Editor's Note: Editor's Choice
- Thread starter Russ Pitts
- Start date
People bitching about everything on a forum is little different from people bitching about everything around the water cooler or dinner table. The only difference is now the people they're bitching about might actually read it, & be dumb enough to take it to heart. Complaining about anything to anyone is just something people do. Ask anyone to tell you about their troubles & you can almost guarantee they will bore you to death if you let them.
You've misunderstood the point. What Russ was referring to is the problems that Google has had in actually making any money from YouTube.TheBluesader said:
When I read your tweet about this post I wasn't impressed, but now that I've hit this editor's note through the main page... wow.
It's an art to find quality amidst the monkey poo. Every time I decide to spend some time to surf the web I dive in and hope to find a few gems like this editor's note.
It's an art to find quality amidst the monkey poo. Every time I decide to spend some time to surf the web I dive in and hope to find a few gems like this editor's note.
Well... someone did make a linux port of the C64 game Paradroids. I guess that's some ground to start building faith in internet-people. There are also Kenta Cho's shmup games.The_root_of_all_evil said:
Just as often our finite number of monkeys has let me down. I should be able to let my daughter pick a theme and find a decent user-created platforming level for it in LittleBigPlanet out of the two million or so in existence... but no the best I could do was spend half an hour running on a wheel in a cage when she chose "guinea pigs". There's no freeware knock-off of Konami's awesome game SLAI.
That constitutes a failure on the internets.
Since you're posing it as a question, I'm free to say "yes, all that stuff would have happened anyway without web 2.0". We got airplanes, encyclopedia britannica, nuclear power, and Katamari Damacy without web 2.0... but now it's being billed as the ONLY way to invent or learn anything at all, in spite of the fundamental unreliability of relying on charity actions by complete strangers. It's a new alternative, but doesn't invalidate the history of human industry prior to 20XX.
wihtout web 2.0 the escapist would not exist in a meaningful sense - how would you have found all the creative people, who would never have HAD a medium as they are not big names? If "crowd-satisfying entertainments" is popular then it is for a reason and how can it be wrong for media organisations to target this? They always have. It's true the internet can be a crushing thing - but it is also an oppertunity for ordinary people who never would have had a chance otherwise.And a way for untapped talent to express itself.
Is it ok to say that I love you Russ, or would that go against everything your article is discussing?
Greatstand-alone article note!
Great
So his "gold" metaphor was to be taken more literally? I think I'm going to have to reread that portion of the article, because it seemed very clear to me to be saying what I thought it said at the time.Logan Westbrook said:
Thanks for pointing out my error, if indeed it was one.
I find it interesting to compare your views, Russ, to the many similar views held not too long ago about TV, and even press before it. They all have been said to devalue the craftsmanship of the masters and pander to the lowest common denominator. And still, both craftsmanship and appreciation for high culture are alive somehow even today.
The thing is that when a chosen elite does all the communication in a given medium, the overall quality of its works may be high, but that doesn't mean its really appreciated by the people outside this elite. In other words, most people would not crack open a World Book or Britannica anyway. Wikipedia could not distract the general public from those things because there isn't any attention directed towards them in the first place. To think each Wikipedia search would equal a look into Britannica is to think each pirated copy of a game equals a lost sale.
Even at its lower-than-Britannica level of quality, Wikipedia allows us to educate a group of people that would otherwise remain uneducated to the not so high (but still higher than their original) Wikipedia-level of knowledge. With it, and thanks to the existence of Britannica, then we can help a further (though, even slimmer) group of people to rise even further. The "mass" part of "mass media" ensures that this group reaches the highest numbers possible and is therefore a very good thing indeed.
In conclusion: Web 2.0 may have enabled many less talented writers to publish low quality text in the same space as you. It may also have enabled many ignorant commenters to say stupid thing about the higher quality texts. But that doesn't mean before Web 2.0 there were many more talented writers or all of people's opinions for high quality texts were intelligent. That's just the price that needs to be paid for the ability to connect more great writers to more intelligent readers.
As an aside: That "lowest common denominator" phrase people use actually addresses something entirely different. The correct term would be "greatest common divisor" but what can you do.
