Fender, the orange guy of guitarbrands?
- Thread starter Einzeln
- Start date
Band of Dans
Well-known member
Not enough of us are in bands.
But really, my unprofessional and barely informed opinion is that it comes from a few places. I apologize if this comes off as condescending or whatever or if your question was supposed to be rhetorical. The topic has been on my mind a lot lately so I guess I'm weighing in.
First, the firehose of information about other people is just too damn much. Our dumb brains truly can't handle it so we turn to shortcuts: there's too much to process, so it's more efficient to switch into looking-for-threats mode. I remember reading about some study(1) on polarization and "information bubbles" on social media. They found that it's not so much the bubble itself that causes and reinforces polarization. Instead, it's the constant drip of scary information about and exposure to "outsiders" that really poured gasoline on the trashfire. And now social media has morphed into endless algorithmic feeds that, as you mentioned, heavily incentivize rage bait.
The other big one, IMO, is the widening inequality gulf ("k-shaped economy," anyone?) The floor has been raised in miraculous ways, yes, 100%. But somehow things feel more precarious than they used to. Another week, another 100,000 employees unceremoniously cut loose in the software sector amid another quarter of record profits and record stock prices. It's not that the economy is bad and we're all making sacrifices. It's that a few assholes who frequent a certain island can crush a mid-size city's worth of people's livelihoods for no reason at all. And we're supposed to shrug and say, "hey, that's business!" It's natural, IMO, to feel like this kind of thing is happening everywhere.
So yeah, I think that's the more straightforward and easy to support part of the argument. The fuzzier one that I think is maybe just as important is that we're social animals and our dumb animal brains make us pro-social by nature. We want to both support and protect our group(s) AND look to them for belonging and safety. Everything in modern life seems to tell you those instincts are wrong and you should suppress them. Not to go all "bowling alone" on you, but we've lost many (most?) of the institutions where we used to be able to express those social instincts and feel a sense of belonging. Some people find it at a MAGA rally. Some people join a band. A lot of people don't find enough and then misery is kind of inevitable.
Obviously the Fender thing is small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. It's sort of inconsequential that one company is being a meanie to some of the people that sell us our music-adjacent toys. But again, we have dumb animal brains and it's totally understandable if the guitar world feels like part of your social circle in some way. A lot of that is para-social, but some of it is real relationships! I don't love Phil McKnight's videos and I'm sure he's playing up the drama for views, even if he doesn't 100% realize it. BUT I wouldn't be at all surprised if his emotion was totally genuine. Maybe he shouldn't try to spread his negative emotions to his viewers, but that's another topic. I think you're right and we should't let ourselves get all worked up over some minor tempest in a minor niche of human existence. I also think people getting worked up about it is totally understandable and kind of inevitable.
In conclusion, we should all join shitty bands and just be around other people and try to remind one another that it's ok to care about things and it's okay to log off the internet when people try to piss you off for profit.
1: I think this is the relevant study but I'm not 100% sure: https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.2207159119
Aleph Null
Well-known member
In addition to in-person interaction, I'd also recommend volunteering somewhere. I personally can't negotiate peace in the middle east, but I can help out at the local food pantry. Having even a small positive effect on my community makes it much easier to resist the urge to succumb to nihilism.
gonzo
Well-known member
Yeah, I saw it years back on a shite forum somewhere else
Nostradoomus
Well-known member
And if you want to make it your job, become a community support worker. Highly recommend (cause I am one
)
falco_femoralis
Well-known member
human =/= emotionally evolved
Paradox916
Well-known member
Because this is what happens when we have it too good for too long… we don’t understand what a a good time is until we go through something truly traumatic. The hardest thing you have been through is the hardest thing you have been through. If it’s arguing with someone on the internet, watching your child suffer everyday, or losing a friend in a horrific accident, it’s all relative. Sometimes we need real trauma to appreciate what we have.
falco_femoralis
Well-known member
At least you're in a band!
