The Cult of the Amateur

The mistakes of aggregation. Bought because it was cheap and related to The Wisdom of Crowds and The Long Tail. Good to have another opinion, that you totally disagree with.

Bibliographic Deets

 * Keen, Andrew. The Cult of the Amateur. 2008. Nicholas Brealey Publishing. London & Boston.

Overview

 * The subtitle of the book: "How blogs, MySpace, YouTube and the rest of today's user-generated media are killing our culture and economy" says it all.

Content

 * "Myopia of the digital mob" (xix) -> "digital mob" as unfair catch-all for diverse web technology users
 * "the idea of original authorship and intellectual property have been seriously compromised" (23)
 * authorship been problematic for a while now


 * "homemade videos are often cobbled together from clips of actual advertisements, making the knockoffs frequently indistinguishable from the real commercials" (23)
 * cuz real commericals are such good things for society?
 * ever heard of detournement?


 * I can't even continue
 * My problems with this text are innumerable.
 * Elitist
 * Never explains why "professional" "mainstream" "commercial" media cultures being challenged by user content were/are good in the first place
 * Wholly misrepresents not only content made by users, but the reasons and markets (niche) for doing so
 * Also willfully misreads pro-web rhethoric (by Anderson et. al.)

Good Point

 * One good point -> Porn. A very real and pressing problem
 * "Thirteen year olds should be playing soccer or riding bikes, not sitting in locked bedrooms looking at hardcore pornography" (159)
 * but again, he fails to acknowledge that these activities can ALL be done, they are not in opposition or competition.


 * From Readings At Cambridge