The People Are Coming

photo: (http://www.americanidol.com/contestants/season6/sanjaya_malakar/)


I truly believe that more people in America wonder why Sanjaya is still on American Idol, than worry about post-war health care at Walter Reed Army hospital. I’m ok with that, because life is an important thing to be observed, and in our democracy you’re allowed to pursue just about anything you suspect might make you happy—even a nationwide karaoke/beauty contest.

There’s been a lot written about how a perfectly good show is being ruined by miscreants, who’ve apparently decided in places like http://www.votefortheworst.com and http://www.howardstern.com that a vote for Sanjaya is a funny thing to do, as it capitalizes on the idea of “voting” as a method of screwing up a process.

I’m a huge fan of AI. I’ve been watching since season one with Tamyra Gray, Christina Christian (my all-time favorite crush), and Justin Guarini got broke off by young, big-bootied Texan Kelly Clarkson. I was watching the night Fantasia knelt and belted out “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess, in what I still consider the best AI performance of all time. And I was as shocked Chris appeared to be, the night the Daughtry machine stopped revolving.

I very rarely vote on contestants, although I have called twice to keep on performers that I thought deserved to move past a single bad performance. I liked Clay better than Reuben in their final showdown, even though I thought Frenchie would’ve been better than either of them, had she not had the misfortunate combination of being a big woman, AND not being opposed to participating in a bit of soft porn (even though the porn thing didn’t seem to hurt Antonella at all).

But the Sanjaya thing, in that way that some court cases or phrases in some political speeches catch my interest, intrigues me. In a lot of ways it’s a watershed moment, like Barack raising $25,000,000 in three months. Specifically, it’s the SAME moment, viewed from opposite sides of a tunnel.

(For those of you who have no idea who Sanjaya is, he’s a young man from Washington state who was just talented and beautiful enough to get through the fairly rigorous American Idol elimination process before anyone discovered that he wasn’t a ‘great’ singer. Now that he’s on the actual show, he has ‘somehow’ managed to not just avoid elimination, but actually garner a LOT of votes. His obvious lack of head-to-head singing ability has turned this season into a bit of a joke, to the purists. Now you’re caught up.)

I’m starting to realize that I watch my America through different spectacles than a lot of other people. And those spectacles suggest to me, that THIS is the evidence of the REAL birth of the digital age.

An age isn’t born when a technology is invented. It ACTUALLY comes into existence when the masses:
a) get access
b) learn to use the new capability.

Every new age is a puzzle, with the pieces being created as the assembly is happening. When the puzzle is complete, there is a new cycle to how life is lived.

The invention of the car meant nothing until there were roads that went everywhere a driver might want to go, gas stations to make the trip possible, and assembly lines to make the new machine affordable to every driver who wanted one. Once all those pieces were in place, the age of the automobile exploded. Today, everybody has a car, or at least enough access to get behind a steering wheel when the need arises.

The dot-com boom of the early 90s was supposed to signal the birth of a new era. New generations of billionaires were birthed in the creation of cool computer ideas, while investing in those creations destroyed part of an old generation of millionaires.

Nobody ever talks about the fact that the entire dot-com bubble burst before anyone even HAD high-speed internet, which in many ways is integral to the online system being useful in any tangible way.

The technology had been invented, but very few people had either the access, or the know-how to make it part of their lives.

News still came from the big five networks, and three publishing companies. Music came on compact discs and from the radio, and HBO was arguably the only real edge in mass entertainment in the 90s.

But in the interim, the “masses” have become increasingly comfortable with the new technology at our disposal. The internet started to become a real alternate universe of information.

Online shopping took over mall revenues at Christmastime, and people got used to providing that sacred collection of digits … the credit card number … to an anonymous screen. The definition of privacy changed, as the young started to live two simultaneous lives; one in person, the other online—complete with diaries, friends, and photos just risqué enough to keep them from getting their first high-profile job.

The ipod was born, the blog and podcast became Webster words, and today virtually anyone can create and broadcast their ramblings on every topic under the sun – and we can all participate. The telephone went cellular, then replaced the camcorder as the most convenient way to record our lives for posterity. Combined with youtube compression/sharing technology the video cell-phone has placed very real electronic newsgathering possible for absolutely anyone.

The digital universe is slowly strangling ALL of the old communication norms; radio, the old music distribution and sales models, network news, and the morning/evening editions of the newspaper.

And Howard Dean appeared from nowhere to make a credible run for President by raising money *gasp … on the internet.

Like every other new life cycle, the cyberworld is BOUND to eventually make its presence known in our political processes. There was time before television, and candidates had to raise money then, too. But that age is virtually antediluvian to us today, because a candidate’s money now goes to buying advertising time.

But people, at least American people, don’t just start fucking with the electoral system on a whim. We practice first.

Even after the 1960 election fiasco, and the 2000 election fiasco, we’ll test the new system with a toe first.

Which brings us back to a pretty little boy who’s in over his head on a television show that 30,000,000 Americans watch every week. Sanjaya’s got spunk, and even though I hope he doesn’t win, he’s a much more important cultural and political figure than most of us are going to realize immediately.

Sanjaya is the first real test BY THE PEOPLE of our ability to genuinely affect an honest voting system.

For the record, I’ve said privately for years that the smartest way to vote would be a national election using ATM cards and the existent financial network infrastructure. But that’s a different discussion for a different day. Today, hear this …

The people are coming.

Peace,
--Stew.