As another aside: I just happened to read a great article on a similar subject: Wii Shovelware [http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/03/opinion-why-w-1/].
The thing is that when a chosen elite does all the communication in a given medium, the overall quality of its works may be high, but that doesn't mean its really appreciated by the people outside this elite. In other words, most people would not crack open a World Book or Britannica anyway. Wikipedia could not distract the general public from those things because there isn't any attention directed towards them in the first place. To think each Wikipedia search would equal a look into Britannica is to think each pirated copy of a game equals a lost sale.
Even at its lower-than-Britannica level of quality, Wikipedia allows us to educate a group of people that would otherwise remain uneducated to the not so high (but still higher than their original) Wikipedia-level of knowledge. With it, and thanks to the existence of Britannica, then we can help a further (though, even slimmer) group of people to rise even further. The "mass" part of "mass media" ensures that this group reaches the highest numbers possible and is therefore a very good thing indeed.
In conclusion: Web 2.0 may have enabled many less talented writers to publish low quality text in the same space as you. It may also have enabled many ignorant commenters to say stupid thing about the higher quality texts. But that doesn't mean before Web 2.0 there were many more talented writers or all of people's opinions for high quality texts were intelligent. That's just the price that needs to be paid for the ability to connect more great writers to more intelligent readers.
As an aside: That "lowest common denominator" phrase people use actually addresses something entirely different. The correct term would be "greatest common divisor" but what can you do.
As another aside: I just happened to read a great article on a similar subject: Wii Shovelware [http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/03/opinion-why-w-1/].
Some people find it pretentious, but since i read "Understanding Media" I like to base my arguments about modern media on McLuhan theories. And so I think if McLuhan was still alive he would have probably called Internet the most balanced technocratic intention ever. Unlike all other kinds of media advancements it didn't improve only certain kind of senses, but all of them at the same time to the same extent. Meaning, that the overall balance of senses didn't change.
Thus, I don't really think Internet changed anything in terms of stimulating creativity, inventions and "not normal" way of thinking. Overall sum and it's relation within society is still the same. As you, yourself said, before there were critics and censors - now it's public. But to overcome pressure of both - you still need to apply same kind of skills. So I don't think there are any kind of destructive, decomposing sways in the web 2.0 reality.
Of course, level of intensity is quite different. It's one thing to receive a harsh review from a single critic, it's entirely different, when whole mob is constantly attacking you, even though it's attack are conventional and blunt. But that's something you have to learn to deal with. And it's the only thing that really matters in the new environment.
After all, brining back your comparison with a schoolyard - lot's of kind were ostracized there and many of them failed to stand up, but as many - did learn to cope with that and in the end profited of it.
Thus, I don't really think Internet changed anything in terms of stimulating creativity, inventions and "not normal" way of thinking. Overall sum and it's relation within society is still the same. As you, yourself said, before there were critics and censors - now it's public. But to overcome pressure of both - you still need to apply same kind of skills. So I don't think there are any kind of destructive, decomposing sways in the web 2.0 reality.
Of course, level of intensity is quite different. It's one thing to receive a harsh review from a single critic, it's entirely different, when whole mob is constantly attacking you, even though it's attack are conventional and blunt. But that's something you have to learn to deal with. And it's the only thing that really matters in the new environment.
After all, brining back your comparison with a schoolyard - lot's of kind were ostracized there and many of them failed to stand up, but as many - did learn to cope with that and in the end profited of it.
I know a bit about the music business, so here's a quick explanation on why you're both right =)DeadMG said:
Let's say I go to the record store and by the latest Paramore album (or whatever), and pay... 12 U.S. dollars (I have no idea how much you'd pay for a recent album in the U.S.A., but this number doesn't seem too far off - I hope). Now, out of those 12$, the band gets around 1 dollar and maybe 5 cents. There's five people in the band, so each of them gets 21 cents for each album sold.
What Radiohead did with "In Rainbows" was cutting out the companies (yes, plural) that would normally have taken approximately 92% of the profit. So the band itself made MORE money from selling the record, but all those copies sold, sold for LESS money total, because of relatively few people paying, and those that paid usually didn't pay "full" price.
