Wow. I'd not seen that video of Shatner and Bezos. Says it all doesn't it. Makes me ashamed of those from my generation (GenX) who didn't take any of the lessons from those who saw a noble future. Well, I have GenZ kids and they at least seem to have the measure of these techno-twats. There is hope.
I saw it at the time and was shocked by it. I also found follow-ups of William talking about the experience and how he felt and it was beautiful. The man who made it possible is brain dead to the humanity of the thing he paid for.
Thank you for articulating how I feel about Instagram … and I’ve recently bought a cd player - I’d never actually got rid of my CDs. I missed listening to a whole album and like you say, the ending - the silence. I’m doing the same with my DVD collection. I’m sick of paying streaming services to advertise at me - or paying even more for the privilege of not being advertised at.
So true! We still have our albums and our CDs and our DVDs. We don't have a set up to play the albums (do have a deck but nothing to plug it into or anywhere to put it), but we do have a CD player and if we want to watch DVDs we plug an external CD drive into a laptop and watch there. People have forgotten it's just as enjoyable watching a film on a relatively small screen as on a stupidly huge thing that takes up the whole of a wall and looks ridiculous. We don't even have a TV.
I'm more space than politically motivated, and this really hits the nail on the head.
I watched at the time, and it was unmistakable how bored Bezos was by Shatner, Bezos had the look of someone who was trapped in a dull conversation, and that he normally had people to keep this crap away from him.
Absolutely zero ***'s given about the emotional impact of what he was doing. And no manners either.
Just another bored tech bro, with the emotional development of a whelk.
"Emotional development of a whelk" is the best thing I've heard all day. Thank you for that laugh. Although, sadly, you are absolutely correct to describe the man in this way.
As a lifelong Star Trek fan, that clip of Shatner with Bezos must rank as one of the saddest (and most profoundly upsetting) scenes I have ever seen.
Totally agree with your point on how we no longer have control over what we watch, see, read and enjoy. We gave away the majority of our DVD collection, thinking we no longer needed the physical objects to enjoy our favourite classic films. How wrong we were.
Most are unavailable to watch online.
So we spend our precious free time lurching from one spoon-fed series to another. The Sopranos, Sons of Anarchy, Succession, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Ozark, MadMen, Boardwalk Empire ... even Captain Kirk can't save us from ourselves.
Ian, I think you just lifted the top of my head and stretched deep into my soul never mind my brain. A beautiful piece of writing that crisply captures the fundamental problem of modern times. I too get lost in Instagram and often have those same feelings of having been suckered by hard bodied women taunting my flabbiness and age. I don’t know how many more horrific car crashes or influencer fails I can handle. I recently downloaded all of my data from Instagram and then deleted it along with Facebook and Threads. I have a CD player and a DVD player and intend to become more in control. Keep writing this fantastic stuff. You are the best of UK writing and journalism at the moment.
Those hard bodied women live in torment to stay that way. Eating next to nothing lovely and working out all the time. Spending hours every day painting their faces to hide their souls. And one day they will wake up 55 (if they are lucky) and realise it was all crap and they still went to flab anyway. The difference is they are empty husks devoid of empathy and interest and no one is remotely interested in them either.
Given that most of my public writing is on consumer tech, I’ve done a lot of thinking about a chunk of what you write above. One of the recommendations I often make is for people to be more mindful and deliberate in their decisions surrounding technology. And if they have habits they consider bad, figure out ways to deal with them.
As you noted, friction is a good way. Remove an app from the Home Screen. Use a screen time system to give you a nudge if you’ve already spent hours scrolling. Install site blockers with cooldowns for places you really don’t want to visit. That might in itself sound like infantilising, but it’s not really. It’s about using the technology to help you manage the technology.
On endings and the finite nature of media, I agree. It’s why I gravitate towards printed books – that sense of the object and focus. And it’s probably why when I wrote about buying my first CD player in 20 years over on Stuff, the article to my surprise went bonkers. Absolutely bonkers. Weeks and weeks of emails and messages, every single one of which was either supportive of had made people think: actually, I want to do that. (This wasn’t expected. I was thinking a few people might sagely nod, or tell me off for not recommending ludicrously expensive cables.)
