I wrote an editorial earlier this week as the Editor’s Note for The Escapist Issue 237, Editor’s Choice. I think it’s probably my most comprehensive look at Web 2.0 and the phenomenon of Nihilistic Asshole Internet Loser Syndrome, or what Jared Lanier calls “Drive-By Anonymity.” It’s the kind of thing I would have written for free, but as EIC of The Escapist, I get to do it and get paid, which is awesome.
Anyway, the editorial provoked some interesting discussion in the forums. I’ve reprinted my responses here for ease-of-use. Feel free to read the comments in their entirety at The Escapist, or join the discussion.
Surely by dismissing creations built by the “crowd” and putting power back in the hands of the craftsmen, you are just rebuilding the guilds and unions of yore though?
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.
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.
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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.
4. Which raises another point. Russ uses the word “quality” a lot in this essay, and says that he believes it matters. And yes, who would disagree with this? The problem arises when you start trying to figure out who has what standards of quality, and why. The Internet is a global culture. Quality is as variable a trait online as it is in the off-line world, taken as a whole. Is anime quality? Is only some of it? What about Flash animation?
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.
1. Russ seems to have a problem with the fact that the Internet is chock full of so many quacking yahoos that the true visionaries can’t get their voices heard.
Not exactly.
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 respects. 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 bitch about the 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.
A second point on this point. Let’s say Russ is right, that genius IS being drowned out. When, on the Internet and before it, hasn’t this happened? People who are revolutionary are ALWAYS shouted down by the majority, because they’re out to change everyone’s world. This is typical human behavior. When exactly was this supposed Golden Age Russ seems to think existed, when progressives were heard and everyone wanted to hear them? I don’t seem to remember that.
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 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.
3. That line Russ has about there not being any “gold” in the hills of YouTube really shocks me. By “gold,” I assume he means great talent.
No. As has been pointed out, I meant money, not talent. It would be incredibly dumb of me to proclaim that there isn’t any 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.
And while the content here is well constructed, it doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of quality sense.
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.
Lot of people write so much more than normal. Trying to impress the editor are we?
Perhaps. But who are you trying to impress by being glib?
For the full editorial and comment thread, visit The Escapist.
