondering how these latest events fit in the bigger picture, it's always more comfortable to blame the present, it's always more comfortable to think that the past is this lost paradise where we were all happy. Isn't Boards of Canada here to remind us that that is wrong? That the past is inside the present? No, I don't think BoC is going to turn the tide; I think BoC shows us the tide has never changed at all. We only think the experience mattered in this long lost, distant past, but we weren't there to see.

I mean, really, "There was a time when bands just wrote music and played it"? I call bullshit on that. Music has always been about business. Even the music we call "classical" today was written to make the nobles look more noble, or the priests look more priest-like, or just to make money anyway. Does that mean inspiration and expression never existed? No. Art is art and business is business, it has always been like that, and it's not Facebook that's going to change that.

jcnporter · Post by **jcnporter** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 8:15 am

FernieCanto wrote:I've been reading articles and opinions like this one for a while now. While I don't think it's all wrong, I do have one doubt. This thing about "human experience being a currency", "being there just to show the others"... are you guys absolutely sure that this only became true in the last 5 years? In my view, this has always happened. Ever since society became what it is, the status is more important than the experience. Way, way before people could even imagine something like Facebook existing, I already saw people wearing T-shirts from cities they visited, showing off pictures or other things. R.E.M. sang "take a picture here, take a souvenir" in the 80's, not last year. What I think is that Facebook and smartphones only made that fact more obvious and ubiquitous. We cannot ignore that truth anymore. It's all around us.

For me what's different is that so many folks, at a gig for example, are willing for forsake the actual 'here and now' experience in order to record it.
I certainly have a sense that we have lost something in terms of sacrificing real experience or taking time to experience the moment in favour of 'virtual' experience. It isn't just technology or social media, though - consumerism teaches us to be constantly dissatisfied with the present. It is only recently that marketing and advertising has become truly ubiquitous.

Ostentatious Username · Sun Jul 14, 2013 6:18 pm

There are some hotels in the world now that are offering a digital abstinence package. People actually pay to have their digital items locked away for their entire stay so they can enjoy a stress free holiday without fighting the temptation of going online the entire time.

Ostentatious Username · Sun Jul 14, 2013 6:27 pm

Personally I don't mind if people are recording the show because then I can enjoy the show in person and get the full experience and then go home and relive the experience if I want to. Its a win/ win situation for the people who aren't recording.

fujee · Post by **fujee** » Sun Jul 14, 2013 6:43 pm

Ostentatious Username wrote:There are some hotels in the world now that are offering a digital abstinence package. People actually pay to have their digital items locked away for their entire stay so they can enjoy a stress free holiday without fighting the temptation of going online the entire time.

Its not so much the fact this exists which depresses me, its the idea that people have no self control to be able to just leave their devices alone.

pianoforte · Post by **pianoforte** » Sun Jul 14, 2013 11:01 pm

Ostentatious Username wrote:There are some hotels in the world now that are offering a digital abstinence package. People actually pay to have their digital items locked away for their entire stay so they can enjoy a stress free holiday without fighting the temptation of going online the entire time.

That's interesting. Sounds like a really good idea.

I, for one, just attended a local indie music festival with:

One HD camcorder
One analog Hi8 camcorder
One still 35mm camera
One cassette recorder

...and somehow managed to enjoy myself nonetheless.

I don't think I'll bring anything to the next show I go to, though.