Sorry for the long post guys, but I'm pleased to see some really strong responses here and I wanted to address a few.
One of the fantasy examples often used when suggesting that the internet has the power to transcend "the establishment" is the web video series "The Guild," and its creator, Felicia Day. Felicia and I run into each other fairly frequently, and I have a great deal of respect for her talent, her initiative, her genius in creating "The Guild" and I also just think she's a really neat person. I also enjoy "The Guild," but I think the assertion that the series was created "outside of the Hollywood system" is an absolute load of horse shit.
I work with people who are actually, well and truly outside of the Hollywood system every day. You see their work right here on the site. They are independent content creators, most of whom have never even been to Hollywood. There may or may not be a vast qualitative gulf between what's produced by The Guild Company in LA, and what's produced by the independent creators who make video series for The Escapist in various parts of the world but I guaran-damn-tee you there's a significant gulf between how the work is made.
I'm not going to get into an itemized comparison of production practices here, but I will say that I've been working with independent internet video creators for nearly five years now and I know very few who could have pulled as many strings inside of the Hollywood system as were pulled to create "The Guild." I say this with all due respect to the cast and crew (right down to the personal assistant in charge of maintaining Ms. Day's Twitter feed), and in no way to suggest that their awards and accolades are undeserved, but the simple fact is that guilds and unions of the kind you describe are already in existence in this here "new media" frontier. I find myself bumping into them all the time.
It's simply human nature for people to attempt to gain leverage over one another by forming groups, guilds, homeowner's associations, crime families, town councils, legislatures and even internet communities. Nothing invented by man will erase this tendency of man, much less the internet. The best we can do is keep our eyes open and try to be aware of who's selling us what.
**
OK. I've gotta take this next one in pieces.
Although it would be tempting to accuse Bluesader of filibustering, he does raise some interesting points. I'm going to address them out of order, for the sake of clarifying my responses.
Quality is a function of substance and method. A quality shirt, for example, will withstand washing without fading or shrinking, whereas a shirt lacking in quality, will go in blue and come out white and two sizes smaller. A quality house will last for 50 years, whereas a house lacking in quality will need a new roof in five, or plumbing work in two.
"Value" is independent from quality. I may prefer shirts with collars, for example, but I can recognize that a shirt with no collar may nonetheless be a quality shirt. A collared shirt, therefore, has more value to me than a shirt without a collar, even if their quality is relatively similar.
In terms of content, let's look at reality television, since I bitched about that in the editorial. I do watch some reality television. I think "Survivor," for example, is a fantastic show. It may have many surface similarities to other reality programs, but it is of higher quality in almost every aspect of production. "Survivor" is not a show that looks thrown together. It is painstakingly assembled by a production team that has talent and experience. Whether you personally enjoy it or not (whether is has "value" to you) it is definitively a quality product, and superior in quality to mass-produced programs like "Shot of Love." "Shot of Love" may have more value to you, if you enjoy that kind of show, but, by definition, it is not of higher quality.
When I say that the amount of content on the internet that is of low quality is increasing, I am saying simply that. I am not making a value judgment. You may enjoy content that I would consider of low quality. That's fine. I enjoy low quality content sometimes, too. For example, this month I read about a dozen military SF novels that aren't going to appear on any awards list any time soon, I guarantee it, nor would I want them to. I am glad that trash content exists when it is needed, and if you are someone for whom there is never a time when it is not, then that's your right as a consumer. What I do not want, however, is for the situation to exist in which my ability to choose content of higher quality is hindered by the fact that it has become impossible to find.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the chances of truly great talent being discovered - in all extant media - has neither increased nor decreased since the arrival of the internet. Unfortunately this doesn't settle the issue since the internet, apart from greatly impacting extant media in other ways, has, in addition, created a completely separate and alternate medium with its own attendant economic and (let's call it) "fame-making" effects.
For example, the internet did exist when I was working as a television producer 10 years ago, but the idea that I would, 10 years later, be doing more-or-less the same job (albeit on a radically different scale) solely for the internet medium seemed like a fantasy. And yet here we are. Television still exists as an entertainment medium (in fact, there are more channels now than there were then), but yet so too does the internet. There's been a net gain in available entertainment media. Unfortunately, the number of hours in a day has remained exactly the same, and, in fact, the number of leisure hours has, on average, declined in the Western world. People are working longer hours and - thanks in part to the internet and other communications devices - are spending more of what used to be free time working.
