Electronic Music and Twitter
Personal Reflection
I had never used Twitter before this class, so I found the Twitter project especially interesting. Twitter is one of the only social media sites that I don’t utilize regularly, making it interesting to be able to study it as I was experiencing it for the first time as a user. Analyzing a social media site for the first time through a critical and analytical lens gives a unique perspective on its function. I was able to appreciate how rhetoric was utilized in its different forms throughout the medium and how things like advertising were integrated into the network. Furthermore, it was interesting to see the juxtaposition of the activity of our class on Twitter with the “rest of the world” that I followed on the site. The fact that it spanned the entire length of the term was useful in that it allowed us to study and experience Twitter how it is used on a normal basis.
One aspect of Twitter that distinguished it from other social media networks was its relatively fast pace: even at the beginning when I was only following a few users, my home feed was a continuous barrage of new tweets. Whereas on Facebook, someone may post a couple times a day at most, users on Twitter seemed to post with much more frequency. This amplified the feeling of interconnectedness that social media produces, since it felt like I was being constantly updated about the lives of everyone I followed. At the same time, the amount of information coming at me could be overwhelming. With multiple new tweets appearing every few seconds, it became difficult to absorb all the information as well as distinguish the important information from the unimportant. After a while, however, I seemed to get used to the format and pace of Twitter and found it fairly entertaining to use.
I also thought that using Twitter in conjunction with the readings for the class was a useful exercise because the character limit forced me to determine the most important idea I was trying to convey and cut my thoughts down into a concise few sentences. While frustrating at first for someone not used to writing and posting with such strict limits, the format helped me think more about the purpose and structure of my tweets.
Selection of Accounts Followed
I choose to look at a selection of Twitter users that revolved around the theme of electronic music, which I have recently become fairly interested in. I followed a range of users in this area, from DJs and producers to record labels and observed the different ways in which they employed rhetoric in their use of Twitter.
THE CHAINSMOKERS (@TheChainsmokers): The Chainsmokers are a DJ duo from New York City who have recently become extremely popular. They performed at Dartmouth during Green Key my freshman year when they were first starting to get big. This makes them interesting to follow because I remember three years ago seeing friends sharing Tweets from them about their concert at Dartmouth back when they were far less well known, and now they are world famous. Following them on Twitter now makes it feel like I have viewed their career progression (providing a sense of immediacy). The Chainsmokers’ Twitter is a mix of promotional material as well as seemingly random Tweets that don’t have anything to do with their music. This preserves the personal feel to their account and makes it seem like they could be just a friend posting.
Elephante (@iamtheELEPHANTE): Elephante is another DJ who played at Dartmouth during Green Key. He performed at Dartmouth my sophomore year and I saw him again the next summer, thus I feel like I have a more of a connection to him than to many of the other more random artists I chose to follow. His Twitter seems more focused on posting promotional material, such as new songs or tour dates; however, he still has some witty posts that aren’t directly related to his music and thus create a more personal feel to the account.
Bassnectar (@bassnectar): Bassnectar is the first electronic music artist I ever saw live, back in 2013, so I decided to follow him on Twitter. Coincidentally, he just released part of a new album yesterday, which was of course promoted on his twitter. He has a very alternative and somewhat experimental style of music and has developed an almost cult-like following of fans. Unlike the previous two artists, Bassnectar’s Twitter is almost entirely focused on promotional material, generally posts with information or links to new songs. This gives the account a more commercial and less personal feel than some other accounts.
RL GRIME (@RLGRIME): RL Grime is one of my current favorite electronic music producers. His Twitter account is similar to the previous two, offering a mix of personal tweets and promotional material, including many videos of his live performances.
Aa (@Baauer): Baauer is another famous electronic music producer. While his general use of twitter is similar to that of the other artists I follow, he just recently released an album as well and so his Twitter has been focused on promoting that album. One notable example of a the intersection of different types of rhetoric is his use of a screenshot from an old viral video as a meme to promote the release of his album.
Electric Zoo NY (@ElectricZooNY): The next account I followed wasn’t an artist, but an annual music festival in New York City that I went to last summer. It had over 80,000 attendees last year and generally hosts a collection of some of the biggest electronic music artists. This is an account for an organization rather than an individual person, and its posts are entirely promotional and informational. They consist of official announcements as well as pictures and videos from the festival itself.
Ultra Music (@ultrarecords): Ultra is the biggest electronic music record label in the US. It also hosts one of the largest music festivals in the country: Ultra Music Festival in Miami, which I attended this past spring. Their Twitter consists almost entirely of posts promoting the music of the artists on their record label, with little to no personal interaction with other users, which seems to be the norm for commercial accounts of large companies.
Ableton (@ableton): Ableton is a company that makes of the most prominent digital audio workstations used in music production, especially electronic dance music. I thought it would be interesting to follow an account that deal with the actual production aspect of music. Ableton’s account consists of promotions and sales on some of their products as well as various links to articles with interviews with producers and tips for using the software. Unlike most of the previous accounts I discussed, that were concerned mainly with promoting finished music, Ableton’s Twitter aims to help people actually creating the music in the first place. There are noticeable differences in the rhetorical strategies of these accounts: the Ableton account focuses on technical aspects of music production whereas artist accounts generally tend to try to establish more personal connections with fans, since they are reliant on a support base of regular people.
Pioneer DJ USA (@PioneerDJ): Similar to Ableton, this account is a music hardware company that makes the most popular DJ players and mixers that are used by most of the top professional DJs in the world. Pioneer’s account also focuses mainly on commercial and promotional content for their products, but also re-tweets various things such as pictures of artists using their devices. One notable tweet that Pioneer re-tweeted was a post from Deadmau5, a famous producer, who was thanking Pioneer for letting him borrow a mixer for a performance.
SoundCloud (@SoundCloud): Since many electronic music producers use SoundCloud to post tracks, I decided to follow them on Twitter. Their Twitter account focuses mainly on engagement with and promotion of many of the major artists that use SoundCloud.
