Smint offers me a free peppermint. Smint brings ‘unique coolness and intense sensation.’ Smint hides the smell. Smint camouflages what’s happening in the stomach. The odor of this aggressive Smint sponsoring fucks me up. It makes me mad because at the same time, in the heart of this town, students fighting for a better future were being beat up and shot by the police.

We’re in Barca, at this indie-Disneyworld called Primavera festival. I’m totally numb. By ecstatic bliss. By anger. By disbelief. By this belief. Why do I feel this and what do I feel? It’s hard to explain.

Someone asks me if I blame the audience, the artists, or the organizers. Or should I blame myself for letting it happen? It would be too simple to blame someone. It’s a process happening all the time. Transforming counter-culture into over-the-counter-culture. Taking a subculture from you, take the engagement out of it, and sell it back to you. Ten times the original value.

There’s the total bliss after the Pulp comeback, one of the best concerts I’ve seen in my whole life. The cynical lyricism and the charisma of their front man Jarvis Cocker were the soundtrack from my student’s days. Now Primavera offered them shitloads of money to re-unite. And it’s worth every penny of it. 30.000 people standing in the field. Jumping. Singing. I’ve never felt so, uh, individual, before. I’m singing every word and every note re-activates our private history. I’ve never felt to be part of a collective before.

Jarvis Cocker is the first person that dedicates a song to the students: ‘As an outsider it’s difficult to judge situations in other countries. But shooting at people is wrong.’

After the concert confusion is kicking in again. It’s great to see so many people watching Battles delivering an intense performance. But a big banner on the stage is insulting me.

‘Ray Ban: Can’t Hide’. Fuck of. Those students could not hide. Most of the visitors are using the Ray Bans not to hide for the sun, but to hide their drug popping eyes for the outside world. Everyone is constantly looking at the screen. But the revolution will not be televised or socialized today. There is there. And here is here. This gated community. The disconnection from the outside world. In psychology it’s called the bystander effect. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that any one of them will help. This happens because as the number of bystanders increases, any given bystander is less likely to notice the incident, less likely to interpret the incident as a problem, and less likely to assume responsibility for taking action.

Why am I here? A lot of my favorite artists are playing and it’s an exciting place to be and for me it’s the only place to be. I’m a part of it cause it’s my history and a future that’s exciting. A new market has been created for kids like me. And we built it ourselves. Internet is the connection and cheap flights are connecting us in real life.

Pitchfork, the weblog from the windy city, is putting the win back into indie. It’s creating a global scene of branded festivals and branded blogs, promoting niche bands like The Books, niche genres like noise-pop and rewriting cultural history with re-appreciating band like Neutral Milk Hotel.

On one hand there’s the overpaid indie comeback nostalgia with bands like Pulp. On the other hand there are hype bands like Odd Future, booming like new media firms. Expensive like new media firms. And also with no business models and no return on investment. Just like new media firms. A band like Moon Duo gets more audience during this gig then during the whole European tour. Their festival fee makes it possible to do this whole European tour. Which is great, cause Primavera is important for the living of artists. And for their fans.

In the old days you had to produce standardized products or services and sell it with standardized marketing. Now you have to produce niche products or services and market it in the nices.

We’ve created our own niches. Just like big companies like eBay and Amazon.com knew how to monetize those niches, the monetizing of our scene also just started. Not search and destroy like Iggy did. Just search is the new keyword. Search the web for unique content. And share it with your friends. Accelerate it.

It reminds me of Lonely Planet where everyone shares the same authentic spot. Collectively we’re feeling so individual.

We were kids that were living in provincial towns, not able to be part of the action back then. We were the only indie kids in town and we all want to pay to collectively relive our individual history right now. Our history is expensive but we can afford it now. And of course the former stars want to cash in their underground credibility. Good for us and good for them.

Is indie becoming a fixed style, like punk did and like alternative did? What would be the ethics and aesthetics of the new indie, then? Where’s the new Seattle and who’s the new Malcolm McLaren. Or is it more a scene based on network dynamics, where people and places are not that important any more? Where the speed and connectedness of the network only matter.

Rock Around The Clock and the youth culture revolutions of last century started on the big screen. Commodified pop culture like Prince, Michael Jackson and Madonna went stadium size with the TV screen of MTV. Now a new screenager revolution is happening. On the screens of our generation. On the screens where this piece is written on.

