Juanes: Schooled on the tweeter

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Sabina Becker

So…Juanes thought he could get away with insults, bullshit and lame excuses (not to mention facile sloganeering) under the rubric of “free expression”? Looks like the joke’s on him…

Colombian singer Juanes, on his Twitter page, tried to play the jester of the social networks and drew a series of irate comments from followers of the Venezuelan president.

Last Saturday, Juanes wrote the following comment on Twitter: “They gave me Chávez’s PIN, anyone want it so you can send messages to his Blackberry?” He responded in his next entry: “Here you go, S0N0F4B1TCH”. (The Blackberry PIN is a type of e-mail address to which one can send short messages.)

Juanes, trying to defend himself, said that “Twitter is a place where there’s freedom of expression, and I’ll write whatever I want.” But he forgot that whatever you say, be it on the Internet or whatever place, you have to be responsible for the consequences those expressions could generate.

What is certain is that on Twitter, Chávez isn’t alone. Not so long ago, his opponents opined freely, and in many cases in an offensive manner, and did not receive any contrary opinions. Now, things are very different, and Juanes, who is a public figure, should not forget it.

Recently, the Venezuelan president recommended using all available Internet tools, such as social networks, and specifically Twitter. In his opinion, these “also are battlefields, we have to get involved and learn to use all these instruments, and fight the battle on all fronts.”

Translation mine.

Juanes: Funnyman FAIL. If you have to explain that you were “only joking”, it wasn’t funny to begin with. No funny, no joke.

Also, internationalist FAIL. Real internationalists respect other countries’ choice of leaders, even if they don’t like him personally. They don’t go around preaching peace and love on the one hand, and then turn around and piss on the neighbor’s lawn while drunk on a Saturday night. If you’re gonna go around saying that “a country is its people, not its president”, you’d best be remembering that it was the people of Venezuela who elected him president. They have ratified his reign at every turn. His stay in power hinges on them, not him. When you insult him, you insult them.

And since Chavecito recommended to his people–his electors–that they use the tweeter…

…to counteract the big media campaigns against him, well…don’t expect your “free expression” of hatred for a people’s president to go quite so free and unpunished anymore.

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3 Responses to Juanes: Schooled on the tweeter

  1. Jim Hadstate says:
    February 17, 2010 at 10:15 AM

    It seems to me that in this media-driven age, entirely too much value is placed on the ‘opinions’ of celebrities. Simply because someone reads the lines someone else wrote before a camera, or someone sings a song that they may or may not have written is no reason to believe that there is any real intellectual ability behind those actions.
    Juanes is a case in point. I have no idea if he wrote that song he sings in the video or whether someone else put those words in his mouth along with the melody, but that certainly gives him no standing to argue for or against the benefits of a socialist state. Or a neoliberal capitalist state for that matter. Although the latter comes a great deal closer to possibility, because you have to be an idiot to believe that neoliberal capitalism can ever benefit anyone but a tiny fraction of any population. And Juanes is NOT among the level of that population who benefit from neoliberal capitalism.
    The funny thing is that the world is full of one-time celebrities who had their money stolen in neoliberal capitalist systems with impunity and are now reduced to playing the Holiday Inn bar for tips to survive. Judging from the melodic composition and the lyrical passages, Juanes will remain a top draw only as long as he is young and handsome and can do a crotch grab with some semblance of agility. After that, the sharks of Colombian neoliberal capitalism will begin circling to consume that which is bleeding green in the water. My case is conclusively made by the fact that the Alvaro Uribe only made noises about the bastards who stole hundreds of millions of Dollars of the life savings and retirement nest-eggs from middle class families until the media lost interest in the case and the news cycle moved on to something else. When have you heard about any kind of justice being meted out to these bastards?
    When Juanes is able to write a coherent tract on the advantages and disadvantages of neoliberal capitalism versus socialism without circular logic, leaps of logic, shrill talking-points and unsupported arguments, then I may listen to his point of view. Until then, he is just another hyper-egotistical celebrity with delusions of grandeur.

  2. Manaat says:
    February 17, 2010 at 11:21 AM

    My thoughts exactly! Thanks for putting them to words so well, Jim 🙂

  3. Sabina Becker says:
    February 17, 2010 at 11:22 AM

    I think you’ve pretty much got his number, Jim. This guy is no Geddy Lee; people won’t be turning their kids and grandkids on to HIS sound, because he hasn’t really got one. There is no sense that he’s evolved, or that he ever will. And the industry likes it that way–they’re not into loyalty, character or all that other unfashionable shit. They don’t care about artists they can nurture, or who will command a cult following for decades; they only care about who will make them lots of money NOW. Juanes fits that bill perfectly. He may be on top of the Latin charts now, but that’s not saying much–not because Latin music isn’t as good as rock (far from it!) but because bubblegum is the standard in Big Capitalist Music. Even the classical music charts are full of it. Bubblegum sells; dignity doesn’t.
    Juanes is pure bubblegum. Therefore, what is his opinion really worth? Ten years from now, he’ll be lucky if anyone still remembers him, let alone asks what became of him. The industry will have moved on to the Next Big (shallow) Thing. Meanwhile, Chavecito will still be going strong, as long as the empire’s nastyboys fail to assassinate him…and other little pop-singing fluffballs will take their tiny impotent swipes at him, and I will still be laughing at it all.

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