More broadly on tech, I hope at some point this will all be a lesson for Europe. It’s easy to forget that just the UK alone used to be pioneers in everything from home computing to gaming. But along the way, we lost our lead and then sold off all the silver. Seemingly every time we create something amazing, that too ends up being bought by someone else. With social media, now would surely be the time for European governments to look at decentralised solutions and put at least some effort into things like Mastodon. Instead, they are almost doing the reverse, with various test runs being ended, with the various bodies slinking back to the usual suspects.
While people give Musk and Zuckerberg and Bezos their attention, nothing will change. Not that I’m suggesting abandoning everything they do. But, to my initial point, you can be more mindful and deliberate. If you’re on X, why not try Bluesky or Mastodon? Shift your attention. If you use Facebook, can you forge links elsewhere? And while Amazon might be convenient, once you break the habit of shopping there by default, months later you might be wondering why you ever did. (Doubly so for certain things, like graphic novels, for which Amazon is arguably one of the worst options in the UK and US.)
That was a very enjoyable read. Thank you. And you are right. I miss whole albums. I can ask Alexa to play "the album XXX by YYY" of course but when I come to do that I only remember a fraction of things I like. In fact I'm usually blank! I loved looking through albums or CDs looking for what I wanted to listen too. Even tapes in the car were great.
I do have a CD player in the car. I had the car about 12 years before I realised this! But there's nowhere to keep CDs!
I'm enjoying BlueSky and hope to turn X off for good soon. Are you on BlueSky? Your Stuff piece just says X.
I loved my Kindle at first. And it still has it's place; holidays, train travel, hanging around waiting for something and reading in the bath (in a zip lock bag). But nothing beats the smell and feel of paper and ink. The heft and the cover art.
I don’t use a Kindle, but my wife does. I think it’s an interesting device in marrying convenience with being deliberate with tech. Because it’s very good at doing precisely one thing, the Kindle is a superior device for reading in a mindful manner than firing up a book on a phone or tablet. (Personally, I still love paper. I’m not sure all the bookcases in the house love my love of paper, however.)
On CDs, I still have a loaner review unit here, but I’ll buy a Ruark R3S when it goes home, and we’re planning to sort some proper CD shelves. This year, I even got a few CDs for Christmas. I’ll still use streaming in my office, but buy discs for permanence and for playing downstairs.
Social networks: argh. Yes. The Stuff thing is reportedly down to dev budget, but I have requested multiple times for the means to link out to other networks. I last posted on X in August 2023. I last posted in Bluesky… about two hours ago. I probably post there a but much, but if you’re on that network you can find me at https://bsky.app/profile/craiggrannell.bsky.social
For books, Richard already mentioned Bookshop, but Hive is also good for high-street support. If you want to save some cash, ‘warehouse’ outlets like Books Etc and Speedyhen often beat Amazon on price, and don’t put cash in Bezos’ pocket. If you’re into graphic novels, Forbidden Planet has excellent stock, prices and packaging. Scifier is also good for graphic novels and fantasy/SF stuff. (I’m more… cautious on second-hand places like World of Books, given that I’ve had some stuff that looks like it’s been kicked around the room, despite being listed as ‘like new’. But refunds are usually instant when that happens.)
For everything else, I just shop around more now (still mostly – but not always – online). One thing I’ve noticed is that while Amazon does often price match, it’s for a long time now rarely been cheaper than other outlets for most things. But if you’ve anything specific in mind, let me know.
EBay for small stuff. World of Books (used) or bookshop.org (you nominate an independent bookshop who gets a cut) for books. Bandcamp for music. [And apologies for virtue signalling, I wrote a diatribe about hating it the first time I replied, but lost it to a careless swipe]
Bandcamp is a good shout. Directly sending money (well, after Bandcamp’s cut) to artists beats the pittance they get from streaming. And I’ve noticed more and more artists are selling CDs direct too.
Musk has also (allegedly) read Iain M Banks Culture sci fi novels which are run through with enlightenment thinking. That's where the term "neuralink" comes fro.
Same. Wish I could do the same with Messenger and WhatsApp, but though I have managed to persuade quite a few of my friends and family to sign up to Signal, the point of critical mass being reached is not there yet. But hopefully soon...
The image of those 'tech overlords' seated behind the Trumps and in front of elected members of the Senate is already iconic. And I think it is one that they will all come to regret. It is looks like a moment of triumph, but for who? I do not think the highest office, the tech bros and the politicians will be able to happily co-exist for long because each group thinks they have the greatest power. William Shatner's face in that clip will be all of us.
