If Day 1 was all about singing Facebook’s praises, Day 2 was all about how Twitter kicks Facebook’s ass; at least as far as the music industry is concerned…

Is Social Media Music’s Savior?

BUZZMEDIA hosted an event with the Kanye-inspired title, The Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy of Social Media as Music’s Savior, which featured a panel of respected music curators and promoters: Angel Laws (ConcreteLoop.com), Jessica Suarez (Stereogum), Tamar Anitai (MTV.com/MTV Buzzworthy), Rob Bonstein (Epic Records) and moderated by Jeff Leeds, Editor in Chief for Music at BUZZMEDIA.

While everyone agreed that social media has given artists another wonderful tool through which to build a fan base, the panel started by making the point that once you’re a celebrity in the industry, it doesn’t matter if you use social media or not. The panel started by discussing Kanye West and how, despite being a massive Twitter presence now, was obviously a celebrity before Twitter. They argued that stars who are supposed to rise will rise with or without social media, because those people already have what it takes to promote themselves without the aid of the internet. How did Kanye become the powerhouse artist/producer he is today? Mixtapes, hustling, meeting people. Twitter was merely an accessory to an already successful package.

And yet, while this is true, social media has also leveled the playing field so that new artists have access to their niche fan base in a way they never have before. With social media, new artists can be more multi-dimensional. As well as more easily seek out niche fan bases and target exactly who would enjoy their stuff.

It isn’t just up to artists and fans to save music through social media. This panel was the first of many times this week where they made the point that there’s always going to be a need for gatekeepers and curators in music. Yes, artists are expanding fanbases by going directly to the people. But people are busy, and there’s a lot of music out there. Even the most adventurous audiophiles need help being pointed in the direction of music they might like, and so music bloggers/writers will always have a place in separating the “buzzworthy” from the stuff you can pass.

So it then becomes important for those musical gatekeepers to develop social media strategies of their own, which the panelists discussed a bit.

Anitai of MTV Buzzworthy says she always tweets in her own voice, because fans want and deserve genuine interaction, rather than a sales pitch. Suarez agreed, pointing out that her readers at Stereogum are very indie-minded and suspicious of anything with even a hint of The Man about it. Law of Concrete Loop live-tweets during music events, and re-tweets fan tweets during that to spread the conversation. Anitai makes sure to include the Twitter handle of whomever she’s referencing, be it a musician or a fan, so that they’re more likely to retweet her. Law also mentioned doing “Twitter takeovers,” where she’ll have an artist take over her Twitter account for a day, which both strengthens her relationship with the artist as well as with fans.

Back on the artists and social media front, Anitai made it clear that it’s still not only about one platform in music, citing the band Incubus as an example. Despite not having had a new album since 2006, Incubus has a huge e-mail list and active website traffic while not being as active in social media. Embracing new technology early has its advantages. Whereas Incubus was one of the first bands with a powerful web presence through a website and email, Sara Bareilles was one of the first artists on Twitter. She now has close to 2 million followers and has been featured as a “Person to Follow” several times! I started following her a while back, and in addition to her being a talented musician, her fun, slightly dorky personality shines through on Twitter.

In addition to being a PR tool, social media also contributes directly to the creative process, sometimes for good, other times not. Artists as diverse as Imogen Heap and Solange Knowles use social media to crowdsource, talking about their lyrics or their album artwork and asking fan opinions on it. However, social media sometimes creates a narrative the artist didn’t intend. Best Coast tweets cat photos and talks about weed. A lot. While weed and cats are only mentioned on her album, say, two or three times, reviewers latched onto her Twitter persona and talked about her album as if it were solely about weed and cats. It’s for this reason that artists like Kanye West don’t allow tweeting in the studio (though his personal tweets have created a special narrative all their own).

While the music industry isn’t crazy about Facebook (yet. The panelists admitted that they could stand to figure out how to use Facebook better in the music industry) – because the content is “cluttered” and no one knows the true value of a “like” – one thing they are crazy about is Soundcloud. Soundcloud is the place where music and social media meet, where you can not only play and share music, and not only comment on it, but comment on it at specific parts of the song. Soundcloud may be the place where music fans separate themselves from everyone else with regard to social media.

LOHIO Ninjagigs the Red Bull Space

All of a sudden, as everyone was leaving the music panel, a band started setting up shop. They had a sign announcing them as an event, yet as people kept leaving, and no one new was coming in, it was clear that this band wasn’t supposed to be here!
The band was the Pittsburgh-based LOHIO and, sponsored by the music blog, The Wild Honey Pie, organized this welcome bit of party crashing to Social Media week! They had a great, sweet sound, and wouldn’t be out of place on something like the soundtrack to the film Juno. I had the chance to speak with them briefly after their 3-song set, and it’s then that they admitted that they just kind of showed up and hoped to play for whoever was there. They were kind enough to give me a full CD of their stuff, and I’ll be listening to it, and hopefully get a chance to speak with them further soon. Keep an eye on this space!

