Overwhelming toxicity

I am trying not to get dragged down into toxic mess that is the internet today, but I am weak.

I'm very close to completely cutting ties to a jazz bulletin board that has devolved into only a very few regular posters who all have to "win" on each and every post.  The actual threads of interest have gotten very, very few (and the ones I contribute to the most are not about jazz at all).  But this is also part of the overall death spiral of jazz music as a meaningful part of the cultural conversation.  I don't think I've ever internalized the irrelevance of jazz to the point I do now.  It's over.

But that's pretty much how I feel about all non-corporate art.  I was watching part of an interview with The Lowest of the Low (a band I knew about in Toronto in the early 90s, though I never saw them live).  They broke up after two albums, but decided many years later to reform and do a set of reunion shows but then if they were going to continue beyond that, it would have to be on the basis of new material.  (This is actually not that different from Camper Van Beethoven.)  And they did this for a few years, but eventually one of the members got tired of this and pulled out.  Still, they were older and were more mature about it.  But the point was there was a door in the early 90s for alternative music that has been completely closed.  Record sales are maybe only 10% or at best 20% what they were back then, so the number of labels that can make a go of it with any decent return is way down.  But more upsetting is how radio has gotten so corporate that DJs cannot play what they want -- it is all from a list dictated by the corporate types.  Basically, bands now have fewer mainstream opportunities -- they have to make their breakthrough on Youtube or something like that.  To some extent it is just different -- there are some avenues for creative people -- but it does feel like the way to get noticed today is so atomized and a bit alienating, particularly when Gen X types remember how our way of coming to music did have more of a community feel to it.  Anyway, I certainly don't like the way the media landscape has shifted, and I'm glad I grew up when I did, even though it turns out that was the last dying gasps of a certain kind of cultural production.

Ok, that was a bit of a sidebar (only linked to the topic of the internet due to the role that the internet had in killing off the music industry that I grew up with).  What really kills me now is just how irresponsible the media has become, completely selling out their soul for clicks (and just chasing after all kinds of fads in a desperate attempt to stay afloat).  Stuff that we just couldn't imagine, like beheading videos and the like, is up for display on CNN and even The Guardian (even if the very last seconds have been edited out).  It's so unbelievably coarse.  And the comment sections are a disgusting free for all, again dominated by a handful of very loud trolls who disparage anyone who disagrees with them.

But even if you ignore these voices (the trolls) as best as you can, then it turns out that other, semi-normal people just cannot let go of certain topics and become quite troll-like, reposting the same general comments over and over.  It's like the Nancy Grace show translated to the internet endlessly.  The latest is the Amanda Knox case which has riled up passions to a point I find astonishing.  I don't know the truth of the case nor do I have anything to add beyond saying that the Italian courts seem unbelievably cumbersome and in need of an extreme overhaul.  But I don't need to go on comment boards and argue endlessly about it.  What is it that these people are lacking that they need to try to sway others on a case that makes no difference to their personal life?  Some people will not accept that others don't share their views.  Personally, I have given up on the human race.  It is clear that on the whole they have decided to fall back on superstitions and magical thinking (and things are much worse along these lines than they were 15 years ago), so I am just trying to avoid discussing anything of any importance with co-workers, and I am posting less and less on internet comment boards.  That doesn't mean I am not disgusted, but I just don't expect anything better from humans.  It's somewhat liberating to just ignore the foolishness as best as I can.  I actually had another good example of the shortcomings of the media but decided it just isn't worth raising it.  I'll just go "tend my own garden" for a while and focus on the things that add to my happiness, such as it is.