Failed Assumptions

A Book Review

The title of Andrew Keen’s new book,

The Cult of the Amateur

: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture (2007 by Cuurency Books, a division of Doubleday ISBN 978-0-385-52080-5), makes a huge claim, one that the book itself fails to justify or live up to anywhere in the work. The inside cover book flap explains Keen’s primary assertion with a bit more detail:

“Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today’s new participatory Web 2.0 and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that form the fabric of American achievement.”

So Keen’s basic claim is that the Internet, by allowing anyone and everyone to publish their writing, artwork, music, thoughts, and opinions to the world via the Web, is actually ruining our society and making us all less creative and innovative as a whole.

Wow, just . . . wow. You know, if Keen weren’t so consistently rigid in his ideas and assertions, I’d almost have to think he was kidding with this entire book, that he had his tongue planted firmly in his cheek while he typed this diatribe out. Sadly I don’t think that’s the case however, after reading the whole book and having just a couple days to digest Keen’s ideas. Or maybe I should say try to digest, as not only didn’t Keen’s words sit well in my stomach, there also isn’t really enough meat on his ideas to even try to logically evaluate them.

To begin with, nowhere does the author define or even attempt to define just exactly what an amateur is, in a way that’s broad enough to encompass the myriad of examples he cites within the work. At times he essentially labels anyone who writes a blog as an amateur, or anyone who posts a video on YouTube or a similar site, completely ignoring the large number of professional writers, journalists, and other creative artists who write and otherwise post their creations to the Internet by any number of means, including blogs. And worse, it seems Keen has a blog himself, filled with content promoting his book. (http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/). Oh but I forget, he’s a professional not an amateur, so we should all be keenly interested in whatever drivel he spills out to the Web about riding in limos for his book tour appearances and so on. Keen goes on to make broad and callous generalizations in dismissing anything created and uploaded by anyone who isn’t an expert or professional as having no merit or value whatsoever.

Since Keen never defines amateur or delineates the qualities or characteristics that so importantly distinguishes them from experts and professionals in his mind, I’m simply reverting to the idea of an amateur as being someone who doesn’t make their primary living from the writing or art being discussed. Even that simple and time-proven definition can’t really properly be applied to Keen’s words or logic, since he also totally ignores the fact that many Internet “amateurs” – people he wouldn’t accept as either a qualified expert or certified professional in any way – have and do actually make money from the time and effort they devote to creating, distributing, and promoting their own works.

Keen also never explains with any clarity how the phenomenon he claims to be documenting involving amateurs is a cult in any way. In fact, I’m not sure Keen even uses the word “cult” anywhere in the book besides the title, leaving you wondering if it’s only real purpose is for the dramatic value and potential sales it brings by being in the title. He does bemoan many times how the label of amateur is sometimes celebrated and worn as a badge of honor in various Web settings, but there’s never a serious effort to attach any real meaning to the cult reference in his title beyond that.

Keen’s use of exaggerated and overly dramatic language isn’t restricted to just the title, however, as evidenced by the title of the very first chapter, “The Great Seduction”. The seduction he’s referring to is his claim that the “democratization” of media and public access represented by the incredible pervasiveness and ease of access of the Internet, often heralded as progress by many others, is the deceit under which the huge numbers of unwashed and uneducated amateurs are allowed to spread their undeserving thoughts and creations with the world.

In keeping with Keen’s obvious predilection for hyperbole and the dramatic, he also can’t seem to resist throwing large sections about the dangers of Internet gambling and pornography into the book, although they have even less to do with the whole amateur versus expert debate than the word cult. He casually mentions amateur pornography sites and college students who become obsessed with playing online poker but never really explains how they fit into his entire amateur-bashing polemic. But he sure wants to let you know that sites like Pornotube are out there. I’d never heard of it before. Had you? I wonder if they paid him to include the multiple references?

Which brings me to my most serious problems with the book and my main reason for writing this article / review of it. One of the detrimental effects of the “cult of the amateur” that Keen cites is the “blurring of lines” between reality and fiction, between what he would call fact and opinion, and sometimes between marketing and content that can easily happen in the venue of the Internet. As a creator who works both professionally and as an independent / amateur creator in field that does exactly that – blurs the lines of reality and fact and fiction – this is a subject I’ve thought long and hard about, and Keen’s half-conceived rant about it gives me the perfect opportunity to voice some of those thoughts.

I’ve had reporters and potential clients ask me before if what I do in creating ARGs – making fictional websites, the compelling stories told by character blogs, uploading dramatic and scripted video or audio pieces, and so on – isn’t deceptive, fraudulent, or harmful in some way. After all, isn’t there a danger that people might stumble across game content in the form of a webpage, a video on YouTube, or a character’s MySpace page and believe it’s real? And what about the record or history these games create, presenting false and deceptive visions of the past in the often very realistic artifacts they leave behind?

My reply to those questions and to Andrew Keen’s assertions in The Cult of the Amateur always come down to this one question.

What is the purpose of the Internet? Who ever decided that the Internet was supposed to be the ultimate factual reference source and record for the world? Even if it were possible to do so (which it obviously is not), how different would the Internet be if only the experts and the professionals (according to Keen), the very same people already in control of all of the other major conduits of media and communication (TV, radio, print, and so on) were allowed to create and post content to it? Would it present and archive a realistic, factual, and comprehensive picture of our society and world as Keen seems to think it should? Would an Internet controlled by those same people be as successful and popular as it is now, as world and society transforming as it is now?

And going beyond Keen’s limited and narrow-minded vision, let me return to my original assertion about the purpose of the Internet. While Keen and others may envision the Web as the ultimate collection of researched, academically confirmed, and well articulated facts in the world, I see it as the ultimate artistic canvas, both a creative tool and a distribution channel for works that could not exist in any other medium (in the case of what I create – ARGs and other forms of online immersive media). And I refuse to give up my right to use it as such.

If you have a problem with Wikipedia – one of Keen’s main demons in The Cult of the Amateur – because it allows anyone to post and edit entries, then start your own website or company that either presents a viable online alternative or that attempts to educate the public as to that one particular website’s flaws. I personally think that most people who go to Wikipedia and realize that they or anyone else can post and alter the entries there are smart enough to understand that this means the entries may not all be entirely factual or correct. But hey, if you want to make that your crusade, knock yourself out. Do whatever you feel compelled to do to make your portion of the Internet the ultimate resource for expert and professional opinion in the world.

Me? I’ll be writing interactive online storylines, creating fictional websites, videos, and other multi-media pieces, and looking for new ways to constantly make everything I create more realistic, immersive, and engaging, to further blur the lines between reality and entertainment, between fact and fiction, and between medium and content. Whether as a professional working on multi-million dollar marketing campaigns or as an amateur and independent creative artist looking to expand the boundaries of cross-media storytelling, I’m willing to share the Internet with you. I expect Keen and others like him to be willing to do the same.

Tagged as: Alternate Reality Game, ARG, Dave Szulborski