Apr 30 2008
Get Back in This Bag, You Stupid Cat!
I have yet to see the obscenity-laced tirade that Fright Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger spewed at Deadspin chief Will Leitch last night on HBO’s Costas Now, so I’m probably ill-equipped to respond to it. Tons of sports blogs have chimed in already with intelligent responses to that rant, including the target of all that vitriol himself — who, in all honestly, reacted far better to this attack than I would have. Here are a few more worthwhile responses:
The more I read about Bissinger’s tirade, though, the more one thing seems to pop up in my mind — he sounds an awful lot like music industry executives, doesn’t he?
About six months ago, Wired ran this profile of Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music. Morris is 68 years old and has a documented history of calling iPods “repositories for stolen music.” He also served up this gem:
All the sharing of the music, right? Is it correct that people share their music, fill up these devices with music they haven’t paid for? If you had Coca-Cola coming through the faucet in your kitchen, how much would you be willing to pay for Coca-Cola? There you go. That’s what happened to the record business.
There’s one underlying and unspoken thought that connects Morris and his peers with Bissinger and his colleagues, and it’s the same thought that rattles around the heads of corporate executives across America: We don’t understand the Internet. We don’t know how to react to these changes. We prefer for things to stay as they were.
Those RIAA labels grew up in a world where they controlled the distribution, and that monopoly ensured they made all the money and had full control over the flow of music. Likewise, the newspaper and magazine columnists used to have a monopoly over opinion in sports. They could control the flow of information and shape that opinion among the people.
That doesn’t exist anymore. Any band can create a Myspace page and start selling their music right there. Any sports fan with half a brain (or less) can create a blog and start typing. The barriers to publishing have deteriorated. All it takes is cheap web space and a worthwhile product, and individuals becomes just as easy to access as the biggest media monoliths. A few of those individuals will become well-liked and well-respected, because they produce interesting and/or entertaining material. Sure, there will be dick jokes. People like dick jokes, or they wouldn’t tell them.
This frightens guys like Morris and Bissinger. They used to have final say over what was interesting and worthwhile, and thanks to this Internet thing, they don’t anymore. What makes this tragic is that they refuse to accept this fundamental change. They would rather paint their new competition as the great Satan and lure the huddled masses back to their old harbors.
Sorry, guys. The huddled masses all have blogs and Myspace pages now. We don’t want to be mere consumers anymore. We want to be creators, too. But hey, you guys are more than welcome to come join the party. It’ll be going on for a while.
UPDATE: Here’s the video.
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Dave, great post. What’s even sadder about the Bissinger tirade when you see it is that he’s done all this research—he has a little file folder full of Deadspin printouts, which is almost heartbreaking to see—but he’s starting so completely from scratch that he doesn’t even seem to understand basic concepts like the difference between posts and comments. It’s like listeing to an RIAA executive who not only hates the iPod, but doesn’t understand why he can’t touch an mp3.
Costas is even worse on that score, actually. I feel like Costas isn’t absorbing nearly enough internet bile over this today: yes, Bissinger carried out the hit, but Costas almost certainly knew what was coming when he set up the show. Even Will seemed to have an idea!
Deadspin=The Death of Civilisation!
Nobody distinguished themselves on that panel (though Braylon survived it well). Buzz obviously made a complete fool of himself; he looked like he was juiced up on something, but ranting wildly on TV about the rants on blogs was absurd.
Leitch’s subsequent post on Deadspin strikes me as spin. I felt it was more he couldn’t formulate coherent sentences in that situation (and I’m not sure I could have either) than that he took the High Road deliberately. But he was in a tough spot.
Brian, I agree entirely about Costas. He was either under-prepared or being disingenuous, and neither makes him look good.
At the end of the day, though, I can’t really get worked up about what Buzz Bissinger thinks about blogs. It doesn’t matter much.