Nerd Arts

Andrew Keen is an opportunistic pig.

“My problem with (web 2.0/the internet) is that it fundamentally undermines mainstream media”
Andrew Keen

I won’t go into all the reasons why you should hate this piece of human waste, however one of the most troubling is that I believe he saw an oppurtunity to write a book which would inevitably be championed by the mainstream media, and therefore make him a lot of money. On top of this he is a huge hypocrite because he rails against cynicism, when in fact what he is actually doing is using gullible mainstream journalists to sell his idea. He’s a great marketer, but he’s working for the dark side…:)

Here’s his latest diatribe against the current state of the internet. From NPR.
Link

I also just bought http:www.andrew-keen.com heehee:) any ideas what I should do with it?? Leave me a comment with your ideas.
andrew keen

Andrew Keen is on a mission to discredit bloggers, and cooperative internet sites such as Digg, Myspace, YouTube, Wikipedia, Reddit, and Technorati. Andrew Keen’s argument basically boils down to this. Before there were systems in place which prevented normal people from being published and read. Back in the Andrew Keen Utopia (which I’m not certain ever existed) writers had to contact a publisher who would have the expertise to see what was good and what was shit (never mind nepotism, classism, race, and gender issues here). The same went for music, as well as art. Each of these institutions had individuals (generally old white men) held the keys to an artists success. Andrew Keen believes they were good at their jobs (something I don’t necessarily disagree with) and that today there is a rise of what he calls “The Cult of the Amateur“. People who aren’t certified to give their opinions on politics are beginning to share them, and worse yet, people are reading it. Andrew Keen represents the voice of a dying print media. A mainstream media which is searching for relevance against an increasingly skeptical public. The mainstream media cheerleading of the Iraq war (prior to it beginning) and the media blackout of Ron Paul both being classic examples of a public which has now turned on the mainstream establishment press.

Andrew Keen makes a few mistakes. He believes that people should be made aware that there are viral campaigns which are funded by corporations, and that there will be product placement inside of youtube videos and the like. So what he’s preaching is basically that one should be skeptical of the current media structure on the internet. Fine, no problem with that, however what I do have a problem with is how stupid he thinks people are. The saying “I read it on the internet so it must be true” is already widely received as an ironic statement. So the public already has become savvy enough to believe that everything they read online is not always verifiable, and that they may need to acquire more sources on an issue before they make up their minds. Which leads me to my second point which is the availability of multiple sources. One can go to the Fox News website where they still refuse to use the word “crime” in conjunction with Scooter Libby, then they can hop over to CNN and see what they have to say about it, then they can do a technorati search and find out what some guy in Iowa just wrote about 15 minutes ago. (as people will do with this very article). The skepticism has more to do with the spin which is done on both sides, and leads to a more well informed public, not a dumbed down one. Watch the Jon Stewart on crossfire video to see what happens when this type of an individual goes on a show which is already supposed to represent “both sides” of an issue. The simple fact is that Both Sides no longer exist. I would consider myself generally to the left on most issues, yet I still want to see Ron Paul kick some republican ass.

Another problem that Andrew Keen makes in his theories is that he believes that there is no longer any oversight from an authoritative figure as to what is good, and what is crap. As any blogger knows, there is a huge hierarchy on the net, if you get on BoingBoing.net or the front page of Digg your blog will never be looked at the same by Google again, and your back links will give you a higher Page Rank. Sure these systems can be rigged, and there is a sort of inbreeding which probably goes on within them, however the fact still remains that it’s really hard to get people to read anything you write. I’m not calling myself an expert on the internet and political theory, maybe 100 people will read this. Andrew Keen on the other hand is calling himself an expert which breeds a sort of arrogance which in turn, of course, makes people skeptical of his message. He raises a few interesting points, and he certainly is no stranger to the net, he actually still blogs almost daily (don’t even point out the irony of that to me), and he has been running popular websites for years. Andrew Keen demonstrates a black and white view of the world mixed with an angry old man who consistently rails against the way things are now, and how it used to be better back in the day. Sorry, your time is up. Adapt or face extinction.

