The Widetrack Chronicles 61: The Chosen
October... Halloween season... our favorite!
And with it comes our new 2019 monthly song...
The Chosen
Throughout the making of this album, we've been telling a tale of an ordinary everyday average guy who, upon getting on social media, soon discovers that he is quite adept at building his online presence...
But the thing is, this online presence is quite aggressive and angry... So much so, that his lifelong friends are taken aback at how extreme and negative they find this digital persona to be...
But the empowerment he feels from gaining so much popularity in such a short period of time is too much to resist, and so he decides to shut out his friends' voices of dissension...
And over the course of a remarkably short period of time, he becomes a wildly popular and successful modern-day "thought-leader" to an ever-growing, diehard, online following...
Eventually, as his numbers virally grow into a massive semi-mainstream audience, he begins developing an online TV show of sorts, where his most loyal supporters/volunteers (AKA 'Drones') engage in a highly aggressive campaign of "crime exposure" and voted-upon public shaming, and subsequent "social exile", of fellow citizens (for more on this, see our blog on the song, Voyeurs)...
While writing this song, we were thinking a lot about how one of the strongest, most basic human drives is the need to feel unique... and each of us is, which is a good thing...
But figures like the person these songs depict are exceptional at using this to their advantage:
“You are special; that’s why you were selected to be here... Only a Chosen Few may join us”...
The danger is when people believe that their way is the way, and that they have divine support for this belief...
Cults, tribes, movements, etc., are full of people who are driven by such "ideals of grandeur" - that their particular way of perceiving the world is the only correct way, and that the soul of humanity is lost, should they choose another...
To varying degrees, we are all drawn to role models... But far too often, many of us surrender our autonomy to the feelings of belonging and validation that tribes/cults/movements/political parties/etc. bring...
This song is written from the perspective of such "thought-leader" figures, and the common tactics he/she uses to draw in his/her followers...
And, in addition to playing on people's need to feel special and unique, they play on people's sense of social responsibility... "Few are called to this mission... It's your honor and duty to accept it...", etc...
From the outside, such blind allegiance may seem crazy... But it's unfortunately far more common and difficult to resist than people realize, given our culture of toxic, click-bait marketing, consumerism and extreme tribalism...
It raises the questions of how sustainable all this is, and, ultimately where it all most likely leads...
Your thoughts?
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Ron@Widetrackmusic.com
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