SOSJUL MIEDIA

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October 2018

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(also read in iO Pages)

 

No professional musician can ignore it: social media. If you have news that you want to spread quickly to a large group of people or potentially interested people, then posting on Facebook and Instagram is by far the most effective way to get it done. Of course you can and should also put it on the news page of your own site, but it is generally visited by far fewer people. In other words: you can take the barge to Den Helder (ok maybe not anymore), but you can get there by car anyway.

 

I have a kind of love-hate relationship with Facebook (I also do Instagram, but personally I find that more clumsy and I place much less on it). I don't like the nonsense that you occasionally see, for example, and the compelling nature of it - after posting a message, you regularly see how many people have already viewed, liked and shared it. And as much as I think that you soon tell more about yourself than you should, I have become a regular 'user'.

 

FB has also loosened something with me over time, which I simply cannot resist. As I may know by the reader of iO Pages, I like to write blogs and columns. In general, I like to write, actually. Music, text, you name it. I notice that looking around, I think 'hey, that would be fun for FB'. These are also subjects from the private sphere, and less often professionally, although that is the actual reason why I 'sit' on Facebook. Enough reactions. And it is sometimes astonishing to read how people immediately know how to stray to a topic about which they actually want to say something. Recently I posted a message about The Voice Senior, and about how old being 'hot' again, at least, according to John de Mol. Then people will name their favorite bands, which should have been on TV, and others shout something about autistic capitalists, after which a third finds something of communism again.

 

For musical notices that are usually about Kayak, I usually use the specific Kayak page, and occasionally I share such a message on my own. After all, it remains shameless self-promotion and the chimney must smoke here, too.

 

A subject that I prefer not to focus on is political. I have no opinion? Sometimes it is, but it is really private and we will keep it that way. I don't have to convince anyone of anything, and there is already too much shouting in this world. Before you know it you have an agitated discussion on your timeline and I am not really looking forward to that. You are soon either a left-leaning or a racist, so no thank you. I have yet to encounter the first politically oriented FB discussion that is going well. Too often, it also degenerates into vulgar verbal abuse and hacking from people who call themselves your 'friend' and who you had judged more wisely.

 

The big advantage of FB is that unfollowing and de-friending is an easy-to-apply measure that I use without scruples in such cases. I have been close to 5000 friends for a long time, not unique, but a maximum that FB uses. I don't need another page for the time being so sometimes I need to make some friends to make room for others. The aforementioned discussion about John de Mol's statements derailed to the extent that I even had to block someone. Well, then you make the fur.

 

And if I don't feel like it anymore because it takes too much time and attention from me, I just unfriend myself. I understand from Facebook that you don't notice that.