It all feels horribly dystopian but if we (and equally importantly, governments) take on board what you’re saying, Ian, there is still hope. Thank you for that.
Oh but have you seen his first? Bleak Moments?! Jesus I could hardly bear it and now, decades later, it's the first thing I see in my mind when someone says "Mike Leigh".
I did the same with instragram, then 6 months ago deleted it entirely. Do not miss it, or feel the need to download it again. So many hours of my life just completely wasted.
I left it on my phone's home screen, but I found it wasn't interesting anymore, and I stopped posting any holiday photos to it last year. I think it's safe to say, I can delete it now, it is just a colorful square not doing anything.
I only downloaded it because the kids went off Facebook, or more on there. I rarely go on but fortunately my feed is very cute and therefore the nastiness doesn't really come near me.
I’m so glad I kept my massive DVD collection from uni. I feel like the streaming trap has been set now… the only option to watch stuff that used to be on Prime is to now cough up more money for sub-subscriptions or just pay Bezos £5 to watch a movie once.
Once you can get past potato quality, it’s quite lovely to pop a disk in my PS4 and say “fuck you” to our overlords.
For a lot of films, particularly weird Asian shit I used to watch, it’s the only way to see them
What you say about not being able to watch Leigh’s earlier films because they are not streamed is so true with audiobooks too. An example - Andrew Sachs read all the Narnia books on tapes and on CDs. Magnificently. Other actors were chosen to read the streamed versions. That’s it. Unless you had taped or CD versions you can’t hear him ever again narrate the Narnia books. And it happens all the time with streamed audio books.
Wow. I'd not seen that video of Shatner and Bezos. Says it all doesn't it. Makes me ashamed of those from my generation (GenX) who didn't take any of the lessons from those who saw a noble future. Well, I have GenZ kids and they at least seem to have the measure of these techno-twats. There is hope.
I saw it at the time and was shocked by it. I also found follow-ups of William talking about the experience and how he felt and it was beautiful. The man who made it possible is brain dead to the humanity of the thing he paid for.
Thank you for articulating how I feel about Instagram … and I’ve recently bought a cd player - I’d never actually got rid of my CDs. I missed listening to a whole album and like you say, the ending - the silence. I’m doing the same with my DVD collection. I’m sick of paying streaming services to advertise at me - or paying even more for the privilege of not being advertised at.
So true! We still have our albums and our CDs and our DVDs. We don't have a set up to play the albums (do have a deck but nothing to plug it into or anywhere to put it), but we do have a CD player and if we want to watch DVDs we plug an external CD drive into a laptop and watch there. People have forgotten it's just as enjoyable watching a film on a relatively small screen as on a stupidly huge thing that takes up the whole of a wall and looks ridiculous. We don't even have a TV.
I'm more space than politically motivated, and this really hits the nail on the head.
I watched at the time, and it was unmistakable how bored Bezos was by Shatner, Bezos had the look of someone who was trapped in a dull conversation, and that he normally had people to keep this crap away from him.
Absolutely zero ***'s given about the emotional impact of what he was doing. And no manners either.
Just another bored tech bro, with the emotional development of a whelk.
"Emotional development of a whelk" is the best thing I've heard all day. Thank you for that laugh. Although, sadly, you are absolutely correct to describe the man in this way.
Insult to whelks. Suggest: "emotion quotient of Coronavirus".
As a lifelong Star Trek fan, that clip of Shatner with Bezos must rank as one of the saddest (and most profoundly upsetting) scenes I have ever seen.
Totally agree with your point on how we no longer have control over what we watch, see, read and enjoy. We gave away the majority of our DVD collection, thinking we no longer needed the physical objects to enjoy our favourite classic films. How wrong we were.
Most are unavailable to watch online.
So we spend our precious free time lurching from one spoon-fed series to another. The Sopranos, Sons of Anarchy, Succession, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Ozark, MadMen, Boardwalk Empire ... even Captain Kirk can't save us from ourselves.
Marvellous. The point about physical product Vs ann endless conveyor belt of online product shovelling it’s way into our psyches is very well made!
Ian, I think you just lifted the top of my head and stretched deep into my soul never mind my brain. A beautiful piece of writing that crisply captures the fundamental problem of modern times. I too get lost in Instagram and often have those same feelings of having been suckered by hard bodied women taunting my flabbiness and age. I don’t know how many more horrific car crashes or influencer fails I can handle. I recently downloaded all of my data from Instagram and then deleted it along with Facebook and Threads. I have a CD player and a DVD player and intend to become more in control. Keep writing this fantastic stuff. You are the best of UK writing and journalism at the moment.
