Archive for August 17th, 2007
It seems that there is such a thing as going too far… even for Sir Elton John!
Now regardless of Sir Elton’s desperate ramblings in the face of irrelevance, as Des points out here, today, we have a far greater opportunity to discover fresh artists, thanks to technology. Traditionally, record companies or movie studios would have made it difficult for us to discover art which they considered to be “lacking mass appeal” or “not quite agreeable”. But with low cost of production and broad audience reach via the Internet, we’re free to enjoy a wider spectrum of entertainment without those well intentioned entertainment execs getting in our way. Of course, some people are unhappy about this…
It may seem outrageous, but Elton isn’t alone in his views; the author Andrew Keen, in his book The Cult of the Amateur, argues the internet is killing our culture and assaulting our economy. “[Anyone] can use their networked computers to publish everything from uninformed political commentary, to unseemly home videos, to embarrassingly amateurish music, to unreadable poems, reviews, essays, and novels,” Keen writes in the book, which went on sale in Australia this month.
Well Andrew, how about we ban democracy too while we’re at it? All these amateur political views (such as greater effort to help the poor) are seriously polluting our refined sensibilities.
Sure, by lowering the barriers of entry, we’ve sparked an explosion of online media. Some good, some bad, but always subject to the taste of the particular audience member. But isn’t that the whole point? The audience gets to decide if they like it or not! The choice is ours and we have a lot more to choose from. Fair and square. In fact, developments in search technology, ranking technology and social computing is even making it easier for us to navigate through what’s out there. So what makes you think that record labels or movie studios are more qualified to tell me what I want to listen to or watch? Are you suggesting that the society needs some kind of “thought police” to tell them what they should like or dislike?
I suppose for any exploitative, totalitarian regime (record labels and movie studios included), democracy is a hard notion to stomach. Well, tough luck! They might as well adapt to this brave new world because I don’t think media democratisation is going to go away - no matter how much the dinosaurs huff and puff!
In any case, it turns out that Sir Elton is going to grace us with his sagely presence for a series of concerts towards the end of the year. I for one will not pay for anything less than a live webcast. Actually, on second thoughts, scratch that! I’m going to support a real artist instead by buying this!
Cheers!
Update: Andrew Keen, the self-proclaimed master of human cultural standards has his own blog it seems (sorry, did someone say hypocrite?). And here is the listing for his book on Amazon.com. Say Andrew, why don’t you pull your book off the appalling abyss that is the Internet and sell it at your local flea market instead? While you’re at it, you can replace your blog with a nicely stacked set of soapboxes at the town square, so that you could get on them to announce your ramblings, whenever you feel irrelevant and insignificant! After all, the Internet is no place to be seen for a gentleman of utmost refinement and creativity such as your fine self, now is it? Oh and how’s your outwitting Stephen Colbert business coming along?
