It’s another hot one here in the summer, and tis the season for all the summer festival music tours to tool around the country giving black eyes, dehydration, and WHAT?! An infared beam that meddles with my phone?! Aw HELL NO!
This whole controversy between recording artists and concert-goers has finally come to a head with Apple announcing they have patented the technology to remotely disable the cameras in phones when a certain infared beam is emitted.
This, of course, pisses me off to no end, so now the world needs to take notice, and music artists need to get off whatever stick they have shoved where the sun don’t shine (at least, all that often). So that’s this month’s Negative Space. Let’s get into it!
The meat of this stems from artists at concerts getting annoyed at fans that take pictures on their phones, use their phones, or otherwise have anything other than a drink in their hands (that’s more than likely ridiculously overpriced pisswater if it’s a “livenation” event, but that’s a rant for another day) and singing along like drunken fools at the pub. To them I say, GET OVER YOURSELVES! I don’t care if you have a multi-million dollar roadshow promising thrills, chills, and mind-blowing acrobatics, or you and the boys show up in wife beaters and cut off shorts; if people paid their hard-earned money on a ticket to come to your show, you have no place to stop said show to whine, gripe, heckle, or otherwise ruin the show for any one person. That means putting your big boy/girl underoos on, keep your jackass opinion to yourselves, and play your show!
You know, DO YOUR JOB!
You don’t know a person’s situation as to why they might just be using their phone when you so conveniently spot them from your highly-perched stage angle. They could be checking in with parents, showing a friend where they are at, or maybe they just remembered they needed to send an e-mail and wanted to do it before they forgot; regardless, you have no place and no right to call someone out that you don’t know why they are doing what they are. Also, I could slap every artist or record exec that tried to use the tired old “bootlegging” excuse. Look, cameras on phones are great, but they are great as a replacement to a standard standalone camera, nothing more. If the fans want photos of you performing to put up on social media, then by god let them; you might just gain some new fans, but of course all these artists seem to care about is how rude they are seemingly being treated when every single head isn’t staring directly at the stage the entire show. You have your attendance, ticket money, and merch sales. SO SHUT UP.
The other part of this is the blatant invasion of any sort of privacy that will stem from this one seemingly harmless venture in the eyes of the touring music world. I, and many others see police and other entities using this so they can not have any proof of wrongdoing. No video or pics = no evidence for conviction. Does that REALLY sound like something you want out there for corrupt cops and such to exploit?? Go ahead and accuse me of “wearing a tin foil hat” or whatever tired analogy you’d like to describe being paranoid, but if you really think this won’t be used against you, then you’re most certainly not paying attention… or you just don’t understand hwo the world works. Keep in mind that corrupt cops are shooting innocent people dead (and a number of other horrid, illegal acts) already, and this just makes it even easier for them to get away with it.
So to these music artists that have your underwear in a bunch I will say thank you. Thank you for showing your true colors at how selfish, asinine, and short sighted you really are in bringing more turmoil into our daily lives, when your creation is supposed to do the exact opposite. Congrats, you morons. You’re just further destroying everything good about the music industry, and making even more people not want to waste their time with you.
This is Dave Ward, and you have just warped through the Negative Space.
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-Dave Ward
Columnist, Resident Grouch, and First Ambassador: Federation Starship Nerd Nation
@DaveWard1279
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Please Note: the views and opinions expressed by Mr. Ward are entirely his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Nerd Nation Magazine, our sponsors, or anyone else, for that matter. This is an opinion column, and is intended for entertainment purposes only, so please don’t be a d-bag and try to sue anyone over the stuff he writes. If it offends and/or infuriates, we
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