A few explosively overrated whiny contributions to taint our music industry, a couple of songs for whales to mate to and undeserved Grammys later, Bon Iver is still at it, this time giving away tickets on Facebook. I have to say, the prize package is pretty enticing – a night’s hotel stay, dinner and a $500 gift card in Vegas, even though you can expect the laborious disadvantage of having to attend one of those extended sleeper sessions the guy likes to call a live show.
Don’t get me wrong, the fakelife social outlets remind me that over a million people actually ‘like’ Bon Iver (and I feel sorry for each and every one of them, for humanitarian reasons), but where do the fake indie artists stop taking advantage of their fans and start actually ‘giving’ back? *BE WARNED* This contest requires all entrants to grant the administrators of the Bon Iver page access to their personal Facebook pages. This is so that they can solicit unpaid advertising to the entrants’ friends, I assume.
The absurdity and downright stupidity incorporated into social media campaigns doesn’t stop there, though. For months, I’ve been complaining about bands such as White Rabbits, among others that I wanted to check out but instead am now turned off by, because they require listeners to ‘like’ their pages before they can listen to the music. Did you hear me?! These bands REQUIRE you to LIKE their music BEFORE you listen to it. Does it get dumber than that?
Don’t get me wrong, an email address or a ‘like’ for a free download is one thing – an exchange of product whereby both parties know what they’re getting. But selling your integrity for nothing? Not so honorable. I contend that if Facebook were reallife instead of fakelife, they’d have a ‘Dislike’ button, too, with a scrolling list of non-fans so that you can stalk and discover which of your ‘friends’ have decent taste and/or common sense.
Bottom line – just come to thesilvertongueonline.com for new music discoveries. We’ll continue to give you stuff for free, and won’t even ask for your mama’s social security number in return.
If you discover any fan-disrespecting social media stunts – such as this Bon Iver fiasco – that I have not, please forward them over to me at janey [at] thesilvertongueonline.com so that we can warn the others.
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