Enough already!

In this morning's Observer, David Smith has a hilarious piece portraying me as the Briton who is challenging the web's endless cacophony. Enough already! I've apparently decreed:

But early copies have become a rallying point for dissenters with nagging doubts about the revolution of blogs, wikis, social networking sites and podcasts.

It would be nice, of course, if Smith was correct and I'd become the Pope Paul III of the digital counter reformation. But I'm not sure if digital dissenters really need a papal rallying point. The problem is that just as the digital revolution is challenging many of our most cherished political, cultural and economic principles, so its resistance is emerging from a broad variety of sources -- in philosophy, marketing, technology and literature.

I'm currently reading Benjamin Barber's excellent Consumed: How markets corrupt children, infantilize adults and swallow citizens whole. In a broader and more academic context, Barber makes the same arguments as I make in my book. Barber notes the descent of our culture into a free market induced narcissism in which we are what wear or drive or drink. It's but a short step from Consumed to The Cult of the Amateur. In the Web 2.0 world, our brands are personalized and transformed into channels. We are what we broadcast ourselves to be. Thus the infantilized nature of the blogosphere. Thus its corruption of democratic politics and traditional notions of citizenship.

Journalists are also waking up to the absurdity of Web 2.0 economic utopianism. In a sharply incisive commentary on CNN Money, Jim Ledbetter debunks the "theory" of abundance. As Ledbetter argues, the "economics of abudance" is less of a serious theory and more like the wishful thinking of Hayekian libertarians like Chris Anderson. Ledbetter wickedly suggests that digital cornucopian logic has "a short tail":

No matter what the Internet has enabled, abundance and scarcity continue to duke it out in a variety of arenas across the globe, and will do so, I predict, at least until I get a ten-hour-a-week job as a robot repairman.

Then there's Loren Feldman of 1938 Media, the charismatic videographer fighting from the trenches against the Web 2.0 hordes. Loren was in typically hilarious form earlier this week revealing the infantilized whining of Jason Calcanis about giving interviews to traditional media.

Benjamin Barber, Jim Ledbetter, Loren Feldman (not to mention the incomparable La Strumpetta), united as dissenters against the cacophony, united in saying enough already!

Comments

[VDO Vault]

Ha ha ha...the Hollywood Reporter has got your number too:

Original link: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/columns/e3i91266009d4f35a6cacf70f747e8dfd24

"Amateur hour upon us, but no need for alarm
By Andrew Wallenstein
April 25, 2007

Take heart, Hollywood: Andrew Keen feels your pain. He has even gone through the trouble of writing you a 200-page sympathy card in the form of his new book, "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture" (Currency/Doubleday), that will be released in June.

Keen, a former dot-com entrepreneur, argues that the phenomenon of user-generated content, particularly blogs and YouTube videos, is overpowering established media players. Consequently, he believes the notion of quality content will be eradicated as the playing field tilts in favor of consumers churning out substandard and erroneous content.

"The monkeys take over," Keen says. "Say goodbye to today's experts and cultural gatekeepers -- our reporters, news anchors, editors, music companies and Hollywood movie studios."

"Cult" is a thought-provoking read that couldn't be more timely. The ascension of the Internet has been so dizzying, it barely affords a moment to consider its consequences. But the book also is an alarmist rant akin to Chicken Little running around with his head cut off.

"Cult" casts the Internet as the bogeyman by reeling off a laundry list of its shortcomings. Keen's favorite targets include Wikipedia for disseminating lies, pro-corporate bloggers, silly video sensations like Lonelygirl15 and MySpace-based perverts.

But not only does "Cult" fail to cite a single example of any of the Web's redeeming qualities, it also exhibits a willful naivete -- or amnesia -- about the TV, movies and music that weren't all exactly Norman Rockwell paintings, either.

Keen finds blogs to be nefarious by nature for warping the truth or shilling for Wal-Mart, and yet he never gets around to mentioning the time Dan Rather's erroneous report on President Bush's military record was corrected in the blogosphere or how local news is awash in paid publicity masquerading as "video news releases."

"Cult" seizes on the Internet as if it represents some kind of quantum leap in cultural degradation, but all the book is really doing is applying a fresh coat of paint to the same hobbyhorses media critics have been riding for decades.

Keen likes to offer scary statistics, like his projection that there will be 500 million blogs by 2010. But what does that mean if 499 million of them will not have significant traffic? And is it possible that a good portion of the remaining blogs that do have an actual audience will be worthwhile?