I read into this as a 100% positive thing. This is what I strive for. No touring, content creation, etc. Just playing music together and having fun.
tegendemuur
Well-known member
In Requiem for a Dream they call this Ass-to-Ass.
falco_femoralis
Well-known member
That movie is nuts. The first time I saw it was on a friend's old projection TV where the bulb was out of focus and the screen image was blurry, esp around the edges. It made the whole movie even more out there, esp the scenes with the old woman
Aleph Null
Well-known member
Mr. Diddly had to use a rectangle because Pythagoras had already copyrighted the right triangle!
genXslacker
Well-known member
You get a response, and you get a response, and you get a response ... !
I laughed, but I don't. I'm pretty sure every design I want was well-established before 1970. I was an old man by the time I was 19.
I've been jones-ing for a hardtail Duo Jet for a long, long time.
If I recall correctly, they already tried it in the US and lost in 2009. That might have been based on a different legal theory, though.
The thing with mass-produced guitars is that plenty of them are barely passing inspection. At the same time, through luck and circumstances, some of them are excellent. I've played a Classic Vibe or two that play as well as anything coming out of Fullerton. I guess I'm still old, but I've never bought a guitar without playing it first.
Here's another: He wrote "Love is Strange", the Mickey & Sylvia hit from the '50s... also covered by Buddy Holly.
... not God. Not even the best guitarist in Derek and the Dominos.
I've pontificated on this recently, but my blood pressure goes up every time I see a title about somebody being "exposed", "panicking", or "crashing out".
I hope you find it. What I strive for is being left alone with a bottle of bourbon and maybe a nice gummy.
That's one of the movies that you feel like you've narrowly survived a life-threatening situation when it's over. Even Jennifer Connolly's other-worldly beauty isn't enough to make that one a nice watch. A very good movie, don't get me wrong, but rough on the nerves.
I laughed, but I don't. I'm pretty sure every design I want was well-established before 1970. I was an old man by the time I was 19.
I've been jones-ing for a hardtail Duo Jet for a long, long time.
If I recall correctly, they already tried it in the US and lost in 2009. That might have been based on a different legal theory, though.
The thing with mass-produced guitars is that plenty of them are barely passing inspection. At the same time, through luck and circumstances, some of them are excellent. I've played a Classic Vibe or two that play as well as anything coming out of Fullerton. I guess I'm still old, but I've never bought a guitar without playing it first.
Here's another: He wrote "Love is Strange", the Mickey & Sylvia hit from the '50s... also covered by Buddy Holly.
... not God. Not even the best guitarist in Derek and the Dominos.
I've pontificated on this recently, but my blood pressure goes up every time I see a title about somebody being "exposed", "panicking", or "crashing out".
I hope you find it. What I strive for is being left alone with a bottle of bourbon and maybe a nice gummy.
That's one of the movies that you feel like you've narrowly survived a life-threatening situation when it's over. Even Jennifer Connolly's other-worldly beauty isn't enough to make that one a nice watch. A very good movie, don't get me wrong, but rough on the nerves.
analog_bham
Well-known member
my understanding was that that case was a trademark case and this one is a copyright case. fender lost the trademark so they're going after the "art" argument with the copyright battle. my only point was that they're going after smaller folks who can't fight and then PRS who absolutely can afford it.
i love a strat. i really do. i would love to have a really exceptional custom shop strat, but there are so many small people who make s-style guitars that are better than fender that i just won't spend the money. if fender would put this litigation money into improving quality of their Strats, there wouldn't need to be a market of smaller builders making s-style guitars.
genXslacker
Well-known member
Ah, yeah, that makes sense and rings a bell now that you mention it. Gracias. I, too, am a long-time Stratocaster fan and we see eye-to-eye on this.
derevaun
Well-known member
I've been enjoying the series of articles at yamahamusician.com. Note that they're independent from Yamaha itself, which I got wrong somewhere in this thread.