So with the exponential increase in entertainment options, and concurrent decrease in available time in which to consume it, the un-vetted nature of the internet medium in general is having a net negative impact on the relative quality of the content we are consuming. It's not that there is less good content available, but that there's more bad content, and the only way to find the good content amongst the bad is to consume it. Therefore we are, as a society, consuming more bad content.
I'm not concerned that the demand for quality content will decrease. There will always be a demand for quality, and people, no matter how busy they are, can tell the difference. What I am concerned about is that consumers, fatigued by an unrelenting supply of low-quality options, will become less discerning and choose to consume lower-quality offerings because it's easier, or will simply be unable to find what they're looking for.
Think of this in terms of fast food. The secret has been out for over a decade that fast food is bad for you. Hell, it's not even food, in most repsects. Most of the ingredients in it are poison. And yet people eat that stuff all day, every day, just because it's all around them and driving through the McDonald's is simpler and takes less time and effort than buying and preparing their own food. And then they get fat, or sick and then they wonder "What went wrong?" Dude, you're eating poison, that's what went wrong. But you can't tell them. You can't tell them that if they put forth just a little more effort they'd live happier, healthier lives because most people equate quality of life to the energy expended to attain it, and although net energy declines on a fast food diet, that's less observable than the fact that driving through the drive-thru takes less time than cooking a meal.
So what happens when we are surrounded by low-quality entertainment options to the point where finding something of quality takes more effort than it appears to be worth? Well, we know what happens then: People will consume more low quality content and less high quality content and will eventually wonder why high quality content has stopped being produced and simultaneously ***** about he fact that they no longer seem to enjoy watching movies as much as they used to. Meanwhile, people like me will be working at McDonald's.
We're actually on to a second topic here, apart from content. This addresses my remarks in the editorial about community responses, and Lanier's term "drive-by anonymity."
My response to Point 1 Sub A is that 2 you're right. There was never a "Golden Age" in which one could feel reasonably safe that his genius idea wouldn't be crushed by itinerant dicks with a stake in maintaining the status quo. I suppose my point is I'd prefer to be shouted down by a dick who genuinely feels threatened by me because he can recognize I have a good idea than by a pack of dicks who wouldn't know a good idea if it shat a golden sausage on their face, but are simply bored.
Let's go back to my schoolyard analogy from the editorial. I'll admit that I was a smart kid. I had teachers who shit on me because they hated being outsmarted by their juniors (and also because, frankly, I was a jerk). But I always knew, whether they were being instructive or simply mean, that they were my betters. I respected their position of authority because they'd earned it. I had my differences with certain instructors, but I learned something from all of them. More than I cared to admit at the time.
At the same time, however, I was frequently bullied by school yard thugs. Mercilessly so. I recall one day, the first day at a new school, I was minding my own business in the school yard, waiting for the doors to open, when some kid I had never met walked right up to me, dashed my books to the ground and punched me. Then he walked away. Didn?t say a word. Didn't want anything from me but my suffering. He just picked me because I looked different, I suppose. Maybe my clothes looked too new. Maybe my glasses too thick. Whatever it was about, it wasn't about me per se, it was about him needing to feel good and choosing to satisfy that need by making someone else feel bad. I was just handy.
My issue with "drive-by anonymity" style community engagement is that it's not engagement, it's bullying. Web 2.0 has given us many marvelous and wonderful things, but it has also institutionalized anonymous bullying, and that I can't tolerate.
I think YouTube is a marvelous talent search tool, I really do. For me, as a media professional, it has slightly changed my job, but I wouldn't exactly say it has improved the situation.
This is a slight aside, but think about the invention of the dishwashing machine. This invention was supposed to free us (and I say "us" although at the time it was designed as a tool for house wives) from the drudgery of cleaning dishes every day and thereby simplify our lives. Did it? I'd say no on both counts.
