Hypertrail. Herlander Elias

an extension, a bridge we cross. Once, Gibson said, “The Walkman changed the way we understand cities” (2012, 13). So did the smartphone, the networks, and the social media, too. Yet, music is relevant because it matches the flows of this liquid society. Music became the soundtrack of our consumeristic lives the same way people want to live the dream. Moreover, music is everywhere. “This inevitable shift toward fluidity is now transforming almost every other aspect of society” (Kelly, 2016, LOC 973-5810). We cannot imagine how music, pop music mostly, is shaping society and helping this hypersociality to emerge with saturation. Whenever we put our headphones and we get to be isolated in our desks, we resemble pilots in their fighter jet cockpits (Turkle, 2015, 249). Little by little, we become isolated, but once we tune into our apps, we promote hypersociality. Brands are the doors we open, worlds we connect to as they favor the identities we shop for. In addition, there is always music as a background. As said before, people in front of their desks are like cockpit pilots, while people on the streets adore the “pleasures of musically encapsulated fast-forward urban motion” (Gibson, 2012, 14). Whether on the street or indoors we connect, we listen, we watch, we stream, we search, and we leave a hypertrail behind us, something similar to our digital footprint. The philosopher Gilles Deleuze once said that unlike the static war machine, “(…) nomads are motionless, and the nomadic adventure begins when they seek to stay in the same place by escaping the codes“ (2004, 260). As a mobile crowd, we are going along exactly like this, both indoors and outdoors ― we are the nomads escaping from the codes. Nevertheless, since we are leaving a hypertrail behind, are we truly escaping? Is there an escape route at all? In The Three Ecologies, Guattari argues that “Individuals are ‘captured’ by their environment, by ideas, tastes, models, ways of being, images that are constantly injected into them, and even by the refrains that go round and round in their heads” (Pindar & Sutton apud Guattari, 2000, Introduction, 8). This still holds true, especially in the current hypermodern, hypersocial and hyperconnected society we live in. We love searching for things and purchasing items that highlight our style. “Discoverability” is the item to keep in mind (Kelly, 2016, LOC 1080-5810), because we actually find things that made our journey into the digital media space. Music is really one of the products we consume and that benefits from the hyperdistribution. “Success no longer derives from mastering distribution. Distribution is nearly automatic; it is all streams. The Great Copy Machine in the Sky takes care of that” (Kelly, 2016, LOC 1080-5810). The main reason why music and films are so much hyperdistributed in streams around the world is because they respectively unleash the soundtracks and the visualtracks for the lifestyles we are supposed to consume. Brands and networks behind this masterplan uphold the role-playing that is at stake here. Out consumeristic behavior needs items to assemble the image we need for the role-play. We are what we buy, as well as what we look like. Bauman used to say that “The consumerist vocation ultimately rests on individual performances" (2011, 55). Moreover, such performances are precisely what we are leaving behind on the hypertrail. Brands and media are the architects of this space where the hypertrail is recorded forever and this recent reality transformed users into a new type of person, a new kind of consumers. These new consumers, these new citizens are the homo cypiens who have moved into the 21st century. They will reshape the world.

      In agreement with the previous statements, it seems as if “Consumers are multichannel, with and without the Internet” (Fred J. Horowitz in Meyers & Gerstman, 2001, 40). It is common sense that sometimes we forget that online media is only a machine that never forgets us or what we do. What exactly is it we are suffering from? We are “victims of a post-industrial dilemma: over-choice" (Alvin Toffler apud Laermer & Simmons, 2008, 181). The problem now is that there is just too much of everything, all the time, wherever we are. Even when we are not buying anything we are want to buy something because we keep searching for items, for novelties and suddenly we stumble on something online. We are “prospective consumers" (Bauman, 2011, 11) for the reason we feel always in the mood to assemble our scenario. Out first contact with the hypertrail platforms is through screens:

      “Screens surround us – they're on our desks, in our laps, in our pockets. They're in airports, on airplanes, in cabs, in grocery store aisles, and on gas pumps. We're entertained by them, informed by them, challenged by them, connected by them. We watch them, write on them, work on them and play on them” (Bond, 2012, 3).

