Trent Reznor on social networking: I'm out
For Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor, social networking is not working.
Which might seem strange to hear from a man who was presented this week with a special achievement award at the Webbys.
Still, in a blog post written Wednesday, Reznor seems to have come to an emotional fork in the road with Web 2.0. And he's decided to stick the fork in it.
"I will be tuning out of the social networking sites because at the end of the day it's now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture and the experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule," he said.
Reznor is very forthright about the kind of idiots he has in mind. For him, they have ruined the beauty of eschewing record companies in favor of direct contact with real people out there.
His first example of idiocracy are posts to the Nine Inch Nails site: "On nin.com, there's 3-4 different people that each send me between 50 - 100 message per day of delusional, often threatening nonsense. We can delete them, but they just sign back up and start again."
Reznor's experience on Twitter sounds, if anything, even more disturbing: "Looks like the Metal Sludge contingency has discover Twitter! Finally! For those of you that don't know what this is, please let me explain. Metal Sludge is the home of the absolutely worst people I've ever come across. It's populated mainly by unattractive plump females who publicly fantasize about having sex with guys in bands."
It transpires that many of these alleged "worst people" are folks that Reznor recognizes from his shows.
"I really don't understand what kind of 'fan' spends that kind of time and money to travel across the country seeing a band, to then dedicate an incredible amount of time and energy into non-stop hate diatribes online," he said.
Humanity is not a pretty thing, Trent. Some of your music paints that at a very high level of decibel and clarity. Still, Reznor considered starting up a public forum where everyone's identity could be verified.
However, in the end, he appears to have given up on the whole social-networking thing. And he blames the lunge for lucre: "We're in a world where the mainstream social networks want any and all people to boost user numbers for the big selloff and are not concerned with the quality of experience."
Some might feel that Reznor is merely a fine expert in attracting attention.
However, when someone who has embraced modern technology with both skill and openness (his fight against the Apple Apps store approval process, for example, was extremely well-argued) turns against one of its supposedly most vital pillars, it is worth listening.
Because he just might have a point. In fact, I can't help but look at Nine Inch Nails discography and see a vivid picture of what might be the life story of social networking: "Pretty Hate Machine." "Broken." "The Downward Spiral." "The Fragile." "With Teeth." "Year Zero," "Ghosts." And, yes, that's in chronological order.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
Oops, too late.
Judge what is said on what is said, not on who said it. You fail at critical analysis.
If him calling a fatty a fatty was enough to make him run, just imagine when he is feeding our young trolls for months. I can see his fatty ass whining to MTqueef and VommitH1 about it. We are the internet hate machine you fat wash up of a ****, NOT you mrs.Trent. We are not going to share. **** and **** you lulzy **** :)
I completely agree with him on that.
Myspace was first the big example, but after trying Facebook and some others it's become mainstream for some people to just add as many people as they want. They really aren't "friends".
In fact, maybe it's our whole concept of "celebrity" that brings out the moron in people. Of course, it's a concept that has made Trent rich and influential -- so if that IS the root cause, he probably doesn't want to deal with it.
On my YouTube account, I get some utterly retarded comments (like "first post"), I know that I am getting nothing as bad as some of the garbage that a celebrity like Trent Reznor gets.
For me, it's easy to delete the asinine comments, but for someone with a really high-profile, it's probably impossible to keep up, and then you start fielding questions like "Why did you delete my comment?"
In many ways, Web 2.0 sucks harder than Web 1.0, since so many more people are contributing to the suckage.
Or he should just have stuck to a non-comment blog. Either way, when it comes to entertainment, the majority of your audience is likely to be idiots.
And now they pay a premium for his limited edition box sets on his direct website. While the internet is a bastion for a high amount of stupidity and insensitivity, I would have to imagine the types that gravitate to his social places would be the top of the miserable whining pile.
Bit like trying to reason with this guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps
2. He just needs a more restrictive 2-way communication. I have loved getting the few emails from his mailing list, but any communication should be kept within polls.
Hopefully, he will continue to use his distribution model and forget about the fact that 90% of the world is comprised of not only ignorant people, but proudly ignorant.
- by wruckrother July 23, 2009 2:28 PM PDT
- I can't believe we can't say pe nis...that's a ******* scientific name!
- Reply to this comment
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (34 Comments)