Another anti web 2.0 blog post (I know I know, don’t even bother) from Michael Gorman
andrew keen

Another article about the effect that YouTube and the internet are having on the current presidential campaign. Once again, there’s a huge elephant in the room, and that elephant has won almost every single post debate poll after the debate (before they stopped conducting them). That elephant is Ron Paul, and I’ll be honest. I’m going to get a little traffic bump just by mentioning his name. Whether or not this is part of a continuing internet cycle is yet to be determined. Whether it is Ron Paul or an I Phone, the traffic results will be fairly similar if you write about them. I just don’t understand how the mainstream media can continuously write about the youtube effect on elections and not even mention Paul at all. It dosn’t matter if you support him or not, one simply has to acknowledge that he owns the political space on the web. The only thing that comes close is the pro Barack O Bama anti Hillary Clinton 1984 youtube video. If you don’t believe me, that’s fine, after the next Republican presidential debate go to YouTube, then to the “News and Politics” section, and you will see for yourself a handful of Mitt Romney videos (generally from the official campaign site) maybe a John McCain saying something stupid video, and the rest will be all Ron Paul. After going to YouTube, just cruise on over to Technorati.com and have a look at the current tag cloud. I guarantee you after the next debate, Ron Paul’s name will be the largest once again.

So whats this say for the mainstream media? Well, instead of some sort of conspiracy that they want to exclude Ron Paul from the entire political process (something that the Republican Party really is trying to do) I think it shows just how out of touch print media and television is with the internet. Video killed the Radio Star, and the Internet is about to Pwn all the saps left in Television, Film, and Print. Adapt or face extinction.

Both articles point to the fact that the most viewed videos are for John McCain, and Hillary Clinton. But in both circumstances these were videos that were negative to the respective candidates. Sure, a guy falling on the ice is going to get more views than a girl giving a bunny a flower. Big Surprise. If you want to see what’s hot you look at the number of actual videos about a candidate. If you want to gauge which campaign is more fired up, you look at how many ordinary people are making videos to support a certain candidate. Anyone who frequents youtube knows one thing. Ron Paul absolute destroys any other candidate in terms of influence, as well as numbers on the internet. And I’m not saying this as someone who is going to vote for Paul (I think saying who you will vote for this early is a bit ridiculous) all I’m fed up with is this sort of journalistic dishonesty. Either they know they’re lying, or they’re just plain stupid, and don’t know shit about the internet.

Current video count on YouTube as of June 13th (one must also take into account that Ron Paul was virtually non existent on YouTube prior to the debates)
Ron Paul 13,400
Hillary Clinton 11,100
Barack Obama 11,000
John McCain 4,660
Rudy Giuliani 3,380
Mitt Romney 2,590

If you don’t believe me go to youtube, and conduct the experiment for yourself.

From the wall street journal:
YouTube Fuels — and Foils — Campaigns
By AMY SCHATZ

WASHINGTON — For months, the presidential wannabes have been churning out serious, talking-to-the-camera videos for YouTube. So far, viewers prefer the spontaneous, unauthorized, less flattering fare.

Traffic on YouTube related to the 2008 presidential race spiked in March and April, largely on two unofficial, critical videos, one about Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, the other about Republican John McCain, according to a study of YouTube traffic by Nielsen/Net Ratings.

An anti-Clinton “1984″ video, in which the New York senator is portrayed as a Big Brother-ish figure, accounted for about 75% of all traffic to candidate-related videos on YouTube in March, Nielsen found.
Link

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A somewhat better view can be found here

ron paul

game, game, game, and again game is a game created by Jason Nelson which is both an interactive flash game but also a ruthless rant against the glossy clean design which bombards the net. Jason attempts to deconstruct this cleanliness by creating an interactive game that is neither clean nor easily readable.

from the website
Game, game, game, and again game is a digital poem/game/net artwork hybrid of sorts. There are 13 curious levels filled with poetics, hand drawn creatures, scribbles backgrounds and other poorly made bits. The theme (cringe) hovers around our many failed/error filled/compelling belief systems, from consumerism to monotheism. But more, it repels the tyranny (cringe) of clean design and cold smoothness of much of the web/net-art.
Play game, game, game, and again game

Regardless of what you think about Mitt Romney, this is a decent portrayal of a candidate desperately trying to figure out what the hell to do with the internet. One thing that is obviously lacking in this video is reference to the main internet candidate which is Ron Paul. Paul dominates youtube continually, and is also currently one of the top tags on technorati. This is going to be a youtube election, and it will be interesting to watch who screws up and becomes the next Howard Dean Scream. That’s what these politicians really care about, it’s not all this horse shit about reaching out to find what people want, it’s about damage control, and having a team on staff ready to contain it when a candidate screws up.

