“Casual” and “True” Music Fans

“Just the other day, I was working out at the gym and the song “One” by U2 came on the sound system. I am not a diehard U2 fan, and yet the song in that context triggered a deep, ineffable pleasure. Hearing a good song that everyone knows in a public setting recharges the spirit in a subtle but meaningful way.

Note that this is not just about me hearing a song I like. I hear a song I like every time I’m listening to a playlist on my iPod. This is about me hearing the song in the midst of other people, total strangers, who also know the song and are hearing it at the same time. What transpires is a communal, connective experience, even without any words passing between those having it.

This effect is the antithesis of a super-fan moment. The connection to the music is casual; it’s a sense of human connection here that provides the frisson of aliveness. Music in this way can offer a culturally constructed way of feeling at one with the world around us.

In a world in which musicians are encouraged, if not forced, to cater exclusively to their most passionate followers, likewise a world in which music fans listen exclusively to music most passionately loved, we lose this important but overlooked capacity to connect. The world shrinks. Something about being human is lost.”

Lots of interesting, crystal-clear ideas in this Fingertips post about the Web 2.0 model of catering to “super-fans” and leaving “casual” fans out of the equation.

Yet part of me wonders if the “old” model of widespread recognition to casual fans is dying not necessarily as a function of the 2.0 model, but because of the broader issue of smallish networked public spheres that inherently emerge from the Internet’s distributed structure. As opposed to the huge mass-mediated one that the top-down model created and which U2 had access to in the 80s and 90s, that is.

Maybe the 2.0 “mega-fan” equation is rising out of this situation? If it is (I think it is), then isn’t it more an issue of examining the soil instead of the wilting plants?

Filed under: fandom  Web 2.0