Keen sees media as a zero-sum world; if viewers are consuming A, the time spent doing that comes at the expense of B. But history has taught us media consumption is much more elastic than that. New mediums are additive: TV didn't kill radio or film; there's enough room for everyone.

What's more, Keen doesn't seem to understand that mainstream media and user-generated content are enjoying a symbiotic existence. Bloggers and amateur videographers spend so much energy reacting to traditional staples of pop culture that they wouldn't have much to do if they didn't exist. Even if mainstream media is dying, Webheads will feed off its bloated carcass for the foreseeable future.

The Viacoms and Time Warners of the world likely will cede some ground to amateur creators. But there is another way professionals and amateurs will co-exist: The best of those amateurs will simply be co-opted by the pros. It isn't quite the either-or equation Keen imagines it to be.

"Cult" applies a blind faith to the media powers that be without ever considering that this creative Internet subculture he rejects is getting traction precisely because the studios, networks, etc., aren't quite perfect, either."

My take is that you've ripped off or 'updated" Gustav LeBon's 'The Crowd' so I'll be buying and reading that instead.

[Fiona Blamey]

A couple of stats for your readers, as I am sure you are well aware of them yourself:

1) Technorati, responding to a request by Business Week, has said that the number of active blogs worldwide appears to have peaked at 15.5 million. Hardly the 500 million you're predicting.

2) Hitwise, an internet traffic monitoring firm, said at the Web 2.0 Expo this month that 0.16% of visits to YouTube are to upload content, and 0.2% of visits to Flickr are to upload photography. The rest of the visits are to look at what is already there. The vast majority of us are plainly not 'broadcasting ourselves'.

I do agree with you that Wikipedia will 'become the internet', or at least that it will eventually supplant Google as the world's favourite search engine. I don't mind that personally - I know that Wikipedia usually provides a useful entry point to a given topic, but I would never treat it as an authoritative source.

I've no wish to engage any further in this debate, as I am diametrically opposed to almost everything you have to say, but I *would* like to see you have a debate with Steven Johnson over this whole killing of culture issue. And maybe you could broadcast it on YouTube so we can all watch?

[Gerhard]

this is just to say that i can't begin to express how much i agree.
i read the observer-article today and just the headline caught me: enough.
whenever someone predicts the death of the traditional newspapers, radio or tv because "on the web, everone will be able to choose" my answer is: no, it won't happen.
because, as a consumer, I DO NOT WANT to choose from gazillions of meaningless videos, I DO NOT WANT to set up google alerts in an attempt to find news that are relevant to me, I DO NOT WANT to read through hundreds of blogs or entries in online forums that are utterly incoherent and meaningless and i DO NOT WANT news that someone thinks is tailormade for me.
I DO WANT control. i DO WANT preselection. by people that i trust, by people who weed out the crap for me, so that i do not have to poison my mind with even more bullshit than already reaches my defenseless brain every second.
I DO WANT to read a quality newspaper or watch a tv-program where i might also stumble upon an article or film that is relevant without having filled in a form beforehand where i stated expressis verbis that this particular bit of information may interest me.

that used to work for the past 200 years in print, nearly a hundred years in radio and for the past 60-or-so years in tv.

can we, please, leave it that way?

[Gerhard]

this is just to say that i can't begin to express how much i agree.
i read the observer-article today and just the headline caught me: enough.
whenever someone predicts the death of the traditional newspapers, radio or tv because "on the web, everone will be able to choose" my answer is: no, it won't happen.
because, as a consumer, I DO NOT WANT to choose from gazillions of meaningless videos, I DO NOT WANT to set up google alerts in an attempt to find news that are relevant to me, I DO NOT WANT to read through hundreds of blogs or entries in online forums that are utterly incoherent and meaningless and i DO NOT WANT news that someone thinks is tailormade for me.
I DO WANT control. i DO WANT preselection. by people that i trust, by people who weed out the crap for me, so that i do not have to poison my mind with even more bullshit than already reaches my defenseless brain every second.
I DO WANT to read a quality newspaper or watch a tv-program where i might also stumble upon an article or film that is relevant without having filled in a form beforehand where i stated expressis verbis that this particular bit of information may interest me.

that used to work for the past 200 years in print, nearly a hundred years in radio and for the past 60-or-so years in tv.

can we, please, leave it that way?

