Tiberius isn't on Snappychat or Instagrass or any of the newer-fangled social networking sites. He checks in with the Book of Faces once or twice a day, mostly to keep up with old friends, drop the occasional witticism and play along with the daily quizzes one or two of his more eccentric peers post. And he quit Tweeter (which he'd rarely used anyway) when Elon Musk turned it into a dystopian autocracy named after an LA band featuring Exene Cervenka, John Doe, Billy Zoom and D. J. Bonebrake.
“If I went an hour without my phone, I would be really stressed.”
“I was talking to people online when I was ten.”
“I would much rather have been born in the Eighties. I would have been working a lot harder.”
“You get a buzz if someone likes your comment. So a phone does give you quite a lot of validation, which is unhealthy in large doses – but it does feel good.”
That last one brings us back to Tiberius. Because, as previously mentioned, Tiberius does write a blog. Something which he claims he only does as a way of relaxing and focusing his mind on his two main interests - music and writing. Tiberius frequently states that he does this purely for himself, that it doesn't matter if other people read his witterings or leave an agreeable comment, and yet... and yet...
Remember our discussion about the benefits and pitfalls of writing?
Remember our brief look at that wonderful feel-good brain chemical dopamine?
According to Dr. Anna Lembke of Stanford University’s dual diagnosis addiction clinic, we are all dopamine addicts when it comes to social media (and that must include blogging). According to the Grauniad...
She calls the smartphone the “modern-day hypodermic needle”: we turn to it for quick hits, seeking attention, validation and distraction with each swipe, like and tweet.
(I couldn't resist slipping that one in. I know: I'm beyond hope.)
Social media, and the internet at large, is directly responsible for the rise in unhappiness in the developed world over the past 30 years. Could the microcosm of the blogosphere be just as responsible for this as TikTok, Tinder and Pornhub? Surely it's not as bad as those appalling supervillains? Well, if it's encouraging our dopamine addiction... maybe.
Dopamine causes addiction because of how the brain works in response to it. After any pleasurable experience (which causes a dopamine release), the brain responds with a process called homeostasis. Which basically uses the lyrics of Pete Seeger's Turn! Turn! Turn! (or the Book of Ecclesiastes, if you want to get Biblical) as a template for self-regulation.
Or you might say it's following Newton's Third Law, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every up... there must follow a down. Or a downer, to be more precise.
When we binge on pleasurable things, homeostasis means “our brain compensates by bringing us lower and lower and lower,” says Lembke. Each time the thing becomes less enjoyable, but we eventually become dependent on those stimuli to keep functioning. We spiral into a joy-seeking abyss.
And when it comes to the internet, there's nothing to stop us feeding our addiction. If we're hooked on booze or drugs, eventually we'll run out of the substance in question, or run out of the funds needed to procure them. If you're addicted to social media because of the tiny dopamine spikes that come from a like or a thumbs up or a smiley... or a blogging comment... then short of them turning off your electric (and the batteries on all your mobile devices dying simultaneously), there's nothing to stop you gorging yourself to the point of gluttony.
Which makes Tiberius question... how much blogging is too much blogging? Is up to (and sometimes over) a thousand words a day just too much? In devoting so much time to the dopamine-inducing thrill of blogging, is he denying himself the comedown? What is that doing to his brain?
A few weeks back, I wrote a post about tribalism in music fandom, and how I've always felt it was a bad thing. I quoted Dave Newton of The Mighty Lemon Drops, from an interview in Nige Tassell's C86 book. Dave, who now lives in the States, claimed that tribalism wasn't as much of a thing over there as it is in Britain.
Over here, it's amazing how many people who like us or the Bunnymen also like Van Halen. I don't get that. Some Americans think I'm not telling the truth about bands like that - or that I'm some kind of snob. No, it's just not conceivable that in the UK you'd like Wah! Heat and Bon Jovi. But you see it here on kids' schoolbags where they've written both Rush and the Sex Pistols. Really?! How can you love both?
Well, it turns out Jeff Tweedy from Wilco disagrees. Quite strongly, in fact. Jeff's just written an article for the New York Times in which he admits that when he was a kid, he hated Dancing Queen by Abba... because that was the opinion that was expected of him. I'm not able to read the full article due to the NYT firewall wanting my money, The article's called “I Thought I Hated Pop Music. ‘Dancing Queen’ Changed My Mind.” if you feel like paying their subscription fees. If not, Stereogum have pulled out some choice quotes, including this...
