When a pioneer of social networking turns his back on a social network, is this the beginning of a creeping social apocalypse?
Trent Reznor, frontman of Nine Inch Nails, Webby award winner, and generally interesting chap, has closed his Twitter account.
In June, Reznor declared that as far as social networking is concerned: "I'm out."
And though he briefly returned to microblog about the final, ultimate, totally farewell Nine Inch Nails tour, he has now shut the doors to Twitterdom.
Certain fans, he declared on the NIN blog in June, were driving him out: "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."
So now Reznor's tweets are complete. He decided not to offer a good-bye, nor even some hope for social networking's future.
The haters, jealous of his happy relationship with Mariqueen Maandig, frontispiece of the rock band West Indian Girl, have driven him away.
Oprah didn't tweet at all between June 6 and July 15. But don't worry, people. She's still cool with Twitter.
So who might be next to follow Reznor to the exit?
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.
Still somewhere between perplexed and apoplectic after Apple had rejected the new Nine Inch Nails iPhone app update, the band's frontman, Trent Reznor, expressed himself very clearly on NIN's blog forum.
Neatly emphasizing his point with a quite liberal use of the kinds of words that Apple appears to find uncomfortable, Reznor compared Apple's attitude with that of, startlingly, Wal-Mart Stores:
"And while we're at it, I'll voice the same issue I had with Wal-Mart years ago, which is a matter of consistency and hypocrisy. Wal-Mart went on a rampage years ago insisting all music they carry be censored of all profanity and 'clean' versions be made for them to carry."
Seemingly not pausing for breath, he continued: "Bands (including Nirvana) tripped over themselves editing out words, changing album art, etc to meet Wal-Mart's standards of decency--because Wal-Mart sells a lot of records. NIN refused, and you'll notice a pretty empty NIN section at any Wal-Mart."
"My reasoning was this: I can understand if you want the moral posturing of not having any 'indecent' material for sale--but you could literally turn around 180 degrees from where the NIN record would be and purchase the film 'Scarface' completely uncensored, or buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto where you can be rewarded for beating up prostitutes. How does that make sense?"
He ends his message with: "Come on Apple, think your policies through and for f***'s sake get your app approval scenario together."
On his Twitter feed, Reznor also linked to a post from his developer:
"v1.0 is live. v1.0.3 got rejected due to content yet the app has no content in it. this was mainly a stability release to fix the bug that crashes the app for international users. the bug was fixed 24 hours after 1.0 went live and we have been waiting for apple to approve it ever since. meanwhile the app continues to get a growing number of 1 star ratings from international users understandably frustrated by the bug. but looks like our hands are tied."
The developer added: "Apple is not allowing us to make the current app more stable because there is "objectionable" content online (yes on the internet). so we are essentially not allowed to fixed bugs unrelated to the issue."
However, perhaps undercutting Reznor's apparent intransigence, the developer said: "We removed the song 'The Downward Spiral' from the server, hoping to appease apple and get this bug fix through. however i have yet to receive a reply."
I have a feeling a reply will be there shortly.
For a man who has been responsible for some of the more industrial lyrics in the music history, Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor has taken rejection by Apple with a relatively sanguine spirit.
On discovering that Apple has refused to approve NIN's latest iPhone app update, he tweeted: "Apple rejects the NIN iPhone update because it contains objectionable content. The objectionable content referenced is 'The Downward Spiral.'" ("The Downward Spiral" is a 1994 album that laces a touch of earthy nihilism into a musical screwdriver of heavy psychological meltdown.)
Reznor then added in a follow-up tweet: "Not even sure where to start with that one."
Well, he might like to start with the fact that the very same content, with lyrics on the track "Closer" that suggest the author would like to have rather rough, bestial intercourse with his lover, is still happily available for close scrutiny on iTunes. And, according to MG Siegler at TechCrunch, who is in possession of one, on the first version of the already approved NIN iPhone app.
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