For one thing, far from simplifying life, it added further complication. The machines take specialized soap, so that's one more item for the grocery list. They also break, make noise, and require loading and unloading. Even had the device freed us from having to wash dishes by hand, it would have still been, at best, a net zero effect on daily living. Yet the dishwasher didn't free us from washing dishes by hand. If you put un-washed dishes into a dishwasher, you get, instead of clean dishes, wet dirt. And so, we wash the dishes by hand, with soap and a scrubber (the same tools we had before) prior to loading them into the dishwasher to be washed once again. It's ludicrous. And yet we all do it.
As an experiment, I once moved into a house without a dishwasher and refused to have one installed. I probably lived for close to ten years without a dishwahser. And then I moved into an apartment that had one installed already. The difference on my daily routine was staggeringly ironic. Far from feeling "liberated" I felt as if I'd suddenly been saddled with a piece of temperamental machinery that, at best, simply replaced dreary tasks I was already performing with other, still dreary tasks. My dishes were no more or less clean, I was simply getting them in that state by different means.
And this is how I feel about Web 2.0. I don't think, once the dust clears, we'll have noticed any appreciable gain or loss in quality entertainment. I just think we're all having to go about finding that entertainment in new, often more frustrating, ways. I don't want to limit anyone's options, I would simply rather it be easier to ignore shit content.
you. Saying that it is well-constructed (for which I thank you) and that it lacks quality is a contradiction in terms.
This is an excellent point, and I'm glad you raised it. Because the fact is this is already happening whether you realize it or not.The_root_of_all_evil said:
One of the fantasy examples often used when suggesting that the internet has the power to transcend "the establishment" is the web video series "The Guild," and its creator, Felicia Day. Felicia and I run into each other fairly frequently, and I have a great deal of respect for her talent, her initiative, her genius in creating "The Guild" and I also just think she's a really neat person. I also enjoy "The Guild," but I think the assertion that the series was created "outside of the Hollywood system" is an absolute load of horse shit.
I work with people who are actually, well and truly outside of the Hollywood system every day. You see their work right here on the site. They are independent content creators, most of whom have never even been to Hollywood. There may or may not be a vast qualitative gulf between what's produced by The Guild Company in LA, and what's produced by the independent creators who make video series for The Escapist in various parts of the world but I guaran-damn-tee you there's a significant gulf between how the work is made.
I'm not going to get into an itemized comparison of production practices here, but I will say that I've been working with independent internet video creators for nearly five years now and I know very few who could have pulled as many strings inside of the Hollywood system as were pulled to create "The Guild." I say this with all due respect to the cast and crew (right down to the personal assistant in charge of maintaining Ms. Day's Twitter feed), and in no way to suggest that their awards and accolades are undeserved, but the simple fact is that guilds and unions of the kind you describe are already in existence in this here "new media" frontier. I find myself bumping into them all the time.
It's simply human nature for people to attempt to gain leverage over one another by forming groups, guilds, homeowner's associations, crime families, town councils, legislatures and even internet communities. Nothing invented by man will erase this tendency of man, much less the internet. The best we can do is keep our eyes open and try to be aware of who's selling us what.
**
OK. I've gotta take this next one in pieces.
Although it would be tempting to accuse Bluesader of filibustering, he does raise some interesting points. I'm going to address them out of order, for the sake of clarifying my responses.
I think you are confusing "quality," which is an objective distinction, with "value," which is a subjective distinction.
Quality is a function of substance and method. A quality shirt, for example, will withstand washing without fading or shrinking, whereas a shirt lacking in quality, will go in blue and come out white and two sizes smaller. A quality house will last for 50 years, whereas a house lacking in quality will need a new roof in five, or plumbing work in two.
"Value" is independent from quality. I may prefer shirts with collars, for example, but I can recognize that a shirt with no collar may nonetheless be a quality shirt. A collared shirt, therefore, has more value to me than a shirt without a collar, even if their quality is relatively similar.
In terms of content, let's look at reality television, since I bitched about that in the editorial. I do watch some reality television. I think "Survivor," for example, is a fantastic show. It may have many surface similarities to other reality programs, but it is of higher quality in almost every aspect of production. "Survivor" is not a show that looks thrown together. It is painstakingly assembled by a production team that has talent and experience. Whether you personally enjoy it or not (whether is has "value" to you) it is definitively a quality product, and superior in quality to mass-produced programs like "Shot of Love." "Shot of Love" may have more value to you, if you enjoy that kind of show, but, by definition, it is not of higher quality.
