Any reason why ILM is so quiet these days?

What can I say? People need Stevie Nicks in their lives.

xp mentally i am contrasting what i am saying with like ilm conflicts of yore over all of genre x or musician y being irredeemable, beyond the pale, etc

man why are people on ilx of all places all of a sudden so sensitive to disagreement?

I don't think anybody is against disagreement. But there's a big difference between friendly sparring, strong opinions and pointed retorts, all of which are more or less in the spirit of consensual conversation, and sustained, one-sided personal attacks. Like, your opinions are strongly stated and sharply argued, which is why your posts have so much value (also you have great recommendations), but you're never trying to provoke a flame war or anything.

https://i.makeagif.com/media/5-17-2015/lNO8dg.gif

i also had this experience, but i don't think we ever argued. it's understood that his disdain for superchunk and mine for buckaroo banzai have made us mortal enemies; no real need to discuss it

Wisdom indeed.

not surprised but also not overly happy about the conflation of "there should be less toxicity, preferably none" and "no one can ever say anything critical about an artist again"

"no one can ever say anything critical about an artist again"

Is anyone saying that? I'm not saying that.

if there's another interpretation of "How can you even have a conversation with people afraid to say they like or dislike something bc it might offend someone else's ability to like something?" I'd love to hear it

oh well for the record im against toxicity & in favor of people not feeling alienated because the ringtone rap crew have different taste in rap than them

Ok, but who are the "people afraid to say they like or dislike something bc it might offend someone else's ability to like something" being referred to?

a community can form a group consensus that something is bad, even if a community member likes it! you just kind of have to shrug it off, and maybe be vindicated elsewhere or by time when everyone mysteriously seems to have always like your fave in five years time

I mean there has to be one person on ilm who is a secret drake stan despite his zero vote showing on the year end polls

lol

drake is actually a really good example here because people have been doxxed, sent death threats, etc. for having the wrong opinion about drake at the wrong time

(a different crowd, yes, but it should illustrate the vast difference between "toxicity" and "upsetting delicate sensibilities")

ppl have no chill

OP: Honestly, I still seem to think about everything in terms of when I became familiar with their parent genres (1982-2002), and I'm not sure we've had a distinctly new genre since 2002.

Yes, the last thing(s) I found new and worth much breath hailing were electroclash and Berlin minimal, both of which were arguably revivals themselves. Since then, what was the last new thing? Bubblegum Bass which is recognizable dead end? Slightly new paths of self-promotion with the visual album (from Beyonce to iamamiwhoami)?

Or maybe one can't see the new after I turned 32. Its depressing.

also key to this, I think, is "as a newcomer there's no way to judge how much of this is irony or performative hyperbole." I don't know the cutoff for "newcomer" but I basically have zero fucking idea who dislikes whom, who ironically dislikes whom and who simply appears to dislike whom, which would be fine if this shit didn't bubble up everywhere and for the most petty and trivial of reasons (this thread got revived due to someone, on their own initiative and off site, making *spotify playlists*)

katherine - just realised we are coming from 100% the same side but I was too dopey to twig, soz

I also have zero idea who's on what side

Katherine I'm in the same boat and I've been here for 10+ years

what toxicity is bubbling up over spotify playlists? i think they're bad and dumb & i'm saying so so i'm like someone who doxxed somebody over drake? what?

here's an entire thread of it Are you cool with forks making Spotify playlists out of every rolling thread without permission?

(note the date stamps -- the revival of this thread is spillover from the revival of that one)

xp I'm not following. There's toxicity in that thread?

in what universe is me being mad at forks for making playlists out of rolling thread discussion a toxic environment that leads to ppl being doxxed for liking drake??

there are maybe a couple people that actively irritate me, a few I joke with but appreciate (usually the list-obsessive or deep divers on ilm, the idiosyncratic grumps on ile movie and politics threads) and a bunch I really enjoy and think make that clear?

the thing I learned most in life out of a dark period is that making a point to express appreciation is important in life. without being a grandiose weirdo, if possible

a) the fact that something as simple as making playlists, which would not even register as a problem to 99% of the "newcomers" you're talking about, can make one the subject of a pile-on thread is, I would say, toxicity

b) I'm not saying this environment is like that, I'm just saying that people are approaching this question with very different realms of possibility in mind

(also, A) becomes a lot more charged for those whose real-life identities are associated with their posts.)

a pile-on thread

Yes 181
Not 28

I'm going off the contents of (and existence of) the thread itself

well there's certainly toxicity about certain subjects here, i mean i don't think the main spotify thread was more than 0.5% toxic but the 0.5% was particularly nasty and creepy.