Let’s talk about that first wave of disgust a bit. Initially, hating this song and Abba in general didn’t really feel like a choice. Gagging at the mere mention of this sweet little quartet was just being, you know, normal. And at the time that “Dancing Queen” came out, it wasn’t hard to hate a disco song, anyway; disco was despised by practically everyone I knew (with the exception of the kids who liked to roller skate).
Tweedy goes even further though, suggesting than the tribalism that's ingrained into us as teenagers affects our choices in later life, creating either/or, black/white thinking that prevents us us seeing the middle ground or allowing ourselves to be open to other perspectives, ideas or beliefs.
The divisions we created were embarrassing. I have sometimes even wondered if these youthful skirmishes over musical taste weren’t a childhood version of the current situation our country now finds itself in. Were people of my generation so good at dividing ourselves into factions based on stupid, insignificant differences that we simply never stopped doing it? Someone smarter than me has probably mapped the parallels between Journey fans and X fans and the current binary of political right and left. Or if no one has, someone should.
I'm not claiming the moral high ground here. As much as I rattle on about loving Billy Joel as much as REM, Queen as much as The Smiths, and Meat Loaf as much as John Prine, I'm aware that there are whole genres of music that leave me cold, and as much as I might be changing my mind about New Order, I don't think I'll ever appreciate rave or dubstep or 80% of the stuff Radio One plays these days. I like to think that I don't let genre bias blind me to a good pop song though, which is why I keep listening to Taylor Swift. Still, I think it's more important to celebrate the things I do like rather than railing against the things I don't (unless it's Bono). And I do appreciate good writing about all genres of music, which is why I enjoy reading blogs that cover artists who would never find their way into my hard drive. It's OK to say, "Ed Sheeran's not for me". That's not tribalism, it's just personal taste. Tribalism comes when you say, "Ed Sheeran's shit and I'm not going to listen to or respect the opinion of anyone who tells me they like him". We're all guilty of that a little bit, I guess, but really... what's the point?
Jeff Tweedy is doing the rounds because he has a book out, called World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music. Definitely one for the Christmas list. He's also promoting the new Wilco album, Cousin, presumably inspired by the TV show The Bear, which uses a lot of his band's music. Here's the title track...
This is Anthony Kiedis. He's a Red Hot Chilli Pepper. Unfortunately, he doesn't sing any songs about Salt or Peppers, so I can't play any tunes by him. Also, I prefer Flea. He was in Back To The Future, at least.
Ten songs to sprinkle on your chips...
10. Unknown corpse.
That would be a John Doe. As in the former lead singer of the US punk band X, now trading in slightly less rowdy Americana...
Despite the dubious band name, this is a better song than the Red Hot Chilli Peppers ever managed to put out. Although it does owe a little debt to The Jim Carroll Band.
2. The answer is seen in each effort he makes.
"each effort". Chef from South Park, as voiced by Isaac Hayes, and his Number One hit...
There are indeed many great bands with 4 in their name... but there's only one Four Tops. My sister had a Four Tops greatest hits in her record collection when I was growing up and I played the grooves out of it. (I'm also thankful to her for having a similar Supremes compilation.)
And then came Martin, who insists on doing that thing I had to train The Swede not to do, listing artist & title the wrong way round. It does make copy and paste so much harder. Grumble, mutter.
Cilla Black - Work Is A Four-Letter Word(and covered by The Smiths! A version that ought to be in with a shout, if only because covering Cilla at Moz's insistence so irked Johnny...)
I'm with Johnny on that one. I loved their cover of Golden Lights by Twinkle, but this one never really worked for me.
And if you like the title but (strange to consider!) are put off by the whine in lead singer Raine Maida's voice (it generally goes over pretty well here in Canada, but still)...
You know what, Douglas, I didn't mind it at all. Though there was maybe a bit of Chad Kroeger in there. (Should I duck now/)
...then you may be drawn more to Cherry Ghost's very different song "4 a.m."
And this, which Martin picked out, and it was definitely on my shortlist because it is glorious, and would have won most other weeks. (Don't give up though, Aimee, there's still chance for you to take the top spot.)
I remember Elvis Costello praising that, way back when, particularly for lyrics such as these...
Today's the fourth of July
Another June has gone by
And when they light up our town, I just think
What a waste of gunpowder and sky
However, as I said: predictable.
From his debut album, and quite different from the kind of music that would make him famous, but still deeply affecting, and with some truly glorious imagery.
Somewhere in that ancient mystic trinity, you'll get three... and that's next week's magic number.