Visa has recently announced a new line of credit cards which give points to your World of Warcraft, or Second Life virtual accounts. Sounds good enough right? Well, while you may want to think that a company like Visa would have the best of intentions, and commend them on their savvy for entering the virtual market so early, the truth I believe is somewhat different. First of all Visa is a credit card company, and that means they make money buy gathering interest on credit. The younger they can get you the better. Im not celebrating a new plan to add gold to your WOW account for every dollar (on specified items) that you spend in the real world. This is merely a clever way to get younger people interested in Credit Cards. Most likely focused grouped in marketing departments for months before it was unleashed. Don’t buy into it. Check out this weird form detailing the billing information. Theres more footnotes and exceptions there than I would ever care to deal with.

As many of you are probably already aware, a vast virtual gold market is being developed off of virtual gold mining in world of warcraft. The gold in WOW has become the largest most tangible form of virtual currency to have ever existed. And with western gamers spending their hard earned dollars (or their allowance) on gold comes a new economic system which doesn’t differ too much from reality. A growing industry in China is setting up large defunct buildings that resemble LAN parties and paying employees near sweatshop salaries to sit in front of a computer all day and mine virtual gold. The gold is then re sold to wealthier gamers in the west.

The practice will most likely grow very quickly since Asia is a highly wired continent where internet access is plentiful, unemployment a constant problem, and the workforce tech savvy and young. World of Warcraft gold could become the Nike shoe of the 21st century.

Watch Ge Jin’s documentary Chinese Gold Farmers

Remember when these little gifs, and the hamster dance were the cutting edge. Whenever I stumble upon one of these old gif I just can’t resist saving it. I’m sure there is a large archive of old gif files, but I still like finding mine on my own. Kind of like using a metal detector. Most of what you find is crap, but for some reason you keep on colelcting it.

America’s Funniest Home Videos debuted in 1990, and with it came a new type of couch surfing voyeurism that has persisted to present day. A 1990 Newsday article noted that the show could be divided into eight categories: kids, weddings, falling down, adults, sports/hobbies, babies, birthday parties, and animals. Add in a little Bob Saget magic and you’ve got a recipe for some great low brow voyeurism. I don’t care how many times you see a three year old hit his dad in the balls with a baseball bat, it’s always funny.

The rise in people doing stupid things had less to do with a declining national IQ and more to do with the popularity and the availability of the video camera (cam corders as well called them back in the day). One of the strange revelations of the camcorder era was the fact that people will videotape just about anything they are doing. Uncle peewee is installing a new toilet? well break out the camcorder, that’s a moment worth capturing!

Looking back at the reruns of America’s Funniest Home Videos (and weaker variations which included “Show me the Funny” and “America’s Funniest People” which was hosted by fellow Full Houser Dave Coulier and some hot chick) we can begin to see how absolutely lame we were for being transfixed on the seemingly normal mishaps of absolutely normal people. Within two years the reality tv meme would take another step, and create the first season of The Real World: New York. The American reality television voyeurs had taken a bite, and they like what they tasted. Within 7 years the Reality Bug would head overseas to the Netherlands where the first Big Brother program was filmed.

Now we are living in the Youtube era where we have an estimated 65000 new videos every day uploaded. Thats a lot of wedding disasters. Youtube made it absolutely possible to see exactly what people want to see, and I can guarantee the method of who comes out first every day is much more scientific than an applause meter. Sure you’ve got the standard tits, ass, motorcycle accidents, and the new phenomenon of actually decent web cam punditry. However, the thing that youtube can also do is make and break careers. From Don Imus and Ron Paul to Lonelygirl15 and smosh, nobody can escape the glare. All we need is a animated Bob Saget overdubbing himself as a puppy dog.

Well it had to happen didn’t it. I stumbled onto nerdpr0n.com (a geek and nerd porn website) very innocently. I wanted to find a picture of a hot girl on a computer to use as the “do you want to exchange links with me” section of my blog, and so after exhaustively searching on google images I decided to hop on over to askjolene.com and ask her. To my surprise I found a new site of this girl named Anna who enjoys “sudoku puzzles, reading comic books, tinkering with new linux distros, and gaming” oh yeah, and getting naked on her webcam for other nerds around the world. I guess it is inevitable that these normally nerdy girls would star becoming internet rock stars making only the best in geek and nerd porn. Hell they’re probably a lot cute r than most of the fake silicone bombarding the net today. You go Anna! shake that nerdy ass Give all those nerds out there something to look at. She’s got a decent free section available at the link below.
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