dessalles

Been messing around with a little web app and I think I’ve finally got it to a point where it’s worth sharing. The code is an absolute mess, featureless bugs infest every function, playback is super temperamental (just hit refresh) and you can’t pause (yet). But it works:

Watch My 45

It’s nothing fancy or particularly useful. In short, you watch (and listen) records uploaded to YouTube by some amazing reggae collectors: firebladerr1, oldwah and mrrk. I first came across this community last summer and what struck me about them was how successfully they’ve been able to digitize the experience of being a record collector. By recording their collections as video, instead of audio, some amount of ownership over the music they’ve collected is maintained. When you watch one of their 45s, you’re very much aware that you’re watching a specific record owned by a specific person. And in so far as that’s the case, I hope some sense of fulfillment as collectors is preserved. Because as much as we talk about property and ownership in information economies and the such, we continually forget to address the emotional aspects of those things. continue reading »