Dr Rebekka Kill
Head of School, Art Architecture and Design
Leeds Metropolitan University
Facebook is like disco, and Twitter is like punk.
In this “talk”
I’m not going to talk
… at all.
This is a story of obsession
and of music.
I used to live a double life
I had two careers that I
deliberately kept separate.
I was worried that, if I came
clean…
it would be a disaster both
personally and professionally.
By day I was
…an art lecturer
By night…
a nightclub DJ.
*whispers* nightclub DJs don’t talk btw
Eventually, I became frustrated with the
duality of my life, after a decade I was tired of
burning the candle at both ends and I
decided it was time to confess all…
I began to make art about music
In 2007 I did a performance work
that involved playing 7inch records
for 24 hours
in ‘approximate’ alphabetical order.
I started at 9am on a Saturday
morning with The 5th Dimension
Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In
I ended with…
Yazoo Don’t Go, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Rockers to
Swallow, The Young Knives The Decision, Yazz Stand
Up For Your Love Rights and The Zutons Oh Stacey.
…at 9am on a Sunday morning.
Over 500 7inch singles in 24 hours.
I am obsessed with music
totally obsessed.
It all started in 1977
In 1977 I was old enough to be allowed
to stay up to watch Top of the Pops.
In 1978 my mum went to university,
at Portsmouth Poly, and over the next
three years I attended all of the-end-ofterm all day discos.
So, from ‘78-’81, three times a year,
I danced for 12 hours in the
students’ union, I watched Top of
the Pops religiously and...
I listened to my tiny transistor Frosties
radio (I’d found it in a charity shop)
and this began my obsession.
1981 was a turning point
I had enough pocket money,
and enough freedom,
to go to Woolworths
and buy records.
I started collecting
So, what’s all this got to do with
social media?
Well, at the beginning of this
formative period, in Portsmouth
Poly Students’ Union, I developed a
love for both punk and disco…
…it was almost like there was a
punk-me and a disco-me, and this
schizophrenia has continued
throughout my life.
I couldn’t decide if I wanted to
be Donna Summer
or Siouxsie
… deep down I really wanted to
be Debbie Harry
I love disco and I love punk
and post-punk was a kind of happy resolution.
In this “talk” I wanted to work
out if there are similarities
…between my two obsessions:
music and social media.
Is Facebook like disco?
- rapidly subsumed into the mainstream
- commercial
- perceived as politically apathetic
And is Twitter like punk?
- unsentimental
- political
- shouty
I’ll think a little more about punk
and disco first.
Richard Dyer wrote his paper In
Defense of Disco in 1979
He argued against the characterisation of
disco as ‘capitalist music’
…by saying that all music is
inherently capitalist.
And he also spoke in defence of the
‘ambivalently, ambiguously, contradictorily –
positive qualities of disco’
For Dyer, the three key
characteristics of disco are:-
eroticism
romanticism
materialism
Central to this is a desire to escape the
mundanity of life, the culture of work, of
the office, of the boring job.
‘Disco is part of the wider to and fro between
work and leisure, alienation and escape,
boredom and enjoyment that we are so
accustomed to (and which Saturday Night
Fever plugs into so effectively)’
‘disco can’t change the world or make
the revolution. No art can do that, and
it’s pointless to expect it to.’
A lot has been written about Punk
Simon Frith’s article Post-punk Blues,
published in Marxism Today, is
nostalgic about the ‘heyday of
political pop’ in the late 70s.
Frith states that
‘pop music has failed, then, to
realise the political fantasies that
were piled on punk’.
‘Punk failed to change the way
popular music worked because it is
in capitalist practice impossible to
construct an alternative…’
He goes on, ‘The tragedy of punk was
not that it ‘failed’ to change pop but that
so many people thought that it could’
In his essay Listening to Punk,
written in 1985, David Laing stresses
that an important legacy of punk
was the introduction into lyrics of
vernacular language.
He states that, ‘It was up to punk
rock to introduce ‘fuck’ and the rest
wholesale to popular music.
Laing finishes with the construct of
the ‘punk listener’. The punk listener
has two key qualities…
1. the expectation of challenging
listening i.e. potential for shock,
acceptance of avant-garde elements.
2. the ‘punk listener’s enjoyment of
other listeners’ discomfort and trauma.
I have a new obsession; inflected
by my obsession with music.
Entangled with my academic life.
Social media
If we look at the history of social
media sites using the model of
music history we can see some
interesting parallels.
Facebook: It’s a kind of universal, it’s
accessible, the right hand bar makes
us aware of its links to consumerism.
The kids love it.
Twitter, on the other hand, is the place
of intellectuals and bloggers, and the
middle classes, the angry voices, the
politics, the high(er) brow.
Twitter’s commercialism is harder to find.
Attempts to be explicit about this, to
genuinely use Twitter for selling, generally fail.
We can use the music history analogy to
look backwards in time too
If Facebook is like disco, and
Twitter is like punk, then…
maybe MySpace was the 60s and
Second Life was prog
– overblown, over complex and now …over.
I post the same updates on
Facebook and Twitter. But they get
very different responses.
What gets Facebook going…
jokes, puns and funny stuff
Cool stuff
events
And lots
and lots of…
kittens, holiday photos and
pictures of people’s children…
So far, so disco?
But…
Facebook also likes…
politics
OK, OK, it’s presented in a particular
way, for a particular audience,
but it’s still politics…
In many ways this strengthens the
argument that Facebook is like disco.
From the outside, at first glance, it
seems apolitical, infantilising, but…
…in Dyer’s In Defense of Disco one of his
key arguments was that disco was highly
influential in terms of the politics of
gender, LGBT, class and race issues.
