th3raid0r

Well, in the cases that I saw documented it happened in one of two ways.

1. Spotify assumes a record label submits good faith information. Many of these impersonation attempts come from "brand new" lables like "Gupta Music" and such. Since they are in the system as a label, it's more permissive and Spotify generally assumes that it's not their place to ask why a Band using one label is suddenly using another. These are the worst offenders and actually impersonate real artists.

2. Another approach that's been reported is to not actually impersonate the artist, but to confuse the user that this is the artist visually. Take for example, The Weeknd - AI artists might upload a band named "Weeknd" or "The Weekend" or some other similar permutation - banking on genre similarity to get the algorithm to present you the song and hoping that you don't notice the misspelling. These are still bad, but a bit less so since I can usually find the real band page for the "right" info.

As for new artists that get recommended, a quick search should be able to make it clear if an artist is a real person / group no? With tour dates or pictures and stuff?

I echo xuxxun's feedback here, the newest bands often lack any sort of presence - especially with their first single or EP. A notable one back when they first released was Apocalypse Orchestra - basically ZERO info on the artist except for a newly created facebook page with no images or anything. Obviously that changed in just a few short months. It's definitely not a method that would reliably sort AI from Human - but I do agree that it's more likely to catch the AI stuff.

I read a bit of it. And while I understand the desire to get away from folks on the internet being harassing. That is the problem of the internet right now. I'd be remiss to say that if I had a thin skin, Tucson.social would be a lot harder to run. I'm not excusing the meanness of the internet when I say this, after all, it's one of tucson.social's goal to deal with that. It's just a pragmatic fact.

There's also the fact that the Creator has no desire to hand this off. I understand that is work. And that I am not entitled to their work. However, it seems to perform a defeatist narrative. Which just doesn't feel constructive.

I'm in no way trying to be mean.

It's just that this Creator is coming across as "taking his/her/their ball and leaving." It kind of makes it harder for the community to pick up where they left off. No platform, no code base. And I think it's fair to criticize that. It comes across as "returning the meanness they received and redirecting it at people with good intentions".

I'm the type of person who is well resourced enough to pick this up and continue. Had I known about this project earlier, I might have been pitching in this entire time. But reading these posts now make me feel pretty unwelcome at least in that capacity.

I too am optimistic about community picking up where they left off. It's just that it's a lot harder to do when there's not even ashes to rebuild from.

I'm sure the Creator is a good person. And I have no ill will against them. But I am a little bit upset that what they built will be lost in entirety.

I think, going forward, open source will be a requirement for any sort of platform like this for me. I just don't want to be forced to lose something good because the Creator has made that decision for me.

But to your point, I probably shouldn't have called them an ass.

As an aside, I think you shouldn't be recommending this site. If it's going to shut down, then what is the point of learning about this? There certainly isn't any ability to swoop in and try to keep it going. I hope the existing user base enjoys the sunset celebration! But as a new user it just doesn't make sense.

Looks like this is about to go away. 😢

EDIT: Looking at the persons thread as to why they are shutting down is... odd? Like, okay dude, you aint handing this over to anyone and nuking it - being an ass about it doesn't help. And I say that not as a random internet denizen, but someone who supports multiple websites including tucson.social. I know there will be a day to dim the lights or pass the torch, but I'd never play up being the victim quite like this creator has.

Bandcamp, Qobuz, 7digital

Yup, I do that where possible now. Usually only for albums though.

I also buy a lot of band merch these days and try to go when they play locally.

I only take to the high seas in the event I can't find a particular hifi release or something equally niche and eBay is no help.

CD's have a nostalgia appeal to it for me, and since I'm finally financially stable I've been wanting to get back into collecting physical media. It's just hard because not many new bands bother with physical media at all anymore. At least outside of limited run releases.

As an aside, I don't get the resurgence of tape players at all! Tape being lower fidelity coupled with the shorter lifespan was something I thought people disliked.

UPDATE:

RYM is awesome. Thank you!

feeds on Bandcamp.

I have a Bandcamp account, but weren't they acquired and sorta lost their souls as well? I'll go check it out again and see what's there!

I wondered the same thing actually.

After some googling I saw two trends emerge so far that impacted me.

1. A general proliferation of lower-effort Electronic music (particularly Lo-Fi and *wave genres) that are harder to distinguish from their human-made counterparts.
2. A wave of metalcore impersonation with AI just a couple weeks ago.

The metalcore one hit me hard as I just got into the genre and don't yet have enough familiarity to find the generated stuff uncanny.

Basically that's why it's music discovery that's impacted - not listening to already established bands.

As an example of this, one of my favorite bands is VAST (Jon Crosby) but he's pretty inactive and doesn't report songs that have been mistakenly added to his artist profile. I know this artist so well that I can tell within seconds if it's actually him or not. So this AI problem is much more manageable for bands I already know and love.

