THE INTERNET TRANSFORMATION
Recording at a gig, I have been
guilty of – however since a gig in May to see Lewis Watson I haven’t. To me, a
gig is something that is supposed to just be for that audience – which the
people in the room are only supposed to see. Although they may be going around
the country performing the same set of songs night after night, no gig is the
same – different crowds, different atmosphere. Whilst watching his performance,
my first thought was that the video was going to be posted of the gig anyway so
why bother filming it when it will just be uploaded online in a few days. The
second thing that made me think, was that perhaps the people that were paying a
lot of money to go and see him live, are missing the full experience because
they’re watching it through their 5” screens.
There was one touching moment
where someone threw a flag up onto the stage, an Irish flag no less, and he
wrapped it around his mic stand. To me, that is something that he is very good
at, audience interaction and how to really get people to have a good time. The
kind of interaction that you get in a gig is not something you’d get if you
were sat at home trying to get him to respond to you on twitter.
Furthermore, it makes me wonder what
it is like for the people performing, having 500 cameras filming everything you
do – every mistake you make. It means that if you mess up, the whole world
sees, not just the audience. That pressure to be perfect must be extortionate
and it is technology and society that has made that. Don’t get me wrong, I love
technology, but there is something about destroying the moment that makes me
think. It’s so easy to get hold of people nowadays – you don’t get a response
in 5 minutes and you suddenly think they’re ignoring you! Well, at least I used
to think that anyway, now I am rubbish at responding to people – so they get
annoyed to me when I don’t reply for a week.
It is the same sort of problem
for famous people on sites like Twitter where there response is supposed to be
almost automatic. Fans expect instant replies and always being connected. Take Zoe
Sugg, also called Zoella; she is a vlogger on YouTube and she has just
published her first book ‘Girl Online’. After she posted a statement letting
her fans know that the novel was ghost-written a few days ago, she now has
taken a break from the internet because it became so intense for her. She
claims the story and characters are all her own creation, but she needed help
to produce an exciting book. I understand that, she isn’t a natural writer and
it’s just something that she had to do. However that makes me think that the
internet has blown everything out of proportion – the headlines were that she
had ‘quit’ the internet, whereas she was actually taking a break to spend time
with her boyfriend, other YouTuber Pointlessblog.
Being in the technology industry
excites me, what they do with big data and the analytics they can perform is all
a big step forward in making the world more connected, however sometimes I do
wonder about how far it has all come.. Obviously, it can solve a lot of
problems and it can bring prosperity to many, but perhaps for teenagers and
easily impressionable people, things can get out of proportion. I’m excited for
the future, but I can imagine some people might be cautious about what might
happen to future generations.
I went to see a film called ‘Men,
Women and Children’ on the weekend, it was all about how the internet has
changed societies lives. The film focused on a group of teenagers and their
attitudes towards relationships, body image and their personal family lives.
For example, one girl’s Mum went through everything she did online – however her
life began to develop offline and it had devastating consequences because the
Mother interfered too much. The film began with a hallway full of children all on their mobiles, and it was hovering over their heads what they were looking at - it really made me think that I don't know the people that I thought I did, I will never know what they look at in their spare time. The film was sad and deep, but it was a good film –
I’d recommend it.
Something else that I was shown yesterday by a friend, was the cable map for the world. This is where phone calls, the internet travels. It shows how the world is connected and it was fascinating - the way that technology can manipulate and change the way we communicate was mind blowing. Saying that, I thought that whenever you have a phone connection it goes up to space and back, I was proved wrong. I then began thinking about how they got the cables there and how far humanity has come in the race to connect the world.
Here is the link to the submarine cable map: http://www.submarinecablemap.com/
Something else that I was shown yesterday by a friend, was the cable map for the world. This is where phone calls, the internet travels. It shows how the world is connected and it was fascinating - the way that technology can manipulate and change the way we communicate was mind blowing. Saying that, I thought that whenever you have a phone connection it goes up to space and back, I was proved wrong. I then began thinking about how they got the cables there and how far humanity has come in the race to connect the world.
Here is the link to the submarine cable map: http://www.submarinecablemap.com/
Having all these things collated
makes me think a lot about the industry and technology as a whole. The way that
people are idolised more than ever and having that pressure constantly on them
to be perfect all the time. As for Ed Sheeran, I’ll keep enjoying his gigs
online – they’re actually really good. Hopefully one day I will get the chance
to see him but not any time soon.