Those hard bodied women live in torment to stay that way. Eating next to nothing lovely and working out all the time. Spending hours every day painting their faces to hide their souls. And one day they will wake up 55 (if they are lucky) and realise it was all crap and they still went to flab anyway. The difference is they are empty husks devoid of empathy and interest and no one is remotely interested in them either.
Given that most of my public writing is on consumer tech, I’ve done a lot of thinking about a chunk of what you write above. One of the recommendations I often make is for people to be more mindful and deliberate in their decisions surrounding technology. And if they have habits they consider bad, figure out ways to deal with them.
As you noted, friction is a good way. Remove an app from the Home Screen. Use a screen time system to give you a nudge if you’ve already spent hours scrolling. Install site blockers with cooldowns for places you really don’t want to visit. That might in itself sound like infantilising, but it’s not really. It’s about using the technology to help you manage the technology.
On endings and the finite nature of media, I agree. It’s why I gravitate towards printed books – that sense of the object and focus. And it’s probably why when I wrote about buying my first CD player in 20 years over on Stuff, the article to my surprise went bonkers. Absolutely bonkers. Weeks and weeks of emails and messages, every single one of which was either supportive of had made people think: actually, I want to do that. (This wasn’t expected. I was thinking a few people might sagely nod, or tell me off for not recommending ludicrously expensive cables.)
More broadly on tech, I hope at some point this will all be a lesson for Europe. It’s easy to forget that just the UK alone used to be pioneers in everything from home computing to gaming. But along the way, we lost our lead and then sold off all the silver. Seemingly every time we create something amazing, that too ends up being bought by someone else. With social media, now would surely be the time for European governments to look at decentralised solutions and put at least some effort into things like Mastodon. Instead, they are almost doing the reverse, with various test runs being ended, with the various bodies slinking back to the usual suspects.
While people give Musk and Zuckerberg and Bezos their attention, nothing will change. Not that I’m suggesting abandoning everything they do. But, to my initial point, you can be more mindful and deliberate. If you’re on X, why not try Bluesky or Mastodon? Shift your attention. If you use Facebook, can you forge links elsewhere? And while Amazon might be convenient, once you break the habit of shopping there by default, months later you might be wondering why you ever did. (Doubly so for certain things, like graphic novels, for which Amazon is arguably one of the worst options in the UK and US.)
Also, not sure if this will allow links, but I’m going to have a go. This was the CD piece on Stuff that people enjoyed: https://www.stuff.tv/features/why-im-buying-my-first-cd-player-in-years/
I hope you don’t mind me posting that, Ian, but do delete it if that’s agains the rules!
No of course but mate, it's amazing
That was a very enjoyable read. Thank you. And you are right. I miss whole albums. I can ask Alexa to play "the album XXX by YYY" of course but when I come to do that I only remember a fraction of things I like. In fact I'm usually blank! I loved looking through albums or CDs looking for what I wanted to listen too. Even tapes in the car were great.
I do have a CD player in the car. I had the car about 12 years before I realised this! But there's nowhere to keep CDs!
I'm enjoying BlueSky and hope to turn X off for good soon. Are you on BlueSky? Your Stuff piece just says X.
I loved my Kindle at first. And it still has it's place; holidays, train travel, hanging around waiting for something and reading in the bath (in a zip lock bag). But nothing beats the smell and feel of paper and ink. The heft and the cover art.
I don’t use a Kindle, but my wife does. I think it’s an interesting device in marrying convenience with being deliberate with tech. Because it’s very good at doing precisely one thing, the Kindle is a superior device for reading in a mindful manner than firing up a book on a phone or tablet. (Personally, I still love paper. I’m not sure all the bookcases in the house love my love of paper, however.)
On CDs, I still have a loaner review unit here, but I’ll buy a Ruark R3S when it goes home, and we’re planning to sort some proper CD shelves. This year, I even got a few CDs for Christmas. I’ll still use streaming in my office, but buy discs for permanence and for playing downstairs.
Social networks: argh. Yes. The Stuff thing is reportedly down to dev budget, but I have requested multiple times for the means to link out to other networks. I last posted on X in August 2023. I last posted in Bluesky… about two hours ago. I probably post there a but much, but if you’re on that network you can find me at https://bsky.app/profile/craiggrannell.bsky.social
My Kindle is strictly for use during multiday bushwalking trips, as real books are too heavy to be practical.