It’s got nothing to do with great balls of fire. We carry our smartphones close to our balls. It’s got noting to do with commodified black music for the white market. iPods are white and Blackberries are black.

Last century the perception of cutting edge culture took the ride from Adorno to Bourdieu to Florida. First there was the distinctiveness. Then there was distinction. Now culture is only a utility for marketeers and for city developers. We’re making the difference for gentrification, which is good for real estate development. We are a utility for brand developers. They don’t prescribe from within but describe from without. Not with theory but with statistics.

But take a look at how we look. Everyone looks so… Normal. Just like at a regular day at the office. Look at what we want. We only want something so normal. Like going to a festival that does not sell more tickets then the venue like Primavera does.

We are not a generation of bands but a targetted audience for brands. There are no ubiquitous trends, like black is the new black, like the holy, holy Nike Air Jordan, like Vision Street Wear, like in the old days when you were craving for the new Dr. Dre album or Transmat 12”. The only like is the Facebook like button. There are no album releases any more, only album leaks. I’m not pessimistic. I’m loving the way we can truly establish a new voice. Like our teachers told us: revolution is in the air.

Dictators needed mass media. Libertarians use social media. We can become our own media, and the new media isn’t Murdoch that fucked up Myspace. Our Mark Zuckerbergs come from within. So fuck of with your Adidas branding and Jagermeister branding and Vice hipster hysteria for festivals. Maybe we must choose more for ourselves. No major labels.

Our focus is not on the external world of scenes and movements. On being a mod or a punk or a hippie. Not the scene and the looks are the focal point of future youth movements. Our behavior, our IRL cookies, are worth shitloads of money. It’s not the dynamic look any more, but the vision on our dynamics. Not behaving towards our customers, but customer behavior itself.

If you like it or not: you are trending topics. Powered by web statistics marketing moguls that saw something fuzzy is buzzing in the blogosphere. The stuff selling youth is digging it. The stuff digging youth is selling it. So u gotta be there to, put it in oldspeak, be, uh, square.

Hipster Pitchforkbands like Animal Collective, Odd Future and Girl Talk are the place where u gotta be if you wanna stay in touch. Not staying in touch in a telegram or newspaper or phonecall way. More in a Twitter or Facebook way. So the brands are here at the Primavera Sound San Miguel Ray Ban Adidas Jack Daniels Smint Jagermeister Coca Cola ATP Rockdelux Pitchfork Vice festival. Bringing bands in branded content. You would almost forget that bands and audiences built this scene. The sponsors are taking over, claiming it for themselves.

At first hand sight Primavera looks like a analog blogosphere. Statistics driven full of Pitchfork pretenders. You can only get drink tickets with a civilized barcode quick id card. So the beer sponsor can get your offline statistics. When do you buy a beer, and how much do you spend. Maybe they use it. Maybe they sell it. Who knows.

Brands are queuing for us. And we cue for the toilet, cause they actually don’t give any shit about us. If you can take care for your sponsors, maybe you can also take care about our shit and put enough toilet paper in the toilets.

Pulp are one of the most anticipated acts of the festival. I’ve missed them in a small venue in Amsterdam in 1995 cause my parents didn’t let me. Now it’s their reunion. Jarvis Cocker was one of the last true voices in pop music. Cynical. Witty. Chroniquer in a Ray Davies kind of way.

He also sang ‘Jesus told me to beware of 33. It was not a easy year for me.’ Am I too cynical? Is this the age where you lose touch with youth culture? Or is youth culture something for the oldies singing about times that are a-changing?

Maybe traditional youth culture does not exist any more. Maybe cutting edge culture, the old avant-garde, does not exist any more. Maybe everything turned pop. Making niches so expensive in a cheap way.

I believe in the power of the market, always reinventing itself. I also firmly believe in the power of youth culture, always reinventing itself. Maybe Primavera is a tipping point. It’s embodying a global festival disconnected from the local scenes. Like every blog is blogging the same there is no real identity. It’s only selling, not connecting. This festival could be everywhere. I’m missing engagement with local artists and local issues. Outside a revolution is happening. Let’s join!