✘ Parasocial relationships and trials and tribulations in intimate communities
And: Music in the Metaverse report; DJ mixes in the world of streaming; Wearable albums; Cities' need for a 'music audit'; How to survive the inevitable CD revival; Musicians' guide to Web3
More and more artists are building communities around their music and persona. Whether they set up a Patreon or released some NFTs and created a token-gated Discord, there’s many ways to bound fans to you - and create a recurring revenue model out of it. Fans participate because they simply want to support the artist or because they seek proximity and a deeper involvement in, for example, the creative process. As these communities become more common and accessible, several questions arise for both fans and artists as they involve themselves.
For fans, there’s the issue of how much energy they can expend in their community involvement
For fans, there’s also the question of why they’re in an artist community. Perhaps it’s true fandom, but maybe they want to learn how something works, become involved in the artist’s career, or are aspiring musicians themselves
For musicians, the question is also how much energy they can expend to uphold their community - and by extension what kind of content they want to share
For musicians, there’s the issue of who they want to portray to their community. An artist-persona can be very different from a more intimate persona and these two don’t always match up
The problem with “realness”
A lot of our social media ask from us to portray better versions of ourselves which lead to most of us trying to attain what others have - or seem to have. This is how influencers came into being. With this status came a way for brands to reach audiences in authentic ways. It didn’t take long, however, for most people to see through the obvious product placements and other jabs that influencers used to appraise items or experiences. That doesn’t take away from the effectiveness of personal recommendations. We just trust our friends and family more than random others or direct ads. The beauty of online popularity is that lots of people think of you as a friend - this is the definition of a parasocial relationship. And it’s also where the problem starts when the fan/subscriber/patron/follower/etc. becomes a mode of revenue and economic growth.
This is why, for example, host-read ads in podcasts work so well. Listeners create an affection for the hosts of their favourite podcasts. Moreover, the way we listen - often through headphones or even earbuds - “collapses the physical space between speaker and listener” completely according to Martin Spinelli in his book on Podcasting. The hots seems real and physically close, but there’s no two-way relationship. This can change when a podcast host, or a musician, opens up a Discord or a private group chat on Twitter, or creates a regular videocall for their supporters on Patreon, etc. There, fans find the authenticity they crave, but artists are faced with the conundrum of having an actual relationship, and still seeing the fan on the other side as a tool to create revenue.
Is there a parasocial in a closeknit artist-fan community?
The premise of the parasocial relationship is that it’s one person feeling connected to another person who has no idea who that first person is. The current rise of small and intimate artist-fan and artist-collector communities challenges this parasociality. Instead of one person admiring and connecting with someone from afar, they are both in contact with each other - through video calls, chat, daily updates, etc. The simple question of ‘how are you?’ and being there to hear and acknowledge the answer almost takes the parasocial away.
However, the artist still needs to maintain multiple of these relationships in order to get to that level of recurring revenue that will allow them to sustain their lives. That dichotomy between realness and consumption will always keep a fraction of the parasocial at least implicit in any fan-to-artist relationship. Remember that you need 1,000 or 100 true or super fans to maintain your artistry as a profession. And how many person-to-person relationships can we hold at once? Maybe five or seven? This goes for both artists and fans, of course - where the latter simply cannot be superfans of more than a select few artists.
What could be a solution then? Perhaps it’s time to squad up, to find a crew and build a community from around four or five people instead of a single artist or a band with at most a manager. And what’s great about the new style artist-fan community, is that the first place to look for that crew is your community.
👾 Music in the metaverse
The second research season at Water & Music focused on music in the metaverse. It has been a joy again to participate in these research sprints, collaborating with people from all over the world asynchronously to achieve some monumental research goals. We’ve broken down 9 design principles for a musical metaverse. There’s also an accompanying slide deck for easier consumption.
Another part of the research I’d like to highlight is what we called: Choose your own adventure: A music metaverse path finder. Here, we basically took all of the data, the dozens of interviews, the meet-ups, etc. from the Season and pulled it together to allow those curious about music in the metaverse and find triggers to go down their own rabbit holes and create beautiful experiences. This is what that looks like visually, and there’s also an interactive version here (which lets you click through to all the examples and inspirations highlighted).
LINKS
💡 DJ Mixes in the world of streaming music (and video) — Part 3 (Chuck Fishman)
“Most of my music data work for Music Data Pro is focused on measuring music marketing efforts and the consumption of music, versus tracking revenues earned via streaming, including mechanical and performance royalties. Therefore for the sake of this post, tracking inclusion of songs within DJ mixes is more about discovering where songs have been added to DJ mixes and the potential audience reach related to the inclusion. However, at the conclusion of this post, I do have a few remarks and updates about how DJ mixes could lead to increased revenue streams for artists producing the songs that are included in those mixes.”
🌆 How a ‘music audit’ led to equitable economic development in Huntsville, Ala. (Shain Shapiro)
“In 2017, the city and private sector approached a multinational venue operator to operate the amphitheater, but Huntsville—as a mid-level market with a little-known music economy—was not seen as a place that could produce the returns necessary to satisfy the investment required to build and operate such a facility. The city needed to know more about what, if anything, would be best for Huntsville’s residents in taking on such an investment. Instead of immediately moving forward with the amphitheater, the City Council, led by Mayor Tommy Battle, decided to embark on what was at the time America’s largest music- and culture-specific listening exercise.”
🥻 Bacardi Uses QR Codes to Create ‘Wearable Album’ (Brooke Bisceglia)
Next level gamification for music discovery?
“Fans wearing the collection are incentivized to attract QR scanners and streamers by the promise of other music benefits. They have the chance to win free concert tickets for every picture taken of their apparel.”
💿 How to survive the inevitable CD revival (J. Trew)
“There’s also the fact that what once seemed restrictive to younger listeners – having to own a song if you wanted to hear it – now presents a different way of enjoying music. A good album isn’t merely a collection of songs, but a structured experience to be enjoyed from start to finish. You can, of course, do this with streaming, but a CD requires getting up to change, Spotify is usually just a click away.”
Also read this throwback article which looked to this point in the future and imagined what a CD revival would look like.
⚜️ The Musician’s Guide to Web3 (Justin De Marco)
“I’ve listed 14 different options artists have for launching projects in web3. My goal here is not so much to perfectly define each path, but instead to lay out a series of options for artists who want to get started. Hopefully this helps as you formulate ideas for your own future projects.”
MUSIC
I’m reading Janelle Monae’s new book of short stories based on her vision of a future, which sits within a strong lineage of Afrofuturism. Of course, this same vision comes through in her music.