Discovering new music however, has become a terrible experience full of disappointment and confusion.

Praise the code! 🤘

Even the indie cinemas have this problem now. I went to see Oppenheimer at The loft Cinema in Tucson, Arizona and the projection was just awful. The frame wobbled, The focus seemed off, and the screen was filthy. I instantly regretted attempting to view the 70 mm version. It looks so much better on my 4K TV at home.

I had a unique upbringing. My father was an illiterate dyslexic (and maybe autistic himself) and he is fuckin weird - to put bluntly. That side of my family never really understood neurodivergence per-se, but they understood that everyone's a little weird - but we embraced that we're VERY weird. Hanging out with my dad's extended family is a lot of flailing, weird humor, and zany shenanigans and they embraced every moment.

My mother by contrast was more "abled" but she relished the "weirdness" that my father had in spades. Her own family had a bit of a zany streak as well - with my maternal Grandfather very obviously being undiagnosed autistic and having his own brand of severely understated and jump-scare humor.

Masking was entirely unnecessary in my family - and I can recognize the state pretty easily. It's more mentally relaxed, less hypervigilant, and generally more comfortable.

It was great not having to mask in my childhood - until I went to school and it suddenly wasn't a good thing.

Learning my masks was an absolutely agonizing process because "being myself" wasn't acceptable "out there". I felt so out of place compared to my peers. I was also bullied relentlessly to the point of PTSD. My masks eventually became automatic through the tumultuous times. It wasn't until my diagnosis in my early 30's that I even began to understand what it all was, and start deconstructing the masks.

Unmasking was as easy as accessing a "younger" me and simply not caring about the social results. (to a point)

For my echolalia, I don't hold back my vocal stimming anymore. I used to feel embarrassed and self conscious around it. Now I embrace it and have fun with it. Will you get movie trailer voice me or death metal voice me? Who knows!? Will I throw a random phrase using an English accent into an otherwise monotone statement, yoooouuu bet!

For my special interests, I LET my excitement bubble over. Sure, I might need to regain my composure from time to time, but hiding my excitement about these things nearly destroyed me. I try not to be hyper-focused though so as to allow natural conversational flow, but I also don't overly police myself anymore.

There's a few other things, but it's hard to reflect on them all.

Ultimately I'm unsure how helpful my experience is to others - it's a bit unique having a deep family culture of being really weird. I think that really helps me put my guard down and unmask. If I didn't have these memories, finding my unmasked state would be a LOT harder.

Even on Windows, Proton drive is hot garbage. It never syncs my files correctly. Has a tendency to leave half encrypted uploads just lying around. Eating up desk space.

Don't even get me started on how long it takes to upload anything. Got a 1 GB file? Good luck!

And that's before getting into the fact that it's proton's third product. It was announced in 2019. 5 years and they still don't have proton drive as a working product.

Another gripe I have is that the Linux VPN client still doesn't support wireguard. Sure, you can download wireguard configuration files. And they work just fine. But changing servers is a pain in the ass because of it.

It's made me seriously consider dropping my visionary plan and moving to a more competent provider.

That being said, proton mail has been fantastic. And I have a ton of domains on it. So it would be a pain to move. I guess I'm just in a stalemate.

Oh yes, totally understood. I've seen families destroyed from sports gambling and other, less boisterous forms of it.

If I like anything, it's scratchers and it's because they're soooooo satisfying to "play". But it's only something I indulge in occasionally.

Anyways, I tried to get into MMO's back in the early days with all my friends. I tired of it fairly quickly. I guess the novelty seeking part of my brain overwhelmingly rejects typical "gambling" mechanics. Loot boxes don't do anything for me and never have.

More recently I've grown completely frustrated with franchises like Forza Horizon and their little slot machine / skinner box mechanic. I love racing games, but it made me stop playing.

I can be addicted to things, but it just isn't gambling for me somehow.

I do resent MMO's for destroying so many of my friend's lives though. Weird to lose people to that ecosystem, it's the video game equivalent to losing someone to an MLM.

Also fuuuuuck, MLMs, almost did the "vector marketing" (cutco cutlery) and "rainbow vacuum" thing - the only thing that saved me was that Youtube had existed for like 5 years by then and there was enough people out there with their stories.

I never understood this one. I have ADHD and autism and I find gambling boring as hell. With maybe the exception of blackjack. Where my autistic brain tries to count cards.

I remember the day I turned 21. I decided to try out a casino. I spent $50 there and promptly left. Maybe I just lucked out and they didn't hook me with an easy win early on?

I'd much rather spend $50 on a video game that I can entertain myself with for hours.