      Undoubtedly, the screens are our filter to reality and they act as a media device, for example laptops, smartphones and tablets. The screens we use frequently are portable which sets a great advantage of multitasking “(...) the mobile allows the user to be creator, programmer and broadcaster" (Alvarez-Monzoncillo, 2011, 77). We have reached a tipping point in which regardless of the hypertrail we leave behind, digital media allow us to be whoever we want to be. We have an intimate connection with these media. Svetlana Boym uses the expression “tactile intimacy” (2001, 47) and that is exactly why these media are so widespread. They are intimate media. For instance, Wheeler believes that “Our devices have become a second nature. Wherever we go, they go. (...) As smartphones and tablets get smarter, more interactive, and more intuitive, desks are being left behind" (2013, 70). Moreover, not only desks but also offices, office buildings, libraries, theaters and shopping malls because we do almost everything online. This is why the hypertrail is so politically important. Who controls our track record controls everything and everybody. We live in a “Post-Web“ world (Elias, 2013; and Anderson in Anderson, Wolff, 2010, 1). The new digital reality ensures we cannot go back to a world without control and hypertrails and we cannot reset a digital media-based society. In 2012, Google Insights’ Studies were already reporting, "We are a nation of multi‐screeners. Most of consumers' media time today is spent in front of a screen - computer, smartphone, tablet and TV" (2). From this point, the question we ask ourselves is how did all of this began? Michael Benedikt provides the answer as he mentions the way before when there were tablets and smartphones: "Cyberspace: the tablet become a page become a screens become a world, a virtual world. Everwhere and nowhere, a place where nothing is forgotten and yet everything changes" (Benedikt, [1991], 1 apud Bell, 2007, 16).

      What is the biggest characteristic of this society beyond speed? It is for sure its multidimensional aspect. The fact that all reality is just a set of layers much like the individual’s mind, and media and brands know this as they strike in the strata, which, like Deleuze pointed out, “(…) are extremely mobile” (1987, 502). We have, we are, and we live in the strata. There is no such thing as a single global reality anymore due to the fall of the grand narrative during the postmodernity. In the aftermath of this, hypermodernity emerged, a time in which culture, media, brands and surveillance blend in. “’This is our paradox. When we are apart: hypervigilance. When we are together: inattention’” (Turkle, 2015, 160). Our default setting is now control, hence the hypertrail. We control some people’s hypertrail and they in turn control ours. “The mobile life" (Román et al, 2007, 2) we are living is based on a media-based “native continuum” (Gibson, 2014, 199-486, LOC 2830 de 6692). Any move or action we perform in one place is synchronized with the cloud and the networks. There is no escape, so our only alternative is speed. We are extremely agile in everything we do: “New media prowess is also associated with being future-savvy: while we may not know what the future will look like we can be confident it is digital” (Green, 2010, 137). Therefore, the answer remains the same to step up the ladder of further control and surveillance. If we are only user-consumers, and we are not stealing plotting terrorist attacks, there is just nothing to be worried about. We live, we consume, we do role-play and we perform an identity. Something does not come entirely from our mind but it is digested by our imagination. “That is why [we] say that the age we're in today is not an information age but an imagination age” (Ridley & Parsons, 2010). It is like Kerckhove highlights when he points out this imaginary production of ours that is but a “connective production”, (2010, LOC 120 de 397) meaning that our only production is to connect the dots. Meanwhile, the platforms of brands and media that connect us grow exponentially larger. We know that the major “three over-arching disciplines: platforms, marketing and execution (David Wood in De Waele, 2013, LOC 163-2059) are the basis of the system. The very same system that allows us to exist and display, search and show, consume and stream, post and tune in. We are totally hyperconnected. “Design. Story. Symphony. Empathy. Play. Meaning. These six senses increasingly will guide our lives and shape our world” (Pink, 2005, 68). What the author