The Business of Keeping Them Out

There's been a lot of talk lately, that opinions these days are just aggregate sub-genres, that whatever we like turns to crap once other people are aware of it, that there is a fierce sense of loneliness that lines the pride we hold dear. If I hear it, if I see it, and you haven't, then it's mine, I own it, I have a personal connection with it, etc. If you, or the internet by proxy, zooms it to you, then all of a sudden a band that I thought spoke to ME is speaking to a thirteen year old in Ohio. Tastes used to be this thing that brought kindred people together, but mass-marketing and too many choices and meta upon meta has made it all different now. We like the same stuff, and yet, we are not the same. We are still splintered.

And it's not just style or politics, it's our sense of who we are, where we came from and even, where we've paid to belong. I read this old article in Guatemala while a stray kitten bit my feet and it made me cringe and smile. I'm thinking about this article and all its abstractions today, how it relates to being a New York kid or adult, being an American, being anything. I don't have anything interesting to add, but I would love to hear your thoughts on it...