Who is you?
Posted: Monday, December 18, 2006 10:21 AM by Will Femia
Time magazine's declaration of "you" as the person of the year comes in an interesting context given some of the news items we looked at last week.
The headlines about blog numbers peaking indicate that there is a finitude to the blogosphere and it's not the number of people on the planet. That means that bloggers and other amateur content providers aren't "you" but a particular "them." That is to say, it's not everyone who contributes to user-generated sites. There's an argument that it's not even most people. Granted, it's possible for anyone to contribute so I guess Time is correct in that respect. But I do think it's misleading to suggest that everybody's doing it.
All weekend I was thinking about David Pogue blogging at the New York Times about the age-old problem of online incivility. While the standard answers have to do with anonymity and the dehumanizing effects of communicating through plastic keys and a glass screen, I'm still not convinced that "people" are uncivil online. Everyone doesn't comment on message boards and everyone doesn't write e-mail to columnists. That's a very self-selected population and it's wrong to draw any conclusions about "you" from their behavior. We might even consider that it's not the Web that makes some people uncivil but rather that they're already uncivil and the Web just gives them voice. Everyone else either minds their own business or knows enough to realize that flailing about online is a dead end exercise. (Or they're civil.)
I should point out that I say all of this as exactly the kind of loquacious blowhard who keeps three blogs including one professional blog and has been involved in some degree of making a spectacle of himself since at least my 3rd grade recorder recital. Part of how I know that Time's "you" is not everyone is the blank looks I get when I tell people what I do and what my hobbies are. In fact, more often than blank looks I get a "get a life" look. Don't these people know they're "you" too?
And speaking of the New York Times and last week's news, you'd think that the addition of social site interface buttons to the Times' site is yet another indication of why "you" are the people of the year. But is the Times really interested in what "you" have to say? Of course not. But then, can you blame them? Would they really be hearing from you? Maybe for some people reading this, and maybe, as Time magazine says, "on a scale never seen before," but my experience tells me that most of you are not Time's "you." And by the way, take a look at Time.com and tell me how interested they appear to be in what you have to say.
This weekend I spent some more time in Second Life and I'm a little less convinced by Clay Shirky's bashing of the virtual world last week. As usual I explored aimlessly and wondered what the interest in the place is, but then I found a show with an audience. Basically it was streaming audio with an accompanying chat room, except that it was in Second Life, so it was a stage with seated avatar hosts and a guest avatar and an audience sitting on chairs. All things being equal, I think the Second Life interface is preferable to a browser based audio with flat text chat. I'm not sure how such an event would scale, but it was a good indication of how Second Life can be a superior experience and not just a cumbersome novelty.
But to the point of Time Magazine's person of the year, the subject of the show I was attending was programming and coding for Second Life. And in fact, most of the activity I've seen in Second Life has been building the world. It's like a giant construction site. It might be a place that "you" construct and "you" make your own character and "you" decide where to go. But in my exploration so far, it's very much a "them" world. A place where people who know how to build and manipulate virtual worlds go to practice and learn and exercise their creativity. As I struggle to remember what the keystroke is for focusing my view on something as my avatar bashes his head against a restricted area, I'm acutely aware of the fact that I'm not, to use Time's designation, a you. At least, not until "you" build a little more.
Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight. I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals? I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?
The answer is, you do.
Except when you don't (fifth paragraph). No, "you do" is not the answer. The democratization of music through Rock n' Roll and the garage band doesn't mean that you are a musician even if more people can claim that title than used to be able to. Maybe eventually we'll come to recognize a new social class of online exhibitionists and they'll have a name so their beleaguered spouses can explain, "Oh, he's on the computer. He's a ..." but that name probably won't be "you."
Here's a biased list of related links that I clicked to make myself feel better about my own opinion:
- Later this week I'll be publishing reader mail, which I always appreciate and which often offers insights and leads I'd never discover myself (and by the way, it's almost always civil). So while it may sound like I'm being critical of the kind of person who is Time's "you" in fact I'm appreciative (and a colleague). And furthermore, if Time naming "you" the person of the year helps in the legal struggle to keep online material more shareable and less bound by copyright and DRM then I'm all for it.
- You might not be the person of the year
- "The question is, what about the people not taking part in creating/using any of this user-generated-content?"
- But enough about you - "Does it endanger what passes for the national conversation if we're all talking at once?" Again, I disagree that we're all talking -at once or otherwise.
- "Well, it looks like we were off by two years." - I actually think this cover would have been more appropriate two years ago. Then the headline would have been at the vanguard of two years of extreme growth in the fields of social networking and UGC. Time would have appeared prescient.
