by Nick Shore, MTV Insights

“We have been taking a lot of disposable camera photos and when the light is low, sometimes they create this pixelated amazingness.” - photo & quote from Beach House

In the movie Being John Malkovich, when confronted with the surreal truth that people had been renting space behind his eyes, JM famously melts down, screaming “But it’s my HEAD”. However, if it were say 2013, and Malkovich were, say, the lead singer of an indie band or an EDM DJ, he might have just given an n.b.d. shoulder shrug, or even put a logo on it…..

We have been hearing more and more in our work about how social media, particularly visual forms like Instagram, have created an “open source” portal directly into the “midstream” of artists, musicians and so on, a stream that can be accessed directly by anyone. 

“…following a band on instagram is like literally seeing the world through their eyes…” said John, a 20 year old on a panel we ran connecting young fans with music industry executives recently in Los Angeles.  "it’s like what they see, you see, in real time…“

This dynamic runs even deeper though, we think, based on what we have been hearing more and more frequently from our audeince of late. It is as if social media forms like Tumblr provide direct access to the actual creative inspiration, process and "spirit” of the artist/musician/talent.  

The experience  is like plugging directly into their “creative jugular” as one 20-something music fan described it, “and mainlining it”. 

It’s a fascinating modern development for a generation that runs on high octane creativity and inspiration. We have known for some time that in this culture of celebrity  everyone wants to get behind-the-behind-the scenes. Yesterday at Social Media Week we discussed what we call the Zero Distancing between those in front of and those behind the screen. But “mainlining” into the creative wellspring of the famous seems like a whole new, almost narcotic level. “It’s a rush” one panelist commented…“like, this is your brain….this is your brain on Instagram”.