I think you should step back and look at it with a bit of distance. Is the content they're paying for really the same as you think is available for free, and do they even get it under the same conditions, in morality and circumstance.
Not knowing your life, it feels like you could have said the same towards people buying pricy concert tickets when there's royalty free music abundantly available.
> commoditised distress [...] often in dire situations
The first step to alleviate these specific situations could be to stop marginalizing this kind of content and give them a regular professional status, instead of systematicly pigeon hole it.
I dislike arguments made in this vein, it's sortof a way to intellectually dismiss someone's point without addressing it.
I share the grandparent poster's concern. Parasocial relationships feed us in a certain way, but do not nourish.
Don't get me wrong; I'd rather have OnlyFans than pimps. But that's not the point.
I don't see the CrossFit like dogma of "if it's not working just do more of it" as beneficial in this topic.
I also don't like looking at a service like OF and only focusing on the extremes.
Most OF content is not personalized. It might be consumed solo, but it's produced for a wider distribution. On the concert side, I feel there's a similar situation where you can pay a little to get the same experience as everyone else, or you can pay a lot to get VIP passes and a personalized experience.
Also, both situations are strongly dependent on the size of the fanbase. You're not going to get a personalized show from Taylor Swift or Bella Thorne, but smaller musicians and OF performers target that vibe exclusively.
I like things without crowd interaction, like musicals/plays, because there is no dystopian parasocial aspect to it. I am only there because the live is different than the recording.
Listening to music performed in person by other humans is the natural way of things, like actually having sex with another human.
Recorded music is much more like pornography.
‘Reading words etched into a stone or inscribed on papyrus by other human hands is the natural way of things, like actually having sex with another human.
Reading words created via machines is much more like pornography.’
A quick search shows... of course there was!
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/06/06/the-record-eff...
> For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.
> - Socrates
The analog to actually having sex would be playing with the band on the stage.
The reason I don’t think only playing with the band counts is: in a hunter gather tribe 70,000 years ago, did everyone sing all of the songs all of the time? Or did some people just listen, at least some of the time?
Practically speaking I think it must have been the latter.
Of course there are lots of unnatural aspects in live music still, like too many people, too loud, etc. But recorded music is wholly unnatural, like pornography is.
That's just any customer business.
When you go buy a house it feels like the agent is really looking at your personal circumstances and trying hard to be your friend. When you go cut your hair the staff will remember your name and ask about your day. Your dentist will keep track of your operations, personalize your care and make sure you're in trust and as comfortable as possible.
There's really nothing special about having people you pay be friendly with you.
I'm glad we have books, even as it's not as natural as oral transmission. I love photography, I'm so glad we have chemical food that requires such a brewing process to come to fruition, and I have no desire to go back to a hunter gatherer society, I like civilization in general. And pornography is sure part of it.
This assumes music was made as a performance. Music can be (and i argue probably mostly was) people jamming together. Musician and audience are blurred in this scenario.
However, give me a good piano recital with elevated seating to be able to see the pianist hands, and I'll be there in a flash.
By your logic, writing things down is also unnatural and we should've kept with the oral tradition only.
Natural is stepping on a piece of metal, contracting tetanus, and dying without appropriate medical treatment.
Unless you're close, you're not catching the nuance of the pianist's hands any more than guitar licks from a guitar frontman. Indeed, many modern pianists are following in the footsteps of rock concerts and having live video camera work to capture these details for people not in the front 10 rows.
All this does is give vibes of "Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television" (https://theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesn...).
Took social, and perhaps making-a-living value almost totally away from anything but tip-top talent in those areas. Nobody in your family needs you to play music at get-togethers and parties—you’re worse and less-convenient than thousands of artists on Spotify. They don’t wonder with excitement what sort of sketches Uncle Robert will bring to the next holiday, to give to his extended family. At best, that kind of thing’s indulged and tolerated now. The demand is all but entirely gone.
I reckon it was a real belief of his, given he wrote of it more than once, and whose voice it was put in, the one specific case I can call. There’s a chapter in Bluebeard about it for sure (that novel’s kind of a whirlwind tour of most of the major themes and points of Vonnegut’s work—dunno if it was intended that way, but that’s how it turned out) and I know I saw it other places, can’t recall which books.
The analogy holds. Most people don't pay concert tickets for the music itself. It's the experience, the crowd, the physical presence of the artists, etc.
Wow, What a great analogy. That really is almost the same except not with music but sexual attraction.
People build connections whatever they do, we have had phone sex for a long time. Now you need a camera and take some clothes off to do it. It is obvious that the people who manage to earn a lot streaming are mass producing content. There are ones who strive for a social connection and the creators who give that are never going to be big earners. Same as small venues.
I found an abbreviated quote from the bit I’m thinking of in Bluebeard. Loses some of it, but gets his point across:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/277466-simply-moderate-gift...
But I am quite sure I saw similar sentiments at least one other place in his work, and I think a couple places—years and years ago I read most of his novels, plus most of the collected short fiction and short stories, but it’s all pretty fuzzy now.
As someone who frequently goes to concerts, I can absolutely testify that the audience can vary a lot between cities. You can usually tell if the band/artist is genuinly enjoying their performance or if they are doing the bare rehearsed minimum.
If you read/watch interviews with touring musicians, all have stories about how "Tokyo was crazy", "London was boring" etc – even though the set list was the exact same every evening.
> the content they're paying for really the same as you think is available for free,
According to the author, having separate words for singing and dancing is a relatively new phenomenon in linguistics, and the concept of a performer and an audience as a distinct separation is also relatively recent. He likens it to conversation - sure in any given instance there may be people more or less involved in the dialog of a conversation, but we would all think it very strange if someone said "I only listen to conversations, I don't talk in them" in the way someone today might say "I only listen to music, I don't sing/play/dance".
If I talked about putting all of the telephone sanitizers on a spaceship that might be a reference those of a certain age might be able to grok. :)
> Taylor has always cultivated a parasocial relationship with her fans, and her success is in no small part due to this cultivation. Here are just a few examples besides just her deeply personal and largely autobiographical lyrics:
> 1) Publishing her personal journal pages in the four different versions of the Lover album.
> 2) Inviting fans to her house for Secret Sessions to listen to her albums before release dates.
> 3) This direct quote from the Eras Tour in Tampa: "I'm really loving this tour. It's become my entire personality and I've always loved putting on shows, always loved that connection... Knowing you have felt the same way... I need you guys very much for my well-being."
> 4) The Fearless TV announcement. "This was the musical era in which so many inside jokes were created between us, so many hugs exchanged and hands touched, so many unbreakable bonds formed, so before I say anything else, let me just say that it was a real honor to get to be a teenager alongside you..."
> 5) Leaving secret messages in the liner notes of her physical CDs and the eventual TS culture of Easter Eggs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TaylorSwift/comments/13zlbi9/paraso...
It's about machines replacing human work, but it's not at all about the machines. It's about the people. It's about human dignity. Or, as Vonnegut says, it's about "a problem whose queasy horrors will eventually be made world-wide by the sophistication of machines. The problem is this: How to love people who have no use."
Now, the waiter at our office lunch restaurant that we went to like every 2 or 3 weeks knowing exactly what each of us would order and even the ones that alternated between 2 or 3 dishes he'd ask "oh is it the butter chicken or the chicken tikka today?" makes sense and is impressive and appreciated. He didn't do any non essential small talk instead of doing his job either.
On the other hand you have restaurants where you're a table for two and the guy doesn't remember who had which dish when serving in a basically empty restaurant.
Die quickly at 30, with 10 children and some grandchildren even. Sounds like mission accomplished to me.