When I say that the amount of content on the internet that is of low quality is increasing, I am saying simply that. I am not making a value judgment. You may enjoy content that I would consider of low quality. That's fine. I enjoy low quality content sometimes, too. For example, this month I read about a dozen military SF novels that aren't going to appear on any awards list any time soon, I guarantee it, nor would I want them to. I am glad that trash content exists when it is needed, and if you are someone for whom there is never a time when it is not, then that's your right as a consumer. What I do not want, however, is for the situation to exist in which my ability to choose content of higher quality is hindered by the fact that it has become impossible to find.
Not exactly.TheBluesader said:
I have a sneaking suspicion that the chances of truly great talent being discovered - in all extant media - has neither increased nor decreased since the arrival of the internet. Unfortunately this doesn't settle the issue since the internet, apart from greatly impacting extant media in other ways, has, in addition, created a completely separate and alternate medium with its own attendant economic and (let's call it) "fame-making" effects.
For example, the internet did exist when I was working as a television producer 10 years ago, but the idea that I would, 10 years later, be doing more-or-less the same job (albeit on a radically different scale) solely for the internet medium seemed like a fantasy. And yet here we are. Television still exists as an entertainment medium (in fact, there are more channels now than there were then), but yet so too does the internet. There's been a net gain in available entertainment media. Unfortunately, the number of hours in a day has remained exactly the same, and, in fact, the number of leisure hours has, on average, declined in the Western world. People are working longer hours and - thanks in part to the internet and other communications devices - are spending more of what used to be free time working.
So with the exponential increase in entertainment options, and concurrent decrease in available time in which to consume it, the un-vetted nature of the internet medium in general is having a net negative impact on the relative quality of the content we are consuming. It's not that there is less good content available, but that there's more bad content, and the only way to find the good content amongst the bad is to consume it. Therefore we are, as a society, consuming more bad content.
I'm not concerned that the demand for quality content will decrease. There will always be a demand for quality, and people, no matter how busy they are, can tell the difference. What I am concerned about is that consumers, fatigued by an unrelenting supply of low-quality options, will become less discerning and choose to consume lower-quality offerings because it's easier, or will simply be unable to find what they're looking for.
Think of this in terms of fast food. The secret has been out for over a decade that fast food is bad for you. Hell, it's not even food, in most repsects. Most of the ingredients in it are poison. And yet people eat that stuff all day, every day, just because it's all around them and driving through the McDonald's is simpler and takes less time and effort than buying and preparing their own food. And then they get fat, or sick and then they wonder "What went wrong?" Dude, you're eating poison, that's what went wrong. But you can't tell them. You can't tell them that if they put forth just a little more effort they'd live happier, healthier lives because most people equate quality of life to the energy expended to attain it, and although net energy declines on a fast food diet, that's less observable than the fact that driving through the drive-thru takes less time than cooking a meal.
So what happens when we are surrounded by low-quality entertainment options to the point where finding something of quality takes more effort than it appears to be worth? Well, we know what happens then: People will consume more low quality content and less high quality content and will eventually wonder why high quality content has stopped being produced and simultaneously ***** about he fact that they no longer seem to enjoy watching movies as much as they used to. Meanwhile, people like me will be working at McDonald's.
OK, so this would be Point #2, then? I guess that blows your numbering convention. Let's call this one Point 1 Sub A.
We're actually on to a second topic here, apart from content. This addresses my remarks in the editorial about community responses, and Lanier's term "drive-by anonymity."
My response to Point 1 Sub A is that 2 you're right. There was never a "Golden Age" in which one could feel reasonably safe that his genius idea wouldn't be crushed by itinerant dicks with a stake in maintaining the status quo. I suppose my point is I'd prefer to be shouted down by a dick who genuinely feels threatened by me because he can recognize I have a good idea than by a pack of dicks who wouldn't know a good idea if it shat a golden sausage on their face, but are simply bored.
