Thou shalt not troll
Social media can be a really unpleasant environment for anyone who isn鈥檛 a bot, a troll or a GIF of a piano-playing cat. That鈥檚 why Feedback welcomes any influencer who steps up and asks for their followers to adopt a kinder, gentler attitude towards their fellow users.
Take one Italian Twitter user 鈥� @Pontifex is his handle 鈥� who goes by the unusual real-life name of Pope Francis.
He has been flying the flag recently for good behaviour online, for which we applaud him.
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In a recent Ash Wednesday address, for example, (sort of like a long, in-person TikTok routine) he urged the world鈥檚 Catholics to give up social media trolling for Lent.
鈥淲e live in an atmosphere polluted by too much verbal violence, too many offensive and harmful words, which are amplified by the internet,鈥� he said, according to Reuters.
The period leading up to Easter, is therefore a time to give up 鈥渦seless words鈥�, 鈥済ossip鈥�, 鈥渞umours鈥�, and 鈥渢ittle-tattle鈥�, said Francis.
This is sound advice that Feedback may also try to follow for Lent. Although we suspect we may quickly run out of things to write. Come on, surely a little bit of tittle-tattle is OK?
No bad apples
If you want to pass for a good guy from a movie or TV show, then buy yourself an Apple product. Be it an iMac, AirPods or Apple Watch, the corporate giant鈥檚 gizmos aren鈥檛 just high-end technological tools, but proof positive that, if you were a character in a cinematic work of fiction, you would be on the side of the angels.
This advice comes courtesy of Rian Johnson, director of the hit film Knives Out, who revealed in a recent interview with Vanity Fair that Apple is very particular about product placement. In essence, he said, 鈥渂ad guys cannot have iPhones on camera鈥�.
Apart from making the identity of murderers in detective movies ridiculously easy to guess (鈥渟wab that Samsung S8 for bloodstains鈥�, 鈥済et a search warrant for the guy using the Huawei鈥�), the news represents a sad lack of imagination on the part of big brands.
After all, real-life villains buy phones too, don鈥檛 they? For one of the world鈥檚 biggest technology brands to turn its back on such a large and possibly affluent constituency seems like a profound strategic error. Bad eggs of the world: Feedback warmly welcomes your subscription dollars.
Bloody cancer
As Feedback recalls from bitter personal experience, working in public relations can be something of a mixed bag. Sure, you get the occasional freebie and glamorous drinks reception, but you also have to send emails to irritable journalists just waiting to make a fool of you at the drop of a hat.
On which note, we would like to thank a colleague for forwarding us the following email sent out by an anonymous representative from the PR industry: 鈥淚 was wondering if you would be interested in covering the below announcement from my client, bloody cancer charity Anthony Nolan.鈥�
We all occasionally get frustrated at our employers, anonymous representative, but we really do hope they are treating you properly. Plus, look on the bright side 鈥� think of this valuable free publicity you have just secured for them!
All the tunes
Passing off other people鈥檚 work as your own is a dirty business. That is why we invented the word plagiarism to describe it. But sometimes, reproduction can be unintentional.
Think of the world of music, where a half-remembered melody by one artist often forms the inspiration for a work by someone else. Deliberate theft, or accidental homage? Occasional rest note or a rip-off of John Cage鈥檚 Zen-like silent audio spectacular 4鈥�33鈥�?
As more and more music is produced by more and more people, it strikes Feedback as mathematically inevitable that certain combinations of notes will come up again and again. Even if not all of them are instantly hummable, whistleable or 鈥� Feedback鈥檚 personal favourite 鈥� kazooable.
Most of the time, of course, nobody notices or indeed cares. But if the producer of tune A is a well-known creator of music with substantial record sales and an attentive legal team, and producer of tune B is a relative newcomer with a strangely familiar hit, then things can get unpleasant fast.
It was in an attempt to minimise such nastiness that Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin got involved. This week, the two released into the public domain an algorithmically generated dataset of every possible melody. Or, at least, the 68 billion or so melodies consisting of 8 notes in a particular octave starting from middle C and lasting for 12 beats. So, not every possible melody at all, really. But we digress.
The purpose of this act of generosity was to try to set a legal precedent. If all melodies are in the public domain, then none can be copyrighted, and if none can be copyrighted, then musicians should feel free to compose their oeuvre without fear of litigation. It is an interesting idea, but one that鈥檚 unlikely to stand up in court.
Still, Feedback foresees ample scope for a similar wheeze in print. Bung together the 26 letters in all possible 860-word combinations and we won鈥檛 have to work for a year. Brilliant.
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