Feeling the same dusting off boxes of CDs deciding it’s time to buy a new CD player
And sit listen and read a book ( not kindle ) it’s empowering and relaxing
Next it’s time to find the DVDs
Do you have any recommendations for what to use instead of Amazon?
For books, Richard already mentioned Bookshop, but Hive is also good for high-street support. If you want to save some cash, ‘warehouse’ outlets like Books Etc and Speedyhen often beat Amazon on price, and don’t put cash in Bezos’ pocket. If you’re into graphic novels, Forbidden Planet has excellent stock, prices and packaging. Scifier is also good for graphic novels and fantasy/SF stuff. (I’m more… cautious on second-hand places like World of Books, given that I’ve had some stuff that looks like it’s been kicked around the room, despite being listed as ‘like new’. But refunds are usually instant when that happens.)
For everything else, I just shop around more now (still mostly – but not always – online). One thing I’ve noticed is that while Amazon does often price match, it’s for a long time now rarely been cheaper than other outlets for most things. But if you’ve anything specific in mind, let me know.
That was meant to be a reply to Craig
EBay for small stuff. World of Books (used) or bookshop.org (you nominate an independent bookshop who gets a cut) for books. Bandcamp for music. [And apologies for virtue signalling, I wrote a diatribe about hating it the first time I replied, but lost it to a careless swipe]
Bandcamp is a good shout. Directly sending money (well, after Bandcamp’s cut) to artists beats the pittance they get from streaming. And I’ve noticed more and more artists are selling CDs direct too.
🙏 🙏🙏 I will try them out
Musk has also (allegedly) read Iain M Banks Culture sci fi novels which are run through with enlightenment thinking. That's where the term "neuralink" comes fro.
It appears he did not understand the books.
Iain M Banks would be appalled by Musk
We should all be appalled by Musk.
Deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts earlier this week - feel completely liberated. Thanks for another great article Ian.
Same. Wish I could do the same with Messenger and WhatsApp, but though I have managed to persuade quite a few of my friends and family to sign up to Signal, the point of critical mass being reached is not there yet. But hopefully soon...
The image of those 'tech overlords' seated behind the Trumps and in front of elected members of the Senate is already iconic. And I think it is one that they will all come to regret. It is looks like a moment of triumph, but for who? I do not think the highest office, the tech bros and the politicians will be able to happily co-exist for long because each group thinks they have the greatest power. William Shatner's face in that clip will be all of us.
It all feels horribly dystopian but if we (and equally importantly, governments) take on board what you’re saying, Ian, there is still hope. Thank you for that.
What a fantastic and powerful piece. Really resonated with me, and, dare I say it, empowered me to take a bit of control back.
Secrets and Lies is worth getting a dvd player on its own
Oh but have you seen his first? Bleak Moments?! Jesus I could hardly bear it and now, decades later, it's the first thing I see in my mind when someone says "Mike Leigh".
I do know what you mean, for me the unflinching gaze is what I love about his work
I did the same with instragram, then 6 months ago deleted it entirely. Do not miss it, or feel the need to download it again. So many hours of my life just completely wasted.
I left it on my phone's home screen, but I found it wasn't interesting anymore, and I stopped posting any holiday photos to it last year. I think it's safe to say, I can delete it now, it is just a colorful square not doing anything.
I only downloaded it because the kids went off Facebook, or more on there. I rarely go on but fortunately my feed is very cute and therefore the nastiness doesn't really come near me.
I’m so glad I kept my massive DVD collection from uni. I feel like the streaming trap has been set now… the only option to watch stuff that used to be on Prime is to now cough up more money for sub-subscriptions or just pay Bezos £5 to watch a movie once.
Once you can get past potato quality, it’s quite lovely to pop a disk in my PS4 and say “fuck you” to our overlords.
For a lot of films, particularly weird Asian shit I used to watch, it’s the only way to see them
What you say about not being able to watch Leigh’s earlier films because they are not streamed is so true with audiobooks too. An example - Andrew Sachs read all the Narnia books on tapes and on CDs. Magnificently. Other actors were chosen to read the streamed versions. That’s it. Unless you had taped or CD versions you can’t hear him ever again narrate the Narnia books. And it happens all the time with streamed audio books.