[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":182},["ShallowReactive",2],{"codex-\u002Fcodex\u002Fthe-wrong-target":3,"codex-around-\u002Fcodex\u002Fthe-wrong-target":171},{"id":4,"title":5,"body":6,"cover":140,"date":141,"description":142,"draft":143,"extension":144,"faq":145,"kind":155,"meta":156,"navigation":157,"noindex":143,"ogImage":140,"path":158,"readingMinutes":159,"seo":160,"seoDescription":161,"seoTitle":162,"standfirst":163,"stem":164,"tags":165,"updated":140,"__hash__":170},"codex\u002Fcodex\u002Fthe-wrong-target.md","The Wrong Target",{"type":7,"value":8,"toc":131},"minimark",[9,13,19,22,29,32,37,40,49,53,61,64,67,74,77,80,84,92,95,99,102,105,108,116,123,126],[10,11,12],"p",{},"Richie Hawtin has been complaining about influencer DJs, and the line that\ntravelled is that some of them are",[14,15,16],"blockquote",{},[10,17,18],{},"only there because of their follower count",[10,20,21],{},"He goes further in places — that the rise of social-media DJs is, in his words,\nsimply shit, and that follower counts have become the gateway into the scene.\nThe trade press picked it up; the clip did the rest.",[23,24],"embedded-player",{"height":25,"provider":26,"src":27,"title":28},700,"Instagram","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.instagram.com\u002Fp\u002FDYg5lZujWBh\u002Fembed","Richie Hawtin on influencer DJs",[10,30,31],{},"To his credit he does not pretend this is new. He says the friction between\nunderground and commercial has always been there, and that what matters is\nholding to your own idea of the work even when it runs against whatever is\ncurrently winning. That caveat keeps the argument from being nostalgia, and it\nis the part of it I agree with without reservation.",[33,34,36],"h2",{"id":35},"he-is-describing-something-that-exists","He is describing something that exists",[10,38,39],{},"The mechanism is not in dispute. Reach is measurable before a ticket is sold and\nmusical judgement is not, so a booker committing money weeks in advance has an\nobvious reason to prefer the number they can see. Follower count functions as a\ngateway because it is legible, and legibility beats quality in any market where\ndecisions have to be made in advance and at speed.",[10,41,42,43,48],{},"Which is the same complaint I published a few weeks ago from the opposite end of\nthe ladder, when Save Our Sound described DJs being\n",[44,45,47],"a",{"href":46},"\u002Fcodex\u002Fa-date-for-a-date","left off lineups"," for having nothing to trade. From\nbelow it looks like exclusion. From above it looks like standards slipping. It\nis one mechanism, and both descriptions are accurate.",[33,50,52],{"id":51},"where-the-aim-goes-wrong","Where the aim goes wrong",[10,54,55,56,60],{},"Then the phrasing: ",[57,58,59],"em",{},"they have no idea what they're doing",". That converts a\ndescription of a system into an accusation against a group of people, and the\ngroup is mostly the wrong one.",[10,62,63],{},"Consider how a lot of these careers actually start. Somebody uploads a track to\nTikTok because it amused them. It performs. Within months a major has signed\nthem, an agent has priced them, and they are on a stage in front of thousands\nthat they have no equipment to hold. Some of them have said as much in public:\nthey were not chasing this, they do not have artistic ambitions, they simply\nended up here.",[10,65,66],{},"I am deliberately not naming anyone, and that is not squeamishness. Naming them\nwould repeat the error — treating the individuals as the story when they are the\nleast powerful component in it.",[68,69,71],"codex-note",{"kicker":70},"Who decided",[10,72,73],{},"Nobody in this pipeline appointed themselves. Every step from a clip performing\nto a main-stage booking was a professional judgement made by someone paid to\nmake it.",[10,75,76],{},"An A&R decided the numbers were worth a contract. An agent decided what to\ncharge. A booker decided this person should play before the headliner. Those\npeople are experienced, well paid, and specifically employed to assess whether\nsomebody can do the thing. If a performer cannot hold the room, that is not a\ncharacter flaw in the performer. It is three professionals in a row deciding\nthat the question did not matter enough to ask.",[10,78,79],{},"Aim there. It is a smaller group, it is far more responsible, and unlike a\ntwenty-two-year-old with a viral clip it can actually change its behaviour.",[33,81,83],{"id":82},"which-settles-an-argument-from-earlier","Which settles an argument from earlier",[10,85,86,87,91],{},"There is a Codex entry where Zanias declines to call music a business and asks\nto call it an ecosystem instead. I disagreed at the time, in\n",[44,88,90],{"href":89},"\u002Fcodex\u002Fa-number-without-a-denominator","a number without a denominator",", on the\ngrounds that rent gets paid or it doesn't and pretending otherwise mostly serves\nwhoever is not paying you.",[10,93,94],{},"This is the cleaner proof. A system that signs a person because a clip\nperformed, prices them against the same metric, and places them on a stage\nwithout asking whether they can hold it is behaving exactly like a business\noptimising a funnel. The artist is inventory acquired on a signal. Nothing about\nthat process is ecosystem logic, and it is worth being clear-eyed that