Let's go back to my schoolyard analogy from the editorial. I'll admit that I was a smart kid. I had teachers who shit on me because they hated being outsmarted by their juniors (and also because, frankly, I was a jerk). But I always knew, whether they were being instructive or simply mean, that they were my betters. I respected their position of authority because they'd earned it. I had my differences with certain instructors, but I learned something from all of them. More than I cared to admit at the time.
At the same time, however, I was frequently bullied by school yard thugs. Mercilessly so. I recall one day, the first day at a new school, I was minding my own business in the school yard, waiting for the doors to open, when some kid I had never met walked right up to me, dashed my books to the ground and punched me. Then he walked away. Didn?t say a word. Didn't want anything from me but my suffering. He just picked me because I looked different, I suppose. Maybe my clothes looked too new. Maybe my glasses too thick. Whatever it was about, it wasn't about me per se, it was about him needing to feel good and choosing to satisfy that need by making someone else feel bad. I was just handy.
My issue with "drive-by anonymity" style community engagement is that it's not engagement, it's bullying. Web 2.0 has given us many marvelous and wonderful things, but it has also institutionalized anonymous bullying, and that I can't tolerate.
No. As has been pointed out, I meant money, not talent. It would be incredibly dumb of me to proclaim that there isn't ant talent on YouTube considering, as you pointed out, my own success in finding it there.
I think YouTube is a marvelous talent search tool, I really do. For me, as a media professional, it has slightly changed my job, but I wouldn't exactly say it has improved the situation.
This is a slight aside, but think about the invention of the dishwashing machine. This invention was supposed to free us (and I say "us" although at the time it was designed as a tool for house wives) from the drudgery of cleaning dishes every day and thereby simplify our lives. Did it? I'd say no on both counts.
For one thing, far from simplifying life, it added further complication. The machines take specialized soap, so that's one more item for the grocery list. They also break, make noise, and require loading and unloading. Even had the device freed us from having to wash dishes by hand, it would have still been, at best, a net zero effect on daily living. Yet the dishwasher didn't free us from washing dishes by hand. If you put un-washed dishes into a dishwasher, you get, instead of clean dishes, wet dirt. And so, we wash the dishes by hand, with soap and a scrubber (the same tools we had before) prior to loading them into the dishwasher to be washed once again. It's ludicrous. And yet we all do it.
As an experiment, I once moved into a house without a dishwasher and refused to have one installed. I probably lived for close to ten years without a dishwahser. And then I moved into an apartment that had one installed already. The difference on my daily routine was staggeringly ironic. Far from feeling "liberated" I felt as if I'd suddenly been saddled with a piece of temperamental machinery that, at best, simply replaced dreary tasks I was already performing with other, still dreary tasks. My dishes were no more or less clean, I was simply getting them in that state by different means.
And this is how I feel about Web 2.0. I don't think, once the dust clears, we'll have noticed any appreciable gain or loss in quality entertainment. I just think we're all having to go about finding that entertainment in new, often more frustrating, ways. I don't want to limit anyone's options, I would simply rather it be easier to ignore shit content.
I think what you meant to say was that it doesn't have value to
you. Saying that it is well-constructed (for which I thank you) and that it lacks quality is a contradiction in terms.
Perhaps. But who are you trying to impress by being glib?Reklore said:
Yeah, I fully accept that, it's one of the main reasons why Capitalism dominates over Communism; despite Capitalism having being built on an infinite base system, which simply doesn't exist.Russ Pitts said:
What concerns me is the information diarrhoea we're being subjected to ('pologies for that mental image), with so much information coming in (How many times have you been asked to give money to Haiti?), how does Joe Q. Public make an informed decision, when every avenue of help is trying to sell them something?
Simple, they criticise everthing with "LOL GAY LOL".
The reason YouTube exists is because we gave a mouthpiece to those who were denied one. That's why you can't make money out of it. Because whoever owns it, is simply the middle man for society to kick itself in the balls.
"Everyone is special" is the message we've been giving out. And we've been left with a whole heap of "special" to dig through. Talent is being drowned by Volume, and that's why we need sifters. Not just to hold the pillow over YouTube's dozing mouth.