User:Inge Hoonte/The Cult of the Amateur

Andrew Keen's 2006 negative view on internet culture:

Infinite monkey theorem > if all monkeys have type writers, one of them somewhere is bound to create a master piece at some point. In light of internet > flattening of culture. Everyone's an expert, journalist, fashionista (etc) creating a digital forest of mediocrity. Undermined (I'd say, changed) our sense of what is true, false, real, imaginary.

Natasa and I talked about this, she mentioned that unlike the Brittanica, Wikipedia can immediately update current events, whereas in the physical library something vital like a state falling apart or war or uproar isn't registered until the next version comes out.

Google bought Youtube in 2006. He forgets to mention that the bunny was watched so many times is probably because it was tweeted, and messaged and emailed and spread on Facebook and blogs etc etc. And don't forget bored office employees.

Collective intelligence = Intelligentsia Kollektive? Top links on Google are the ones that have been clicked on the most. So it doesn't show you the wisdom of its users. It shows you where they went, not what they learned, how much time they spent there, if it was helpful, etc. Author compares Reddit and Digg to news sources, which I think is a mistake. Although reddit's subline is "voice of the internet -- news before it happens, I don't think they aim to be a hot shot news source: reddit is a source for what's new and popular online. vote on links that you like or dislike and help decide what's popular, or submit your own!" It's about voting for popularity, not actuality, current events.

Valid point though in saying that social network sites are mere advertisements for ourselves, to display ourselves. It mostly seems though that he's just reluctant to see advantages, he's resisting this change. "Old media is facing extinction"

Blurring of lines between audience and author, fact and fiction, invention and reality is further obscuring objectivity, leading to decline of quality. Everyone piled on same stack, member of auto-entertaining audience. "You control the Information Age" Knowledge consumer is knowledge creator. This is kind of a silly analogy though.... books and newspapers and radio shows and tv programs are ALL made by this YOU as well.

p36 He compares us typing monkeys to Rousseau's noble savages, a term dating back to 1672, and put in a different light by Dickens in 1851.