iPodland is Everywhere "i" Go

Two dramatic things occurred this week for me. I stopped listening, and simultaneously joined society. By that I mean I entered the world of iPod. The lack of emphasis on ‘i’ is interesting. It is as if Steve Jobs knew this invention would cause collectivization on a national scale. The name is interesting in this sense because of its connection to the German signifier; their word for “I” is ich; note the lower case ‘i’. The signified, the subject, me, is suddenly less important than the thing, or the uppercase “Pod.” Oddly enough, it’s the British economist Adam Smith who emphasizes the “product” over the “laborer,” or at least, "labor" over the "laborer" (see the first book of The Wealth of Nations). And Marx, the German economist, prioritizes the reverse.

The real trick here: Making people believe they are more of an individual by owning an iPod. You can personalize it. Choose your own color. Choose your own model. It is as if the music comes second. I especially gave into this (not really because it was a gift, but a gift that I love) with my own particular brand of irony because the back of my “Shuffle” has the inscription, and one of my personal favorite sayings: “I hate your iPod.” Yet I haven’t been able to leave the house without it.

So perhaps I have joined the rest of the group. But the reason I avoided the iPod in the first place has to do with the wall it creates between the listener and the world around her. To walk about with a song in your head, constantly, is to not walk around at all. You (un)become something that’s not really there. Like an apparition. The extra barrier separates the listener from the outside world, as if we weren’t disjointed enough. I have acquiesced, though, and here’s why. When I am at home, I can hear the crazy people of the world as if they were in my apartment with me. So I think it’s only fair that when I step outside into “their” world, I can effectively block them. This small inversion of inside and outside makes me calmer, which means I’m in the real world less—let’s be frank, iPodland is actually Imaginationland—and despite the fact this inversion betrays my usual customs, my resolution for 2009 is to be less real (who needs principles anyway?).

Can one be more detached? Seems paradoxical to me, and there lies the appeal: If I’m going to join the group, I will only commit myself if I am actually less apart of the group. By conforming to the role I should be playing, I have successfully tuned the rest of the population out. When students protested Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, I didn’t have to hear them. But when I look at their angry, hopeful, energized eyes I think, I’m supposed to be there with them. But I'm not. But I am.


But I'm not.