(Please note this does not necessarily relate to Steemit or other open source sites in general. I like Steemit [and other open source sites] a lot, but it has yet to be proven essential or effective to the arts in the way Facebook is [in it's very limited way.])
4-7-2018 6:00AM
I woke up in the middle of the night from a pretty bad terror. I never have good dreams, I don't think I ever have. This time, bees. Swarms and swarms of bees. So thick they created their own entity. And it was evil. I was in a house with other survivors. It felt like the walking dead, honey edition.
Initially, they swarmed me and covered me. I managed to get away into a room and shut the door before the worst part reached me. That is where I met the others. The rest of the dream is somewhat hazy. We tried to sneak out only to spot large swaths buzzing in an evil cloud of fury at every turn, so we would retreat. Eventually the bees began to die off and we came to a point of realizing it was safe outside. That is when the situation became tribal, much like the walking dead. Because somehow, we got word that these bees had attacked on a global scale. The fragile systems of humanities structures had been degraded to nothing, every man for himself. A fight broke out, politics took over, someone was murdered by a friend, again typical of any given episode of the walking dead. That is about the time I woke up.
I got up and went to the bathroom, got something to drink, grabbed my phone and went to have a smoke. As I was on my way to googling "bees in dreams", an urge in my mind told me to look at the facebook headlines of my news app, something I have been glued to watching as the scandals unfolded in myriad. Being a musician in the facebook era, watching my art get throddled and murdered, I am not a fan of facebook but I view it as a necessary evil. It is the only actual way left to spread the message of the music my wife and I create because it has everyone's attention. Radio tv magazines... all destroyed by the birthday celebrating, high school memories, let's all be friends and poke each other, orgy of self celebration, validation, argument, and humble bragging. Other sites are proving to have potential, but the user base is either vying for bitcoin or POINTLESSY AND ENDLESSLY ARGUING!
Boom. There it was. "Facebook Exec: If you want privacy expect to pay for it." A still shot of Cheryl Sandberg midsentence, disguising her billionaire's insatiable greed with a half attempt at a pleasant countenance, you could practically see coins shooting out of her mouth instead of spittle. A quick read of the article revealed little more than what the headline read. Basically, "fuck you, nothing is actually free on this here freeternet." But entitled minds sure think it is. Rest assured EVERYTHING has a cost! Sure you can download all the free music you want, you will probably get a virus. Or just stream it, your money doesn't go to the artist, it goes in some fat cats wallet. Those broken fire sticks are going to catch up with you eventually. Sure all the free pirated or streamed content in the world at your finger tips is great, but what happens when you rob artists of their power? You destroy the art itself, making any form of art is very costly and time consuming. And what is life without art? Pointless and endless arguing? Have fun with that. No one will win. If you think anyone cares or that your meandering extremist opinion is going to sway anyone from the opposite end of your spectrum (either side of anything) you are sorely mistaken. All you are accomplishing is clogging up the cogs of the system that could benefit actual creative types from creating and spreading content (art!)
"But, but, but, social media should be free! Power to the people!" Wrong. It isn't free. It needs a huge amount of servers which use electricity that need to be in a building with people, none of which is free shit. All you see is a dumb little app on your phone. A magically free little piece of tech asking you "what is on your tiny little mind." Be it loneliness, or validation, or the fear of missing out, you stay plugged in like a body in a pod of the matrix. The machines pump you for information about yourself while you gleefully frolic through the meadows of selfies, bragging, accomplishments or arguing and trolling. Then they sell your information to the highest bidder. Just like hospitals are not run by volunteers, no one makes a social media site out of the kindness of their hearts. You are the product, powering the machines.
Returning to the bees. I pulled up a dream interpretation site. Various meanings came up, but I quickly realized the meaning in my dream, especially having just read that article. I keep kicking the hive. And the world at large doesn't want to be kicked. It is happy with it's interconnected new art form, the cult of personality. Why? I already mentioned: loneliness, validation, bragging, arguing, trolling, a general lack of anything better to do. Everyone knows it's pointless to make art, the hive doesn't have room for that.
