the story of generation “i” text // DOMINICK SORRENTINO
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efore the Internet expanded into its own universe, the celebrity shrines and slogans of Time square served as a beacon for our sense of individuality. The creative minds of Hollywood and Madison Avenue inspired us with visions for our clothes and our hair, our cars and our choice of diet, our music and art, and even our bodies and our faces. In a post—“www “ generation, this model has become as archaic as the geocentric view of our solar system. The new beacon for individuality is the World Wide Web.
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ohnny Diaz, a writer for the Boston Globe’s business section, focuses on media as the topic of many of his articles. He believes that the Internet is changing how people choose to consume content for the better. “The internet is making everyone their own brand,” Diaz says. “Everything is becoming more customized to what we want, and it’s going to be micro; it’s going to be niche, and I think it’s a good thing.” In an online survey conducted by em magazine, all of the 48 Emerson students polled—of various grades and majors— agreed that their primary source of media, artistic and otherwise, is the Internet. Forty-three of these 48 also said that the Internet makes it easier to find content that interests them. This makes sense when one considers the existence of outlets like Pandora, iTunes, Netflix, Tumblr and StumbleUpon, where it becomes possible for consumers to receive promotions based on what they already know they enjoy. Netflix accounts, for example, are trained to recommend films based on what the holder’s personal reviews and ratings. Democratic models such as this encourage people to refine their personal tastes to a very specific extent or, as 70
EM MAGAZINE - WINTER 2012
Diaz puts it, to help them find “their own brand.” The same can be said about how the Internet generation produces personal content to share on the web. There is sense of democracy on the Internet that allows people to fill in the content niche they believe should exist with their own material, or with obscure material that mirrors their vision. “If you love music and you love movies, you don’t necessarily need to go to a mainstream website,” Diaz, who is also the author of four novels, says. “You can create your own content and share your own reviews. That’s the beauty of the Internet, it has allowed us to amplify our own voice and our content, where ten, fifteen, twenty years ago you couldn’t do that.” Not all producers are optimistic about how the Internet is changing art.
“The internet is making everyone their own brand... Everything is becoming more customized to what we want, and it’s going to be micro; it’s going to be niche, and I think it’s a good thing.” -JOHNNY DIAZ (BOSTON GLOBE WRITER) Emerson sophomore Writing, Literature and Publishing student Jonathan Rizzo, writes and records his own music under the moniker Cauzamos. Unlike Diaz, Rizzo feels that he is capable of gaining more notoriety through people-to-people interactions than through his web page. “The actual web-page itself does very little. I try to promote that when I’m at shows, because if I’m going to update, that’s where I’m going to update, and hopefully people will notice,” Rizzo says. “It’s more of a helper, and it doesn’t neces-
sarily make everything easier.” Rizzo is also wary about the impact the Internet can have on art. While the Internet does create more opportunities for artists to get their material into the world, it doesn’t necessarily create more artists. Rizzo expressed concern that well-produced content could be drowned out by the huge amount of content available. “There are so many ‘photographers’, there are so many ‘musicians’ and there are so many blogs out there, that I think the people who deserve to get noticed can get very lost,” Rizzo says. “Rebecca Black shouldn’t be famous right now. It’s just wrong.” It’s true that the Internet contains a universe of content that is both good, and as Rizzo points out, “just wrong.” But there are ways we can sift through this universe, and continually increase the scale of what we love with a stronger understanding of why we love it. The best tools, according to Diaz, are our individual tastes and interests. “That’s the beauty of the Internet,” Diaz says. “It puts it all out there for us to consume…I find that the Internet is a giant online catalogue, and depending on what you’re interested in, there’s something there, whether it’s good or not, again that’s up to whoever is consuming it.” This new wealth of information and content available online, creative and otherwise, encourages people to draw their interests from a much larger pool, rather than associating with what they’ve been exposed to via prolific media outlets. The individual is at complete liberty to consume, or produce, content in the most democratic of all forums. Descartes once said “I think, therefore I am.” The Internet generation is made up of a cluster of “I’s”: individuals, who have the potential to think for themselves like never before.