This is a good one from The Next Web:
Trent Reznor, the man behind Nine Inch Nails, has answered his own threats and has deleted his Twitter account. Back on June 10th, Trent Reznor posted a long rant where he blasted Twitter and called out many of his followers for the negativity they expressed to him regarding the content of his feed:
| When Twitter made it’s way to my radar I looked at it as a curiosity, then started experimenting. I thought it through and in light of where I was / am in my career I decided to lower the curtain a bit and let you see more of my personality. I watched some of you get more engaged because you started to realize there’s a person (flaws and all) back there, and I watched some of you recoil in horror because I’m not what you projected on me. All expected. I’m not as concerned about “breaking” your idea of NIN at this point. It is what it is and I am what I am. The relationship between artist and fan is changing if you haven’t noticed, along with the way we consume and experience music and even communicate since the internet arrived. |
| The problem with really getting engaged in a community is getting through the clutter and noise. In a closed environment like nin.com a lot of this can be moderated away, or code can be implemented to make it more difficult for troublemakers to persist. It’s tedious and feels like wasted energy doing that shit, but some people exist to ruin it for others – and they are the ones who have nothing better to do with their time. Example: on nin.com, there’s 3-4 different people that each send me between 50 – 100 message per day of delusional, often threatening nonsense. We can delete them, but they just sign back up and start again. Yes, we are implementing several changes to address this, but the point is it quickly gets very old weeding through that stuff. |
| Back to Twitter. I approached that as a place to be less formal and more off-the-cuff, honest and “human”. I was not expecting to broadcast details of my love life there, but it happened because I’m in love and it’s all I think about and that’s that. If this has bummed you out or destroyed what you’ve projected on me, fair enough – it’s probably time for you to leave. You are right, I’m not the same person I was in 1994 (and I’m happy about that). Are you? |
It will be interesting to see how Reznor’s fans react. It does illustrate how social networks like Twitter can be a double edged sword for many high profile celebs. While they do provide a level of engagement that was previously unavailable, they also provide a level of intimacy between fans that can become problematic . I do think it’s interesting that Reznor, who is all about social media, has decided to ditch the service.
It’s a known fact that goth-industrial types never grow up. 20 years after the scene they will still be at the same club, shoegazing and goth-dancing to the same music. The idea that Reznor isn’t staying down in the dungeon with them is unfathomable to them and is considered a form of betrayal. (Falling in love would be sacrilegious).
We are, however, extremely amused that Reznor, creator of material like Broken
Old Trent:
New Trent!
Thanks to Alyx for the link!