[Robert Haastrup-Timmi]

Perhaps we'll all end up being professional bloggers, podcasters, YouTube producers etc. simply because that may well be the next natural stage in the evolution of human kind on Earth 2.0(the internet). Does this sound far fetched because it's never been that way?

Surely, that thought must scare the crap out of elitist Luddites and parochial thinking intellectuals not used to sharing, or those who would just love to keep the conventional status quo in place forever.

So what if 499 million blogs are meaningless!..At least they have a chance of ubiquitous expression and web users have access to diversity in terms of perspectives, albeit amateur perspectives. I mean, why would the internet as a new form of democratization be more dis-concerting to luddites, than the miserable plight of 3 to 4 billion poverty stricken individuals living here on earth 1.0. A fair juxtaposition in terms of numbers, considering we've had at least 2000 years to develop an equitable balance in the nature and order of things. Furthermore, so much for equitable egalitarianism and academic excellence over the last 500 years since the discovery of the printing press...bravo! Problem is, our achievements up until the introduction of web 1.0 were just not far reaching enough.

Just think for a moment, if there ever was a divine creator, he'd be ambivalent at best at what intellectual luddites celebrate as great human achievements over the last few century's and want to radically change the eco-system. This time however, perhaps the divine creator may want to breath life into millions of Freud’s, Michelangelo’s, Einstein’s, eminent writers, journalists and so on all at the same time, because his new system allows it. The only difference is this time, they will have to debate or display their ideas and thoughts no matter how provocative or narcissist...publicly! Infact, there will be more room for criticism this time round, as social networking and business networking gradually improves and evolves to put everything in check. Initially, most participants will be amateurs but ultimately hone their skills to communicate just like professionals as we have them in today's conventional media space.

In this new online eco-system, it may well be, that the divine creator has long term goals to gradually evolve Davids and eventually eliminate all goliaths... hence a fairer Earth 2.0!

[John Croker]

I couldn't agree more, puerile crap, all of it. Thank goodness for the likes of Andrew Keen, more power to your elbow, Andrew!

[Joe Kemp]

Polarisation of debate rarely does anyone any favours in the long run. Polarisation of this particular debate, made worse IMO by the fact that much of it is taking place in the often slightly childish environment of Web 2.0, means there's a danger of both sides throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
On balance I agree with Andrew, although I disagree with many details. Having said that, while I'm highly critical of certain aspects, I'm also a fan of Web 2.0 and regularly use and contribute to, for example, Wikipedia.
The similarities between SOME aspects of Web 2.0 culture and some of the worst aspects of pseudo-scientific culture are profound and illuminating, and throw light on the mindset of some of the more radical pro-Web 2.0-ers (just one example of the kind of pseudo-science I'm talking about is medical quackery of the late 19th century US. See chapters 10 - 13 of JH Youngs book 'The Toadstool Millionaires', for a brief intro. Available to download at www.quackwatch.org/13Hx/TM/00.html).
For all the ranting against "elitist Luddites and parochial thinking intellectuals not used to sharing" (a statement that reveals a childish and wilfully ignorant, but thoroughly modern, 'I'm-a-victim' view of the world) there are some very serious issues at stake, and if Web 2.0 doesn't evolve into something more 'mature' - e.g. more responsible, less abusive - it will rapidly become less and less relevant, and will ultimately fail to live up to it's potential.

[sarani]

We're ever so sorry, squire, we should know our place. Would you like us to bow or curtsey to you again?

Yes, most of the stuff online produced by amateurs is amateurish, but so what? Was everything put out by the samizdat press in Easter Europe of exceptional quality?

The established media outlets have themselves to blame. Harold Mitchell, Australia's biggest media buyer, brushed aside concerns about diversity in the Australian press (70 per cent owned by Murdoch) by saying "you can get what you want on the 'net".

So don't complain about ghettoes when people are forced into them!

[Andjam]

"This is a strange argument. First of all, Amazon (Charts, Fortune 500) by and large doesn't digitize books; it sells and ships physical books. Second, to focus on rental shelf scarcity is to miss more important scarce goods elsewhere. The fact that I can burn, say, a DVD of a movie onto my iPod in a matter of minutes does not change the fact the movie cost $150 million to make. Much of that money goes to pay actors, directors and technicians who, presumably, possess one of the scarcest goods that exists - talent; the digitization of the medium doesn't affect that at all."

Chris Anderson says several times that "hits aren't dead". All we'll be having is the end of the monopoly of $150M films.

"I DO WANT control."

Control by you, or control by someone else?