Music
The loss of Stillepost disconnects Toronto's music scene
Back in early November when it was announced that Stillepost, the Canada-wide music-community message board, would close its virtual doors via a locked thread in the "General" category of their forums, it came as quite the surprise to its 11,784 registered users, including myself. True to its word, the site officially shut down on December 31, 2010.
Stillepost was a meeting ground for people to discuss upcoming events and all things music. It played a pivotal role in connecting musicians and, some would argue, helped launch several careers, as well as connecting all its users in a bizarre online world that helped develop many real life friendships and even a few marriages. It truly was a place for people in their respective music scenes, mainly Toronto and Montreal, to meet, debate, and share - the epitome of an online community. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that it's role in the Toronto indie scene is rivaled only by Wavelength, the long-running concert series.
Mind you, that community was far from perfect and there are many reasons why it met its demise, the most obvious being financial support, as Stillepost was run by volunteers and relied strictly on user donations to cover web-hosting fees. A decline in usage no doubt played in to that with October 2010, the month leading into the announcement of the board's closure, witnessing the least activity in the forums existence.
One must wonder how much social media took away from the site's hits, with more and more promoters and bands relying on Facebook to promote their events, as well as every day users spending time on the one-stop friend hub, deflating people's interest in exploration and real life connectivity with their music scene. In a recent interview with EYE WEEKLY, Owen Pallett, a Stilleposter himself, said, "Facebook doesn't allow for any kind of expansionism, it's almost as if you're closing yourself off to the world, in terms of what gigs you're going to be [planning and attending]. That was what was so valuable about Stillepost in its heyday; it was not about reading hilarious Matt Collins posts, rather, it was about going on and checking the show listings and seeing what's going on tonight."
I couldn't agree more.
A few replacements have risen from the ashes: Culture Coma, for starters, is where the Stillepost.ca address now forwards you to and was started by two former members from Montreal, "Mr. Bishop" and "Harmoun," who are looking to build a similar community based around artists and show listings. Toronto users might look towards n3rdal3rt, which was started by former members based in the city. There's also the exclusive, invite only YouLookDeath.ly, as well as The Tickle Closet, a straight-forward design based on the original boards layout. So, there are options. Will any of them succeed? Time will tell.
You see, Stillepost represented an interesting shift, a middle ground for music fans that wanted to enhance their scene by interacting on a day-to-day basis, and for Toronto, that meant finding out about new bands, the hottest gigs, and the best venues; real life destinations that supported our city and the creative people within it. Stillepost utilized the internet and helped bring people together in real life, promoting artistic credibility with indie morals, allowing people to really feel apart of something special. It was a place for information, conversation, inside jokes and connectivity, which is something that, sadly, Toronto's music scene seems to be pushing further and further away from.
Toronto continues to produce top-tier talent, something we, as music fans, should embrace with open arms and be excited to discuss and share. And Stillepost's closing won't change much about the music itself in Toronto, but there is certainly a void left regarding how fans interact with one another and finding that commonality that makes the appreciation of music so rewarding. That shouldn't be taken lightly; it's the very foundation upon which a thriving music scene is built.
Photo by --brian cameron-- in the blogTO Flickr pool.
Discussion
17 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
How they willingly and unsuccessfully, tried moderate a small gang of e-tards for this long and for free, is beyond me.
Still, even at it's worse, it was still a meeting place for many of us. Losing it (and letting decay like we did) follows a trend of thoughtless status "Likes" and typing away on a cellphone while at a show, it's a disconnect from the music.
What exactly did Stillepost offer that the other, similar forums you mentioned do not?
Sure, I'll miss the "I heard a bang at Queen and Crawford" or the "Someone stole my bike." threads. At the same time, Stillepost all-inclusive format was it's downfall, rendering a once viable local music board unreadable. I get the social media disconnect, and ultimately you are right, it is about money. Not so much to cover the hosting bills, but also to pay moderators to keep the inane at bay.
Also someone really needs to proofread these things before they're published.
friendlybearonskates.com is on the cups of becoming canada's premiere indy website.
In its heyday, Stillepost (the Montreal board at least) was akin to a 24-hour after-party. It served as an online bridge between the previous night's events and the next's. The group of active posters was large, but consisted of mostly real people, with real vested interests in the arts community. There was accountability there. You couldn't just come on and attack someone with an unprovoked, poorly-written, vitriolic diatribe. You'd be held accountable. These were real people.
People would go out one night, chat about the evening's proceedings on stillepost to kill the drudgery of the workday, and plan for the next night. I met a lot of folks that way, some of whom I collaborated with, some of whom I became tight friends with (and remain so to this day). Stillepost lived in-between parties, and helped keep those fires burning. Granted, at this same time, Montreal was arguably at the apex of its anglo-music explosion, which seriously contributed to that exciting feeling that "something" was happening. That all the countless cool things to do added up to something greater than the sum of their parts, and Stillepost functioned as a hub and record for all that.
It was a party. But it was a public party. A party in a panopticon, and there was something of an unfortunate distinction between those people who were in the party, and those lined up waiting outside (lurkers).
Many of them braved the sometimes daunting introductions and came in, and for a while, the party only got bigger & better.
But then, the gatecrashers showed up. The embittered insecure frat boys who had pent up resentment for all those folks at the party, hating them for their perceived elitism. They were riding a wave of simplistic anti-hipsterism, equating any comment remotely nuanced or sincere with "gay-ass hipster bullshit". The use of homophobic pejoratives suddenly ran rampant on the board, which contributed to the first exodus. In retrospect, those gatecrashers don't seem all that different from the Glenn Beck's and Bill O'Reilly's of the world: mean, dumb and full of cum.
Anyhow, like any gatecrashers, they showed up and creeped out half the girls and picked fights with anyone they could and trashed the place and generally shit on the whole party. Except they wouldn't leave. They shit on the party but couldn't find anything better for themselves to do. So they stuck, and the vibe changed, and one by one, the guests started to leave.
The last hangers on stuck to the very end, hoping there would be an after-after party, a third wind... But there wasn't. And eventually, the sun came up and the hosts closed their doors.
I'm sure this sappy eulogy will get me lambasted as some "gay-ass hipster douchebag" but alas, no skin. And, in all fairness, that really exciting moment in Montreal had faded kinda' concomitantly. All the kids got MAs, or MFAs, or jobs, or their bands got big. Or, some of us moved to Toronto.
Anyhow, that's my two cents.
-RLS