Participation and You!

So according to Time Magazine, You are the 2006 person of the year. But how did we all do it, how did we get there?

Of course Time Magazine was calling attention to the increase of user-generated content online. Sites like Youtube, Myspace, Wikipedia, Forums, Blogs, all revolve around user-generated content.

An issue that van Dijck points out in the Users Like You? article is that these sites are all mediators of content. Sure, I can upload a video to Youtube, but will anyone watch it? It depends on what Youtube decides to do with it. Will it be a featured video, or will Miley Cyrus be featured instead? Will it be 'recommended' to certain users? Well, that depends on "high-tech algorithms".

What van Dijck is suggesting here, is that user-generated content is still at the mercy of the commercialised leanings of these sites (well, perhaps not Wikipedia). Youtube, Myspace, Blogs, and much other site hosting is for-profit, either through advertising or data-mining. Even now, as I use InternetExplorer (because Firefox was having issues with Blogger), my default search engine is Bing; even the interface through which the internet is accessed is influenced by commercial, parent company, interests.

I guess what I'm getting at here is the myth of the democracy of the internet. Sure, everyone can have their say, can generate a video, or post a comment, maybe even contribute to a blog. But who is reading? What determines redirections from (default) search engines, to access the site? And once on a site (such as Youtube) how is the user-generated content orgainsed and advertised? We can all contribute online, that is not the problem. The problem is in how the viewers access; who determines how the viewers get linked through the masses of user-generated content.

Online then, where free-speech and user-generated content is widespread, (to the point of 'over-filling' online environments,) power comes not from controlling who says what, but from controlling who hears what.

So according to the Time Magazine cover, we "control the information age". Well, maybe. But if so, it's a control mediated through Google search algorithms, data-mining, user-specific advertising, and economically orientated content promotion.

(But hey, we still made the cover of Time Magazine!)

On Facebook, no-one can hear you scream...

...primarily because no-one is listening. The wonderful thing about "democratic" forums such as blogs, Facebook, YouTube, cubicle walls in public school toilets, is that everyone can have a say - if they have a permanent marker handy in the case of the toilet wall.

As I like to say, the wonderful thing about democracy is that it gives everyone an equal opportunity to disagree with each other. Which is precisely why the rail-link from Downtown to Mt. Eden etc, will not get done until Steve Jobs has had his brain removed and preserved in a robot made from recycled iPod nanos.

I'm going to be slightly cynical here. YouTube comments rarely dip into anything that could be called... thoughtful. Often the height of intellectual endeavour tends to be "LOLZ, TEH KAT Fe!! down Lolz!!!!!!! ^^ XD." Only a truly twisted mind would use that many exclamation marks. Facebook "likes" and groups are, as rightly pointed out, not a statistical reference. They are products of the moment, something that rallies or amuses people for a split second. Personally I have over 400 likes and I could probably name about 12 or so.

Everyone has a say. So chances are no-one is actually listening. You have to be of unusual skill or just post at the right time, self-marketing is extremely important. Being hot is an easy form of self-marketing, because every guy on Facebook wants to be friends with that girl with a chest big enough to crush his head.

We are supposed to be "prosumers" or perhaps even... The Engineers of Generation LOL. I don't believe in this model, or the producer-distributor-consumer one. Everyone is an audience member at some point, even the producers. And not nearly everything that gets produced gets consumer. Look at this blog. We all contribute and that's fantastic. But no-one comments. We all stand and give grand speeches while those who aren't orating block their ears.

I'm not saying that it should be a utopia where everyone posts carefully thought-out comments with well-considered arguments and opinions. Hell no! Actually I don't know what I'm saying, but I do know that we have a lot of crap to wade through before we find that post/comment/rant that is a little diamond in a bucket of pointy LOL-shaped rocks.

Just make sure it is a diamond, because often the sparkle sells better than the stone.

P.R. (Post-Rant): This blog would be a lot more interesting if people actually commented on stuff. Just saying.