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More on Myspace
Author: Simon Sellars • Apr 8th, 2007 •Category: Ballardosphere, Jean Baudrillard, academia, celebrity culture, gated communities
As I’ve been taken to task regarding my last post about the J.G. Ballard Myspace profile, in hindsight I can see that my tongue had actually pierced my cheek, and for that I apologise. Just to clarify, my post was chiefly to comment on Myspace as an entity; my rant against ‘a terrible evil gated community of people with bad design sense and a pathological desire to be loved’ was not aimed at the Ballard profile page, but rather at the sea in which it floats. OK, with that out of the way, let me say that yes, I see the worth of online social networking tools; yes, I understand the value; yes, I’ve used Myspace, and I’m likely to do so again. But that doesn’t mean I have to drown without so much as a hand in the air; critical faculties are still needed. Anyway, I’m very far from being the first person to question the direction the Myspace phenomenon has taken over the last year or so.
Now, having said all that, the specific Ballard Myspace profile does intrigue me. And my point, for what it’s worth, was simply that it gives the impression it’s set up and endorsed by Ballard, right down to the man’s correct age and star sign in the profile details (compare this Noam Chomsky profile for transparency). And people are commenting and friending ‘Ballard’ and inviting ‘him’ to give readings under that impression, which is a *very* intriguing proposition…come on, admit it!
I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, but I will say that anyone raised on a diet of cyberpunk, Baudrillard and Ballard, as I was, will be licking their lips at that equation — as I am!
For that type of interaction, seemingly a trick of the light peculiar to Myspace, also conforms to the model of an online ‘hyper-market’, as Baudrillard formulated it. And the Ballard profile is in the order of simulation — a product, again as formulated by Baudrillard, with ‘a radicalized functionalism, a functionalism that reaches its paradoxal limits and then burns them away. Thus, it becomes an undefinable object, and hence fascinating. Not good, not bad: ambivalent. Like death or fashion, it becomes a short-cut…a more rapid road than the main highway, or going where the main highway doesn’t go, or, better yet (to parody Littré in a pataphysical manner) “a road going nowhere, but going there faster than the others”.’
There are strong Ba(udri)llardian resonances right across Myspace as a whole, including the gated community aspect and the hyperreal celebrity culture aspect. But I’ll concentrate my energies on a future, dispassionate analysis of that — at the risk of coming over as an ‘evil academic’ — rather than resort to the misplaced sarcasm of my last post and the risk of fanning an online flame war on the back of J.G. Ballard’s good name.
The only thing left to say, for now, is this: to all present and future JGB sites, however they may be coded — may they find the audience they deserve.
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Simon Sellars
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Definitely agree. As for coming over as a ‘terrible evil academic’, allow me to play — as I do on a daily basis — the ’stern librarian’ and say simply that, along with YouTube (the eater of bandwidth) MySpace has become a pernicious virtual narcotic, with certain of my patrons doing whatever they can to get their fix, ie; pirating library card numbers, touring from location to location, lying and begging for time on Mr Murdoch’s money spinner.
Speaking as someone who recently deleted more than a dozen myspace profiles after a four-month ‘experiment’ therein, I can confirm that your external view of that gated community is 120% accurate. And I’m speaking as someone who loved it as well as hated it. There is no quicker route to the damnation of the eternal soul! I am recovering well in a rehabiliation programme which mostly consists of sitting outside in the sun making notes in a small black notebook. What I write in this way does not receive any response or feedback but neither do I spend upwards of eleven hours a day dealing with such feedback. Myspace causes intellectual incontinence or, to be fairer, simply ‘brings it out’.
wow, two drug-metaphored myspace comments! k paul, your experience is very interesting: are you saying there’s a black market in library-card numbers? that’s fascinating. what age group are we talking? and michael k: can you tell us more about your four-month experiment? or will you be publishing the results online? a dozen myspace profiles — that sounds intense…
someone put up a crime myspace. we don’t know who and we don’t really give a hoot. someone else posted our video: live at san quentin prison on youtube. my computer is so old both of these venues don’t work for me, so i guess i’m safe for now.
yes interesting, i’m intrigued by the fake celebrity profiles and the way people interact with them. by the way, you don’t need a computer, johnny, you need a typewriter with 8 legs and antennae.