the\nperson most damaged by it is very often the one who got signed — sent out to be\njudged in public against a standard nobody prepared them for, with a shelf life\nset by the same algorithm that picked them up.",[33,96,98],{"id":97},"what-is-actually-lost","What is actually lost",[10,100,101],{},"The cost is not that unqualified people exist. Every scene has always had people\nabove their level, usually briefly.",[10,103,104],{},"The cost is the slot. A main-stage booking given to someone who did not want a\ncareer is one not given to someone who has spent ten years building toward\nexactly that, and who would have delivered. Multiply it across a festival season\nand you get a circuit that trains nobody, promotes nothing, and wonders in\npublic why the middle of the bill has gone hollow.",[10,106,107],{},"And one hedge, because certainty here is cheap. Some people who arrived by\naccident stay, get serious and get very good — there are acts who started as a\nnovelty and are now the reason to buy a ticket. Arriving badly does not\ndetermine what someone becomes. Assuming otherwise is just gatekeeping with\nbetter manners, and this page has already argued at length against being kept\nout for reasons unrelated to the music.",[109,110],"codex-cta",{"body":111,"kicker":112,"label":113,"title":114,"href":115},"No clip of this exists that would tell you anything. Mood before genre, built as an arc, with an unreleased demo somewhere in the middle.","The work","Listen on SoundCloud","Emotional Dancefloor Atmosphere","https:\u002F\u002Fsoundcloud.com\u002Fhybrid-flight\u002Fhybrid-flight-emotional",[109,117],{"body":118,"kicker":119,"label":120,"title":121,"to":122},"Berlin-based, available worldwide. Listen to a mix first — that is the only number I would want a booking decision made on.","Bookings","Booking form","Judge the set","\u002Fbooking",[124,125],"hr",{},[10,127,128],{},[57,129,130],{},"Source: Richie Hawtin, in remarks credited to a Safe Trip Talk conversation and\ncirculated by Festifeed on 19 May 2026; the substance was also reported in the\nelectronic music trade press. The quoted fragment follows that reporting rather\nthan a transcript of the original interview.",{"title":132,"searchDepth":133,"depth":133,"links":134},"",3,[135,137,138,139],{"id":35,"depth":136,"text":36},2,{"id":51,"depth":136,"text":52},{"id":82,"depth":136,"text":83},{"id":97,"depth":136,"text":98},null,"2026-09-01T21:00:00","Richie Hawtin says influencer DJs are booked for their follower count rather than their ability. He is describing something real and aiming it at the people least responsible for it.",false,"md",[146,149,152],{"question":147,"answer":148},"What did Richie Hawtin say about influencer DJs?","That a number of DJs now hold their positions because of online visibility rather than skill, and that follower counts have become a gateway into the scene. He argues bookings should turn on music, feeling and sincerity rather than numbers and appearances, while acknowledging that friction between underground and commercial is not new.",{"question":150,"answer":151},"Are DJs really booked because of their follower count?","It is one of the strongest signals in the booking market, because reach is measurable in advance and musical judgement is not. A promoter committing money weeks before tickets sell has an obvious incentive to prefer the number they can see over the quality they would have to assess.",{"question":153,"answer":154},"Is it fair to blame artists who went viral for their success?","Largely no. Many were not pursuing a career when a clip performed, and some have said openly that they had no artistic ambition and did not expect any of it. The decisions that placed them on large stages were made by labels, agents and bookers whose profession is precisely to judge whether someone can hold that stage.","Response",{},true,"\u002Fcodex\u002Fthe-wrong-target",4,{"title":5,"description":142},"On follower counts as a booking gateway, the TikTok-to-major pipeline, and why blaming the artists who got picked up misses who actually made the decision.","Richie Hawtin on influencer DJs — right diagnosis, wrong target","Most of the people being complained about did not apply for the job. Someone signed them, priced them and put them on that stage, and those were professional decisions.","codex\u002Fthe-wrong-target",[166,167,168,169],"club culture","music industry","djing","social media","W-e2GmqOAXdsHhAqVnCXaq77bFYsvRb8r0XadEtvW8Y",[172,177],{"title":173,"path":174,"stem":175,"description":176,"kind":155,"children":-1},"The Personality Tax","\u002Fcodex\u002Fthe-personality-tax","codex\u002Fthe-personality-tax","Cristalyne asks when being a DJ stopped being enough. The shift she describes is not that you have to post — it is that you have to be a particular kind of person on camera, and that selects for something other than music.",{"title":178,"path":179,"stem":180,"description":181,"kind":155,"children":-1},"Two Brushstrokes","\u002Fcodex\u002Ftwo-brushstrokes","codex\u002Ftwo-brushstrokes","A DJ posting as @supafrisch describes a scene that presents itself through thirty-second transitions and new mixers, because almost nothing that actually happens in a club can be posted. On clips as advertising, and on what the advertising is supposed to be for.",1789031393866]