On Sat, 9 Nov 2002, T.J.Johnson wrote: > The funny thing is, I've never noticed any elitism in > the Detroit techno music business until I joined this > list. It's interesting how the internet helps shape > the world... >
Well, it's like this: to some extent, the 313 list INVENTED the sort of over-reverent, concerned-with-absolute-purity, hardcore trainspotter version of Detroit Techno. A few journalists got on the list and started spreading the meme to the hoi polloi. People start seeing their opinions reflected back at them from magazines and think they got the world on lock. I mean there's a whole GENRE of music -- IDM -- that is NAMED after a mailing list. And, I might add, the mailing list is 95% of the worldwide market for the music. Does that make mailing lists influential, or just just a closed feedback loop? And lest we forget, the whole futuristic utopian idea of techno was invented by Derrick May and Juan Atkins egging on British journalists some time after they started making the music. The whole problem with journalists is they're writers, and they're always confusing an attractive narrative for reality. I don't have to worry about being an elitist -- At any party, I'm the large guy with the beer gut and thick glasses, that everyone thinks is a cop or someone's dad. If I'm elite, I doubt people want to be quite this elite.
