So if you’re cool and have sex often, you’re probably wondering what the fuck Turntable.fm is. It’s an internet thingie where you enter a virtual dance floor as a virtual douchebag and have the option to virtually DJ for other virtual attendees, or just virtually hang out and listen to the other virtual DJs. If virtual attendees don’t enjoy your virtual DJing, their virtual douchebags will stand still and you will be voted off your virtual turntable, virtually.
Personal anecdote: I signed on once a while back, hopped on a turntable, and started spinning Merzbow for the kids; everybody gave me a bad rating, and my song was skipped to let some asshat have his turn playing Foster the People or some horseshit like that. Fat Worm of Error and Anal Cunt also got vetoed. Finally I wrote an email to Turntable.fm suggesting that they just take down the site because people are stupid and have bad taste. It took them a while to come around, but they have now responded by announcing that they will be shutting down permanently.
“We thought bad music was being played in stores and on radios because of the major label machine,” Team Turntable should have announced, “but it turned out only a small percentage of the online population has the aptitude and innate intelligence to come up with a playlist that doesn’t include mainstream shopping mall hip-hop.”
December 2 will be the official last day online for Turntable.fm, and they’ll be having an all-day farewell party. Virtually, I mean, because nerds don’t throw real parties. And while I’m certain that it was the users’ terrible taste that ruined the site, the founders have also noted that royalty expenses are too high to keep the site going. In other words, turntable.fm is following a steady trend of no longer being willing to pay artists for their music. They instead want to focus on Turntable Live, “an interactive way to hold concerts online,” so that you can make the music on the site at no expense to them. Watch this painful video about it if you hate yourself and want to see a white folk singer try to rap Salt ‘N’ Pepa.
• Turntable.fm: https://turntable.fm
