User:Natasa Siencnik/notes/keen/

Abstract

Andrew Keen: Introduction. In: The Cult of the Amateur. How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture, Crown Business, 2007.

1. T.H. Huxley's Theory
   • If you provide infinite monkeys with typewriters, some monkey will eventually create a masterpiece – a play by Shakespeare, a Platonic dialoge, or an economic tractise by Adam Smith.
   • foretells the consequences of a flattening culture that is blurring the lines between traditional audience and author, creator and consumer, expert and amateur
2. Web 2.0
   • today's technology hooks all those monkeys up with typewriters
   • internet users with networked personal computers
   • they are creating an endless digital forest of mediocrity
   • at the heard of self-publishing is the internet diary, the blog
   • kids can't tell the difference between professional journalism and blogs
   • for Generation Y utopians, every posting is just another version of the truth
3. Wikipedia
   • the third most visited site for information and current events
   • infinite monkeys providing infinite information for infinite readers
   • perpetuating the cycle of misinformation and ignorance
   • everyone can rewrite an entry to their liking
4. YouTube
   • portal of amateur videos and world's fastest growing site
   • infinite gallery of amateur movies showing everyday activities
   • tagline for YouTube is Broadcast Yourself
5. Google
   • logic of its search engine (algorithm) reflects the wisdom of the crowd
   • the more people click on a link, the more likely the link will come up again
   • Google just tells us what we already know
6. Digg and Reddit
   • ordering of headlines reflects what other users have been reading
   • rather than the expert judgment of news editors
   • Reddit is a mirror of our most banal interests
7. Personal Attention
   • shameless self-admiration of the mythical Narcissus
   • desire for personal attention is driving the new Internet economy
   • social-networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Bebo
   • claim to be social networks but exist to advertise ourselves
8. Old Media
   • old media is facing extinction, but what will take its place?
   • say goodbye to today's experts and cultural gatekeepers
9. WIki-Novel
   • literary experiment sponsored by the British publisher Penguin
   • invites anyone to contribute to a collective online novel
   • but can a collaboration of amateur voices create a coherent work?
10. Politics
    • medium of choice for distorting the truth about politics and politicians
    • democratized digital media to obfuscate truth and manipulate
11. Cost of Democratization
    • blurring of lines between the audience and author obscures objectivity
    • difficult to determine the difference between reader wand writer
12. Business 2.0
    • who matters most? – YOU! the consumer as creator
    • free information by Wikipedia vs. encyclopedia like Britannica
    • free music or video on YouTube vs. sale of CD or DVD
    • nobody becomes rich from blogging
13. Talent
    • talent requires work, capital, expertise, investment
    • it requires the complex infrastructure of traditional media
14. Artificial Intelligence
    • Pandora.com, Goombah.com, Moodlogic.com
    • engines that can tell what music or movies we will like
    • but artificial intelligence is a poor substitute for taste

Comments

• extremely pessimistic, nearly aggressive
• the author talks down to the users, treats them as idiots
• glorification of the high culture and education
• condemns free user-generated internet content
• makes them responsible for economic crisis
• glorification of the old establishment without reflecting it

Discussion

• Amateur does not mean that you are a dilettante
• being an Amateur is about passion, love to what you do
• Midnight-Programmers > chance to use computers in a lab
• hackers are sometimes put on a level with creackers

Links

www.digg.com
www.reddit.com
www.bebo.com
www.guykawasaki.com[1]
www.dailykos.com[2]

Movies

Hackers: Wizards of the Electronic Age (1984)
Digital Nation: Life On The Virtual Frontier (2010)