In Defense Of The User-Generated Content Culture
Posted by Kassia Krozser in Mediacratic on Jun 07, 2006
I don’t pretend to know everything*, but I do know a few things. One is that “in defense of the old guard” essays and articles often read like they’re being written out of fear. The Wall Street Journal has such an essay, suggesting that user-generated content isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
It is unclear, as I read the essay, why this needed to be said, much less what the point is. Our disenchanted essayist has seen the mash-up (has even, in his youth, participated in a pre-electronic version of the mash-up) and sees no value. Let me give him an example of a successful mash-up just so we’re on the same page: My Fair Lady.
As we all know, MFL is based upon the story of Pygmalion and Galatea. The Pygmalion story has inspired quite a few re-interpretations — mash-ups of another era. As we can see from the Wikipedia, this particular work of art has inspired many artists to try their hands at retelling the story, through words, song, or pictures…or any combination thereof. Alan Jay Lerner and Frederic Loewe just happened to find the right mix of story and song to allow their work to rise above the rest. Makes one wonder how many other attempts have been made; sure, these are likely failed attempts, from a commercial perspective, but does that necessarily mean they were lousy? Or does it mean that some were lousy and some were simply never properly marketed?
By the way, in referencing the Wikipedia, I also utilized what is probably the most incredible accomplishment of our User-Generated Content Culture (UGCC — hello, I finally get to coin a label!). Instead of keeping knowledge in the hands of a few, we have harnessed the collective knowledge of the world to create a truly interactive, exhaustive encyclopedia. Like all encyclopedias, constant revisions keep information accurate, and the world’s know-it-alls as fact checkers lessens the chance of wrong information. It’s not perfect — knowledge never is — but at least we don’t have to wait five or ten years until the next edition is published and distributed to set the facts straight.
In a way, this response to the WSJ essay is a mash-up. I’ve taken someone else’s work and, inspired by it, have created something of my own. Lee Gomes, the article’s author, seems to view UGC as amateur hour (and, hey, sometimes it is!) and dismisses it out hand:
Reading some stray person’s comment on the text I happen to be reading is about as appealing as hearing what the people in the row behind me are saying about the movie I’m watching.
The line between a “stray person” and professional reviewer, I’d argue, is very fine and often in the eye of the reader. Gomes’ comment comes, of course, after he misinterprets Kevin Kelly’s “Scan This!” as a gleeful prediction of the demise of bookshelves and libraries. Not so. The point of the article was that our culture is changing and what we now see as the absolute standard of publishing technology is evolving as end users (or readers, if you prefer) change the ways they access and use information. Kelly, as I’ve noted, terrified the publishing industry with his article. They can say he’s wrong, overly sci-fi in his predictions, or just plain living in a fantasy world; they cannot deny that he struck a nerve. The visceral response suggests there’s more right in Kelly’s piece than the old guard is ready to acknowledge. Fine, take your time, but don’t forget what happened when the music industry buried its head in the sand.
What bothers me most, however, about Gomes’ essay is the way he misses the point of user-generated content or mash-ups or remixing. There are three key elements driving the user-generated content culture:
- Community: User-generated content, whether it be comments to a blog post or photos posted to Flickr, brings like-minded individuals together. Friendships are formed, business alliances created, and ideas are exchanged. With very little effort, you can find someone who loves Tuvan throat singing as much as you do.
- Creative Expression: Whether or not the art is great, the fact that so many people are expressing themselves is a clear indication of rebellion against a society that views artistic expression as a leisure activity. As Gomes takes a swipe at a culture that is turning away from books, he neglects to note that this very same culture is reading and writing like no generation before them.
- Voice: User-generated content allows people who may have been unheard in the past speak. In the (user — reader — generated) reviews at Amazon.com for Lurlene McDaniel’s young adult novel Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, there is praise and a cry to be heard. The final comment on the main page breaks my heart.
Using those three points as criteria for determining the success of user-generated content, I’m not sure how one decides if progress is being made or not.
* – In our business, that is what is known as a bald-faced lie.
The poor guy. Even his example of a pre-internet mash-up — where they created collages to illustrate the lyrics of Pete Seeger’s “Turn, Turn Turn” — misses the point that the song itself is a mash-up from the book of Ecclesiastes.
Sure, the hype — as hype is wont to be — is over the top. But who isn’t interested in what other people have to say about art?
Finally, “mash-ups” are just using the latest technology to do what artists have done since the beginning of time: recontextualize (or remix) what has gone before.