I guess I need to re-read that thread. I thought it was pretty civil, and I say that as one of the 28

I still don't know who the dickhole dads are. I have seen no evidence that they exist.

I am a mediocre ILM poster at best but music is one of the most important facets of my life and I find great value in knowing that there are others out there for whom it is also important. It's a bonus that many ILM posters write such memorable prose. I appreciate the "up your game" effect but in practice it just means that I post more when I'm drunk.

i called ppl lazy turds for listening to the playlists & not reading the thread

i guess that could be considered toxic but really i think its more just vivid juvenilia

no one, btw, has insisted ppl should participate in the genre threads. just that if you're going to brain drain them, you should at least be reading the convo & not merely plucking every audio file discussed absent context

oh i also said ban forks but i thought that was obvious hyperbole

i do wish they'd ban his playlists, though.

if that's the opinion you have, sure, but having this opinion means you can't really complain too much about the site's lack of appeal to the overwhelming majority of music listeners who find the idea of "brain draining" via listening to a playlist mind-boggling petty and stupid, let alone the idea that making some playlists is grounds for a callout thread

calling me petty and stupid seems pretty toxic, idk

Is forks still around? I was fond of him or her.

I didn't call you petty or stupid. I did, however, call the idea of getting upset about somebody else's playlists petty and stupid, which it is.

feel like things are getting a bit closed off on the internet in general. purity tests and fascism all around. i was banned from one message board twice recently, each time writing a total of 2 posts that were not abusive or directed at any other posters. i got accused of trying to stomp out free speech, trying to silence people, mistaking my opinion for me saying that everyone has to think this way. they banned me for trying to censor people, it is kind of hilarious.

ILX seems more loose and free-wheeling, like a controlled experiment. sometimes people get banned, but you have to be a sustained disaster. ILX isn't swarming with trolls and quality control is good overall. sometimes people are overly negative, and will respond to anything you say with a personal insult rather than contributing to the discussion. you have to just let it go and treat them as a temporary troll. getting upset only makes you look like an idiot, trolling them even further. this might be entertaining but probably not for you. just walk away.

tbh reading older threads is sometimes very painful. there was a lot of casual hate, a lot more public xenophobia and ironic shaming and stuff in the early years.

I missed that thread but I assumed it was an ethical objection that people have that Spotify is bad for artists?

alas no

fwiw, obviously limited sample, anecdotal evidence not actually evidence, etc. but I asked a couple people whether they found it unethical for someone to make a Spotify playlist of the songs on a discussion forum. responses: "no"; "i... no"; "uh"; "I can't imagine caring about this"; "wherever this argument is happening is somewhere I never want to be"

imo debating about whether a not-100% listening link (songs excluded not due to whims of artist but of licensing and release format), benefitting one vendor being a good thing is a good thread. while not one-to-one, would we be cool with an unofficial "here's everything on one record label from this thread" but link to the label website every time that popped up? if it was a major label, and they did so like clockwork?

it's not as simple as "welcome to being on ilx, fuck you for not listening to spotify!" but close. I voted that having such a link is fine but I think the conversation is essential. I have subscribed to at least one streaming service for every month of last year and playlists are good but it's always a run to the middle when you want to just listen to all the shit you want to listen to. There are a couple up-and-coming companies again doing cross-network playlists but yeah, they are looking for a cut, too

not recognizing specific influences and exclusionary forces, even if people are a little potshot-firing on the thread, is antithetical to the idea of people simply finding and listening to music

ha, there are sooooo many threads like this in february. going back years. cruelest month to be honest with other ilxors. just so you know.

i'm gonna read the whole thing though.

katherine, were those people regulars on forums or people who had tried or considered streaming from a few places? I'd ask them how they felt about, say, their new album only being on the company they didn't stream from, not something that was unrelatable

february and august usually.

When winter is tiring and the dog days are going. Makes sense.

otm