Facebook is also very active here.
Although I will admit that Facebook is
relatively “light”.
There are also occasionally some good
examples of intelligent debate...
For example, I posted this on
both Facebook and Twitter:
“I actually hate opera. Opera, poetry and
jazz. They're all about 90% pointless.”
Twitter didn’t respond.
But Facebook went crazy.
“Agreed. But that 10% that is awesome
kind of makes it worth it... almost.”
“Pointless is a bit harsh just cos you don't like
em... Found myself accidentally diggin' John
Coltrane the other day.... Me!!! Jazz! I was
highly surprised! as you can imagine! :D”
I must protest at your insistence of
pointlessness. Perhaps another description?;
By that benchmark you would have to accept
it if someone said 90% of all art or academic
research is pointless.... xx
“Philistine! - Jazz is 'nice', Opera is a
'vision in sound' and Poetry is life”
”? Pointless..... ?”
“I think saying 90% of something that has involved a
great amount of creative energy is valid, whether
you like the results of the creative process is another
matter but to render it pointless is quite insulting to
the creative process itself.
I'm not picking an argument, I'm just surprised
at your statement, coming from you! “
“Opera is exclusive, jazz is indulgent, but
POETRY! come on... poetry is ace democratic, accessible, world-changing...”
“And scratching records is a
better art form? Wow. Couldn't
disagree more. Without poetry,
there would be no music.”
“I would have thought someone in
your position would have an
appreciation for all art forms?
Strange...”
“I know - but honestly, can anyone have a genuine
appreciation for ALL artforms - including the mediocre - say,
amateur watercolour, Olly Murs, Bernard Manning, Mills and
Boon, etc. What's more, unpick the notion of 'pointless' and
perhaps it means it may be appreciated by some, but it
makes no 'point' i.e. it is inherently conservative and
apolitical - which is why she is 100% wrong about poetry which is perhaps the most political artform as it emanates
from and impacts upon language itself...”
“i see it like this.. you have to develop an appreciation for opera and
classical music, jazz, prose, pop, rock and so on equally.. because without
say mozart or mahler or rachmaninov you wouldnt have bizet or puccini without keats you wouldnt have shelley.. and where would we be without
ella or brubeck or queen or the beatles even?.. everything is linked and
has evolved to what we have today - a headonistic clash of cultural
sounds and rhythms and harmonies that both delight and annoy and yet
help to make.. well.. music.. and without those sounds in my life.. i would
consider it to be very dull indeed.”
“Ah well. Opinions are like
arseholes.... We've all got one!”
And that was just edited highlights.
So, what gets Twitter going?
I get most of my news and current
affairs from Twitter. It can work like
an RSS feed.
It’s a good way to find out about events…
and opportunities.
Twitter is full of opinion.
Especially about BBC Question Time
…and Britain’s Got Talent
Recently I asked people some questions
about Facebook and Twitter…
about ethics and banality.
Facebook didn’t really respond. It
didn’t spark much interest.
Twitter on the other hand…
“I think banality is underrated. Twitter
shows me that other people's lives are
as banal as mine...”
“ I began it as a micro-blog, still use it for
that but the social aspect crept in. “
“it's the only place I can
simultaneously argue, surmise, joke,
network, watch, reach out, laugh,
wince and disseminate info.”
“Young 'uns don't seem as keen on
Twitter. They might be on it but
don't see it as equal to Facebook..? “
“People don't seem to edit stuff on
Facebook..500 crap holiday photos
etc would rather see the six best
ones..or even, none!”
“personally find Twitter far more
engaging than the Blue Site.
Stripped down… a bit ADHD tho.
Professionally more useful too. “
So, Twitter likes talking, and writing
about itself but Facebook doesn’t.
Twitter is also often hostile
towards Facebook.
Sound familiar?
Think back to the construct of the
‘punk listener’ and the expectation
of challenging listening.
‘It was up to punk rock to introduce
‘fuck’ and the rest wholesale to
popular music.’ - Laing
“Twitter allows me to be more sweary”
Facebook is a bit like disco
and Twitter is a bit like punk…
I like disco and Facebook.
and I like punk and Twitter.
In music, post-punk felt like a good place.
It was like punk but more disco-y.
What will be post-Twitter?
Will it be like Twitter but more Facebook-y?
Pinterest is quite Facebook-y
But, to me, it feels a bit like a
compilation album.
Now That’s What I Call…
…really nice cushions, cupcakes,
ecobuildings, 1920s cinema etc..
It’s very pretty; very visual in a world
that’s dominated by misspelt words
and punctuation errors.
It’s all found images and or samples.
So, maybe Pinterest is more like
early house music?
What about Instagram?
isn’t it like the Mike Flowers Pops
of the social media world?
I don’t see anything, new, yet that
will rival either Facebook or Twitter.
But when it comes. I hope it will
be the best of both. A hybrid.
Unlike my dual obsession with
disco and punk
this is not a schizophrenic
obsession.
My statuses are the same.
No need to be two different
people.
The version of me that is
engaging with social media
is already hybridised.
Polyphony is when many distinct
voices or points of view exist
simultaneously.
Facebook and Twitter are
polyphonic spaces.
In polyphonic texts it is often unclear who the
narrator is, this can also shift and change
during the course of the text.
For Bakhtin unfinalisabilty is
embedded in the ‘prose of everyday
life’ and the chronotope; the
intersection of time and space.
Both music and social media are
chronotopic.
Time is important
– whether timeline or beats per minute.
But it is where music and social
media intersect with space…
on the dancefloor
and on the internet
that they hybridise, and become fully…
polyphonic.
Thankyou