That's what you get from having a huge vast thing like the Internet and giving people free reign, though.
I remember joining my first forum - I was 13, and everybody who said anything and sounded decisive was a "pro" to me. I remember telling my father that Squaresoft was making Final Fantasy games based on the work these people were doing, and getting mad when he told me that wasn't the case, because this guy said it online. I also find that every time I join a new "scene" online, there's the same reaction. When I was a big user of TheAdminZone, there were a lot of people running huge forums that knew their shit, and a lot who just got lucky and would spout pretty stupid things, and it took me a little while to realize that these was this disparity. Same thing with the writers on DeviantART, the community managers at Zoints, the popular blog scene at Tumblr, and especially with Gawker, which is the one that I feel makes the biggest rift in my online communities today.
On the Internet, everybody's a noob and an authority. If I want to diss Tim O'Reilly and say he doesn't know anything, I can, and somebody will read my diss and be influenced by it. On the other hand, there're a lot of people online who are famous for being famous: people like Julia Allison or Cory Doctorow come to mind.
Finally, there's the fact that we're all still pretty much n00bs here. The Internet's less than 20: this isn't like the world of, say, movie making, which has a century's knowledge to it. Furthermore, everybody's aware of this lack of precedent, and so everybody wants to be the person that gets known for the equivalent of Orwell's tips on writing. We're a very postmodern medium in that regard, because the discussion happens on the same plane as the publication. Everybody's as much of a celebrity as other people say they are, and there is no distinct authority.
I'd be willing to bet that 20 years into movie-making things were similar. In fact, the one similarly young industry today - the gaming industry - suffers from the same problems of amateurism and groupthink.
>On the other hand, there're a lot of people online who are famous for being famous: people like Julia Allison or Cory Doctorow come to mind.
that line doesn't seem to follow logically from it's previous one. seems almost like you went out of your way to diss these people on the internet. in any case, i have to say that i've enjoyed what few i've read from doctorow.
I try not to take needless potshots: in this case I think the two names I picked fit my argument perfectly. These aren't people who are famous thanks to credentials or expertise: they're famous because it's easy to be famous online regardless of aptitude or skill.
Julia Allison is pretty harmless - she's a socialite, and part of being a socialite has always been fame-seeking - but Doctorow is a lot more insidious. Here's a guy who has no credentials other than that he started a big blog, and somehow he's become an authority on art and writing and copyright. I think that a part of his popularity is that he's championing something people like to like - end copyright and all that - and so even though his writings are fairly clueless, people read them because they're simple and agreeable. But it pisses me off when I see him in newspapers writing about things like the future of art, because there are a lot of really bright people (Clay Shirky?) writing about this who actually know somewhat what they're talking about, and they're all better writers than Doctorow is too, but they're less read because they have less public attention.
Sometimes I think there ought to be a movement online attempting to highlight those bright people who don't seek attention. I don't know how it would work objectively, but I still feel that some very bright people get overlooked.
How are his writings "fairly clueless"? Any examples? I've found him to be a very clear thinker wrt to copyright and privacy. I've read a little of his fiction and that wasn't bad either. The blog he started btw is also reliably interesting.
Side note: Good News, I think this Allison person is less famous that you think. I'd never heard of her at least.
Doctorow is a "clear thinker" if you're fine with his oversimplifying matters and making a lot of assumptions about things that he shouldn't be making. He's a bit too bloodthirsty about killing copyright: he seems all-too-willing to abandon all traditions just because things are changing. I don't think that "get rid of everything" is at all a measured response to the issues at hand. Similarly, whenever he talks about art I want to jab a fork between my eyes. The guy doesn't know what he's talking about. He knows less about what he's talking about than I do on the same issues, and I'm not particularly well-versed in the subject.
His fiction is terrible. That he was nominated for awards with that one story of his just saddens me. It's cliched, poorly-written, and really not all that interesting.
doctorow doesn't have a "get rid of everything" position on copyright. i don't know where you got that from. He argues creators should still maintain a monopoly on selling their art.
but back to your original claim, you may not like his writing but you have to acknowledge that other people do. not only does he write, but he does so about important and relevant topics, and from a point of view too often ignored by a large part of society. in the very least, to write him off as a paris hilton is dishonest if not asinine.
Compare Doctorow to somebody like Clay Shirky, as I did. The one essentially uses his popular "interesting links" blog to give his uninformed opinion on things. (It's not a completely awful opinion, but it's certainly uninformed.) The other does pretty extensive research, writes some fascinating pieces and writes them well, and, because he's not the editor of a pop blog, doesn't get nearly as much attention as Doctorow.
That's what bugs me. Doctorow is certainly a Paris Hilton: he does things for attention and he uses that attention to do things he couldn't do otherwise. That doesn't make him stupid (nor do I think Paris Hilton is particularly stupid, though she certainly plays the part): it just makes him somebody who doesn't deserve the box he gets.
I remember joining my first forum - I was 13, and everybody who said anything and sounded decisive was a "pro" to me. I remember telling my father that Squaresoft was making Final Fantasy games based on the work these people were doing, and getting mad when he told me that wasn't the case, because this guy said it online. I also find that every time I join a new "scene" online, there's the same reaction. When I was a big user of TheAdminZone, there were a lot of people running huge forums that knew their shit, and a lot who just got lucky and would spout pretty stupid things, and it took me a little while to realize that these was this disparity. Same thing with the writers on DeviantART, the community managers at Zoints, the popular blog scene at Tumblr, and especially with Gawker, which is the one that I feel makes the biggest rift in my online communities today.
On the Internet, everybody's a noob and an authority. If I want to diss Tim O'Reilly and say he doesn't know anything, I can, and somebody will read my diss and be influenced by it. On the other hand, there're a lot of people online who are famous for being famous: people like Julia Allison or Cory Doctorow come to mind.
Finally, there's the fact that we're all still pretty much n00bs here. The Internet's less than 20: this isn't like the world of, say, movie making, which has a century's knowledge to it. Furthermore, everybody's aware of this lack of precedent, and so everybody wants to be the person that gets known for the equivalent of Orwell's tips on writing. We're a very postmodern medium in that regard, because the discussion happens on the same plane as the publication. Everybody's as much of a celebrity as other people say they are, and there is no distinct authority.
I'd be willing to bet that 20 years into movie-making things were similar. In fact, the one similarly young industry today - the gaming industry - suffers from the same problems of amateurism and groupthink.