“This site is dead… this community is dead… Audiotool is dead.” Statements like this have been uttered carelessly on the walls of many producers for years, but why? What’s really happening to Audiotool? According to Audiotool’s statistics, the user base is currently bigger than it’s ever been; thousands upon thousands of active users, but where are they? If the community is growing so much, why doesn’t it feel that way? This is an issue that has clearly affected people’s engagement and connection with Audiotool, which is why I feel it’s imperative to address it.
SOCIAL ATOMIZATION
Social atomization is the theory of society’s tendency to separate into smaller and smaller circles. This arises from a lack of social connections and becomes the deconstructive force of human life together. More people are living alone and getting all their social interaction through a screen, and it’s been destructive to our mental health and sense of community. While not a perfect 1:1, I believe this is exactly what’s happening within the community. As Audiotool’s population has grown, spheres of the community have shrunk. The vast majority of smaller users exist within bubbles that are nearly invisible to everyone else. Something my friends and I have done on a few occasions is go down the rabbit-hole of Audiotool’s obscure circles; discovering dozens of people we’ve never seen, becoming historians on the friendships and drama of artists we’ve never interacted with, and realizing that Audiotool is not the tight-knit community it once was.
WHAT'S THE SOLUTION?
I wish this was one of those issues where awareness of the cause made everything feel fine, but it’s not quite that simple. We have all grown apart and gone off living in our own little echo chambers. Nobody knows everybody anymore, and there’s something lonely about that. In discovering just how many people are on Audiotool, a new concern developed for me: why are so many of these newer users completely disengaged from the larger community? It seems obvious to those of us who’ve been around for several years, but the new arrivals may not understand that Audiotool’s most essential quality IS community. Audiotool isn’t supposed to be just another place for you and your friends to interact; Audiotool is about learning from others, forming bonds, and getting that direct feedback that’s almost impossible anywhere else. While Audiotool is simply too large now to reach that same level of intimacy, I believe that reminding ourselves and teaching others what Audiotool’s core values are will bring us closer together again.
What is TINYGAIN?: Connect >> Chitchat >> TINYGAIN: an Audiotool Magazine
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Love this.
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this is an amazingly detailed and accurate statement of what's happening
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hear! hear!
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How do we explain the number of favourites on the singles charts? It used to go up three digits and the plays go 4 digits, but now they are stuck under 50 favs now, all it takes is about 20 favs or less now to get into single charts. I don't feel like the UI changed much, perhaps it did with the new audiotool website UI, kind of hiding the single charts under the newsfeed. But i kinda doubt it was any different
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i think we may be seeing a bit of a plateau in audiotool music too. don't get me wrong, tons of great and exciting music is still coming out, but from what i can tell the current music canon is pretty stagnant generally. the last i remember the waves being shifted was with hyperpop/digicore/dariacore in a triple-whammy. eagerness to take bits and pieces from those styles and evolve them further produced lots of activity on the site musically, and i think the ripples of that touched all corners of the community to the point that suddenly everyone was creating
this might be a factor because with no new trend to keep their eyes on, ppl tend to focus on their own music and their own growth (and those of their close peers as well.) which isn't a problem i mean it makes sense. but in this kind of period there's no greater forward momentum to feel or contribute to so the excitement of finding and listening to others' music is lost. people just aren't listening to each other as much rn
my theory is once some new interesting trend hits the mainstream, it'll inspire ppl to create and listen way more and the numbers will be back up. maybe not to 2020/2021 levels, since everyone also had hella free time, but definitely up compared to rn
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i feel like a lot of it is just a result of more of the community becoming somewhat self-absorbed
newer people see all the songs on charts like they would random songs recommended to them on platforms like bandcamp, soundcloud, or spotify
they usually won't listen because they don't know it
and in a sense i can understand that mindset; i don't always listen to every track i see
but like i said, i think people are forgetting how community-oriented the site is
that one of Audiotool's most special qualities is how easy it is to communicate and receive feedback and help
that a lot of those songs you love are songs that you can open up and learn from instantly
many newer users probably just don't understand how many special privileges the site offers
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