Friday, April 11, 2008

Sound more like everyone else than anyone else sounds like everyone else

Lee Siegal, argues in Against The Machine, that the measure of internet viral success is pageviews. And a high pageview often means "sounding more like everyone else than anyone else is souding like everyone else".

"Mentos in a Coke" with a twist. Mascara and androgynous tears for Britney. A motivational speaker mimics thirty years of dance moves. Forget the Oscars, we have the YouTube Video awards. One implication is that knowledge is devolving into information. And web information has a half-life of about one day. In a week you're off the page. Information is devolving into spiky noise. Perhaps Francis Fukuyama's The End of History was prescient in ways he didn't anticipate?

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