10.13.15
Mass Amateurization is a phenomenon that has gained significant steam over the years. For decades, the public was fed news, propaganda, sports updates, you name it, by large media conglomerates. We were led to believe these professionals feeding us were producing stuff incapable of similar reproduction by the lay people. Of course, the resources and special effects these networks have surmount to stunning visual information, but the premise of news - in whichever context it’s given - confronts basic supply and demand principles. For example, If Kanye and Kim are set to have another baby - and sources within their circle confirm that through Twitter - then my demand for that tidbit of information (albeit speculative) was supplied at hyper speed through trustworthy “amateurs”. No waiting until the proverbial ten o’clock news hits; the amateurs are large and in charge now.
In Everyone Is a Media Outlet, Shirkey remarks on a potential tipping point of this amateurization: for people with a professional outlook, it’s hard to understand how something that isn't professionally produced could affect them - not only is the internet not a newspaper, it isn't a business, or even an institution(Shirkey 56-57). So as more and more content was being created and spread right before these “professionals” eyes, they naively assumed it couldn't gain traction. How could they assume otherwise ? The competition’s content is abbreviating words on Twitter. Their footage of events is poorly edited, if at all, and grainy looking. For Christ’s sake, they can only use a maximum of 120 characters! But it was through these same limitations, that the public became accustomed to and subsequently energized.
The public became tired of receiving content through dry eyes (large top-down corporations). A subtle rebellious shift was and is taking place every single day. We no longer feel strapped to our TV sets for viewing entertainment. For better or worse, we no longer feel strapped for creating entertainment. Take last year for example, a buzz - for lack of a stronger word - quickly surfaced throughout our social media airwaves. This buzz was the is this dress blue or gold ? A debate so ridiculous one would think it couldn’t garner an hour’s worth of attention. But again, we have Shirkey to thank for answers: the future presented by the internet is the mass amateurization of publishing and a switch from ‘why publish this’ to ‘why not’ ?(Shirkey 60). That hour’s worth of attention I thought would happen turned into a living, breathing, entity that included spin-off’s. This is but one example, from millions, that our internet has lived through; every couple minutes the amateurs are vying for another wave of attention.
So with all the banter about amateur-ness, what’s there to do ? “Surely it is as bad to gorge on junk as to starve?”(Publish, Then 83). Clay Shirkey, yet again, raises another question while shining light on the inevitability of mass amateurization. We have entered the blackhole of content. Even if we choose to ignore the information it’s still going to penetrate our skin - which ultimately will either buzz, ring or shine until we give in. In the 1000th issue of Esquire this month, Colum McCann wrote a piece titled Smash Time. He says things like “We have immediate access to just about everything that has been recorded—and, as we know, just about everything is recorded. Every sentence, every photo, every click, every like, every dislike, every street glance is logged, lodged, ledgered. We cant escape ourselves” (McCann, 25). The future of the media professional, armed with all of the facts above, has a daunting task awaiting: learn to shift through all the bullshit.
The major challenge, however, is that no one really seems capable of sifting through the bullshit. In Why Heather Can Write, Jenkins harps on the idea that “None of us really knows how to live in this era of media convergence, collective intelligence, and participatory culture. These changes are producing anxieties and uncertainties, and even panic…”(Jenkins 176). Every. Single. Time…I snap a photo or produce a tweet for a social media profile, my thoughts are racing with potential repercussions: will a future employer see? Will my ex think this is about her ? How about my mother…is this acceptable enough ? This stream of self consciousness is affecting our fluid ability to be ourselves. No wonder prescribed medicine is through the roof.
Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York UP, 2006. Print.
Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print.
McCann, Colum. "Smash Time." Editorial. Esquire 01 Oct. 2015: 25-26. Print.
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