Social Media and Activism

I am a straight ally of the LGBT equality movement, and so going to Expanding the View: Promoting LGBT Human Rights Through Arts Activism and Social Media, hosted by Intersections International and culture ID was really important to me. The panel featured mostly artists, though it also featured a minister, and several of the panelists were tapped into religion and spirituality: Macky Alston (Documentary filmmaker/Auburn Media), Dr. Rev. Jacqui Lewis (Middle Collegiate Church), Bil Wright (Playwright), Tamiko Beyer (Author and Poet), and Hunter Reynolds (Visual Artist), moderated by Sung Park of Intersections International.

There was a surprising focus on the role of religion, for good and for ill, with regard to LGBT activism. For example, Middle Collegiate Church accepts their gay and lesbian parishioners unconditionally, and Reverend Lewis organized them to create an “It Gets Better…” video. Meanwhile, Alston’s current documentary, The Truth Will Set You Free, focuses on Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Episocopal church, and how he and others like him navigate the balance between church/state battles for equality. For both Lewis and Alston, religion has an opportunity to live up to its promise of seeking justice and fairness for all people, and they both think it possible, as they both believe that just because the fundamentalist voices are the loudest ones that we hear doesn’t mean that those voices are representative of the majority of religious people, and Lewis and Alston both seek to help those people step up their game.

Reynolds comes from the opposite end of the spectrum. A gay, HIV-positive visual artist who has been fighting for the cause of LGBT equality since the 80s has no great love for organized religion at all, despite being raised Jewish and Christian. When he was 14, he was the only out student at his high school, but it lead to 45 more coming out, and all of them forming a club dubbed “The Breakfast Club” in order to support each other. At around that same time, Reynolds finally got so fed up with religion that he went into church and knocked the head off of a statue of the Virgin Mary. His most recent battle against organized religion’s tendency toward censorship was against the Christian groups who protested the Hide/Seek exhibit at the Smithsonian, which closed Sunday and featured an image of Jesus on the cross that was intended as a metaphor for AIDS, but that was deemed by some as being anti-Christian. When  Park asked the panel “Who owns religious iconography?”, Reynolds replied “The powers that be own the iconography and those powers are being used against us.”

Alston sees a trend in documentaries where gays and lesbians today are wrestling within the space of religion and homosexuality, rather than assuming that there’s no place in religion for them. Reverend Lewis agreed, saying that theology isn’t owned by anyone, but belongs to all people. She wanted to remind us that “God is still speaking” and didn’t stop back in the days of Jesus. Just as people wrote the Bible, then discussed the Bible, and the Church has changed in fits and starts, “the internet creates theology. If a raggedy band of twelve could spread the word then, we – using social media – can do it now.”

Beyer, who read some of her poetry that focuses on her experience as a biracial lesbian who’s adopted a child, discussed how groups like FIERCE, an organization for LGBT youth, use social media to build community when they don’t have the financing or the support to have a physical location. However, Wright, who read an incredibly powerful poem of his own, was concerned that social media was trying to replace the “laying of hands” that’s possible with face-to-face human interaction.

While the panel assembled was a great one, and the work they were doing was inspirational, the panel was a curious fit for Social Media Week, as none of the panelists seemed particularly comfortable with social media. During the Q & A, I mentioned that they shouldn’t underestimate the “laying of hands” that’s possible within an online community, which is sometimes the only support some people have. I also mentioned the power of social media from a straight ally perspective. When I post my pictures from the National Equality March, or a link to a story about a little boy who’s mother wrote a children’s book called My Little Princess Boy to teach children about tolerance for differences in gender identity, my straight family and friends are exposed to it, and then enter into a conversation with me that we can’t/don’t necessarily have at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Yes, the internet often allows people to be more cruel than they might be in person. However, it also gives people the confidence to speak up in a positive way, whereas they might be less likely to be honest in person, and every time I post something LGBT related on my Facebook, or on Twitter, I’m always surprised by both the amount of support it gets as well as by who the detractors are. Social media provides a great gauge for support, as well as a way to build community without the need for a physical space.

Interestingly enough, Scott from the It Gets Better Project was in attendance, and I would cite that effort as an extremely effective way in which social media is being used both to heal the LGBT community as well as to inspire mobilizing.

Music and activism. It seems that social media really is changing the way our civilization is going. When used properly, that change can certainly be for the better! Tomorrow, Day 3, which featured the most intelligent discussion of celebrity tweeting of which I’ve ever been a part!

Words and pictures by Teresa Jusino.