In his band’s debut single, “Losing My Edge,” LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy worries, as the title suggests, that he is is growing old and that “the kids are coming up from behind.”
Murphy’s fear is a universal one. On some level we all want to be cool and we all face insecurity as we get older. We worry that we are out of touch and that we don’t know what’s trendy and relevant. In our face-paced society, we are constantly looking for something newer and cooler. In fields that move at an accelerated pace, such as social media, the effects are amplified. As new platforms appear, old ones disappear overnight.
Social media platforms come and go, but the needs they meet have always existed - social media only re-imagines and reinterprets them. I chose to start this post with the song “Losing My Edge” because Murphy reflects this idea. Even though he feels old around all the young kids, he asserts “But I was there,” as if to say, “I may be older, but we aren’t so different.”
In the spirit of “Losing My Edge,” in a series of posts I will take three concepts associated with social media and explain how these practices have always existed and explain how social media re-imagines them.
When I first started outlining my thoughts, a simple critical analysis seemed daunting, so I decided to mix it up.
I love music blogs (and I even wrote a fashion and music blog all this semester), so I wanted to combine that interest with my analysis of these social phenomena. So instead of strictly relying on traditional scholarly articles, I will use the lyrical content from songs to support and enhance my arguments. I know it may seem like a gimmick, but the more I have experimented with this the more please and surprised I have been by the results. I hope that this creative approach will not only provide unique insight, but also spark some debate. The concepts I chose to look at, much like the music I discuss, are open to interpretation.
SONGS FEATURED IN THIS POST:
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