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Slow news week: Confusion! (Here come the drums) · by Rafi Kam
Oh you’re Adam Bernard?
Adam Bernard knows a couple things… one – hip-hop need not be equated with blackness and two – “media folks” in New York have “business relationships” and “face-to-face interactions with the artists they cover”. They’re almost famous. He just thought you should know.
What kind of blew my mind was the number of people who knew who I was based on my work. I never expect anyone to read a byline so I go into every event expecting to have to explain who I write for to every person. Jay over at Amalgam Entertainment threw all that out the window, however, completely shocking me after I introduced myself. I said “Hi, I’m Adam Bernard” and before I could get out “I’m a writer from” he completed the sentence saying “oh you’re Adam Bernard from Elemental! You’re one of the people I really wanted here.” Now he could have said that second part to every person in the party and I would have been cool with it, the fact that he knew one of the mags I write for blew me away and showed a level of knowledge about me that I’m not used to, but apparently I should get used to. Similar instances happened during the Justin Timberlake party last week where I would introduce myself to a contact and they’d reply “oh you’re Adam Bernard! I get your emails. It feels like I already know you!” I guess all the hard work really is paying off.
The quotes in the first paragraph all come from Tara Henley’s “Circus” post yet in the comments of that same post when asked the question:
Do Tara, Bol, YN or any of the other people who run these blogs count as celebrities?
Tara answers “Absolutely not.” Adam, could you straighten this girl out?
Bol has the OkayPlayer forums steaming hotter than a chai latte and he’s not a celebrity? Even Lupe Fiasco who we hear is about to drop an album decided to deflect any shine that guest blogging at XXL could have given him with a post all about Bol. Is Lupe on the Bol street team or something? Noz’s ill subliminal sums it up best… “it’s best for the opponent with the highest public profile to gracefully bow out before an ebeef jumps off”. I’m not sure anymore but I think that would have been Lupe.
Lupe’s follow-up post was a heartfelt but rambling and antiquated diatribe on how the media (including himself) is here to distract us and keep us consuming instead of producing. At least he admits to being part of the media. In Tara’s otherwise solid post she won’t (nevermind that she blogs for money for a magazine publisher) insisting that “the online world and the media are not the same thing. At all.” Uh, right… sort of. Not really.
Lupe, listen up so you can free yourself of your guilt. The “online world” of media is the future and it is one where we the people participate in the media. We are the media, we spread the message. Jeff Jarvis happens to use some of your same terminology in a post today but observe the difference:
We need to teach the incumbents that the economics of media are no longer all about direct revenue: “consumers” buying “their content.” That was nice for them while it lasted, but it’s over. In the post-scarcity, open media economy, you can gain greater advantage, I believe, by also recognizing indirect revenue and new economies of social scale: The “consumers” market your brand for you. They distribute your “product” for you. The “audience” now creates its content, often around yours. You have a new opportunity to build and maintain direct relationships with the public, around the middlemen who’ve dogged your lives. This can also build a valuable store of data and experience about the public and what they really want. It’s a great new era. Only the old guys can’t see the opportunities; all they see is decline and fear. So we need to demonstrate to them what is possible.
Tara, what the hell isn’t in the online world anyway? All media that matters has at least a foot in the online world.
People need to learn the new rules soon because as Char points out you’re losing your advantage. Old media is set in its ways and fat from its past abuses so it can afford to be clueless until it can’t afford to anymore. We cannot. So wake up.
You (not just you Tara but you – you!) are the new media. Ignore this fact at your peril.
good stuff, Rafi. Tara’s still my homegirl lol.
RD
— RD Sep 15, 08:04 PM
Interesting read. Never expected to see my face up on another site.
— Adam Bernard Sep 16, 11:57 AM
I guess all the hard work really is paying off.
— Rafi Sep 16, 11:59 AM