Just scanning the title of Janice Galloway’s Walrus article”Opera” makes me feel tiny because my only opera comes at me in 30 second snatches when I am listening to scan on the radio. But the Toronto Star’s Stephen Marche’s article on celebrity operatics got me thinking. He compares Britney Spears to Lucia di Lammermoor. He describes how Amy Winehouse is similar to Puccini. Neat. The problem: opera is not a meaningful point of comparison to me.

Instead of opera, my parents were blasting Little Feat and The Who in tinny Radio Shack speakers above the chicken coops. At school we sang about Tom Dooley and how We’re All His Children. I never heard opera until I saw Pretty Woman. Like me, Julia Roberts as the Cinderella prostitute had never seen opera. Verdi’s La traviata made her cry. But I wasn’t planning to play sensitive whore for a middle-aged john. So ended my opera introduction.

I want to ask Stephen Marche what kind of opera would Web 2.0 be. I can’t guess because the only thing I’ve learned about it since Julia Roberts’ outstanding portrayal is that Edward Said likes to use opera terminology in is oh-so-self-reflexive cosmopolitan critical theories.

What I do know is fashion. So, I can tell you that Web 2.0 is eerily familiar to the fashion world. Early adopters battle the ugly hoards who drag down the prestige and edginess of a trend. Just look at Facebook.

If Facebook were a designer it would be Donatella Versace. Both have an admirable history. But for fall 2008 Donatella is shoring herself up with Artecoll and toning down tacky leopard print and glitter in her designs. Similarly, Facebook is dialing down their beacons and invasions of privacy and teasing with IM for Summer 2008.

Both Versace and Facebook are making profits because all those tertiary adopters with naive style fill coffers by showing up and buying sunglasses and one dollar pixel roses.

Now, if Twitter were a designer it would definitely be Chloe Sevigny for Opening Ceremony. Snapped up by early adopters (Chloe’s line is sold out in most stores and Twitter has close to one million users) but mocked by those who don’t know what to do with 140 characters or high waisted floral pants.

All this fashion desperation and twittering is about social status and belonging. Just like opera. Pleasure and opinion get naturalized. It is extremely hard to argue that popular music is as culturally valuable as opera in our class society. But value is a political evaluation. It is about status, not truth. Just as hard to argue that Facebook is cool.

Barry Schuler, managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, said during a panel discussion this week:

“If I see another business plan for a social network, I might blow my brains out”

Poor Barry. I never tire of social network developments. But dropped into the Pretty Woman scenario I’d pop on my walkman and watch the lovely costumes to while away the tedious constrictive hours. I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t kill myself. I really wonder if Barry enjoys the opera?

Tags: Twitter

More in Web 2.0 Museum | Blogs Home | Current Issue | SUBSCRIBE »

Posted on Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 2:20 pm. Follow comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comment or trackback.