I used to think this was a Willy Wonka quote. I had no idea he was quoting a poem by Arthur O’Shaughnessy.
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
Isn’t it wild to think that people didn’t know things like that before the Internet? Granted, I could’ve looked it up sooner than the other day, but still. We were just out there, learning things as they came to us and assuming things because we didn’t have pocket encyclopedias*.
This has been on my mind lately because John Green has been posting about the negative aspects of the social Internet for (let’s face it) years now. He’s taking a month off from Vlogbrothers in part because of the toxicity of the modern Internet, and I can’t blame him but also 😭
I am a Millennial. I grew up playing outside with friends, watching VHS tapes, and using a complicated Dewey Decimal System (with cards in organized drawers!) I clearly remember being 14 and liking a band and having to buy their CDs if I wanted to hear them. Okay, the bands were from the 60s so it’s not like I was listening to Millennial music, but still. If I wanted to listen to The Who’s discography, I had to buy that sh—
A moment ago, I just listened to a full Monkees album I’d never heard before because I didn’t own it. Am I nostalgic for a time when information wasn’t at my fingertips? NO! I just think it’s unfortunate and not necessary that we as a connected, better-informed society have gone from “I learned a thing! :D” to “everyone who disagrees with me is stupid and doesn’t deserve to go about their day without me telling them how badly I think of them.”
And now to awkwardly pivot a little. On Sunday, a literary agent tweeted this:
This is bad. This is really bad. I would hope that the majority of literary agents would not ever even think of doing something like this. Not only is it embarrassing for the writer she rejected, but it’s basically saying, ‘you gave me this idea, now I can take it and have someone else write it instead of working with you.’
It’s quite disheartening to see this behavior from a literary agent. They are supposed to be the ones writers can trust and turn to for support and advice. I don’t want to write off all agents because I know for a fact that most of them are wonderful, but it certainly doesn’t help their case in the growing traditional vs. indie publishing debates.
What do you think?
*Or maybe some of us did. Nerds.
