If you haven’t done so yet, you should read Lanier’s piece over at Edge. Interesting stuff, although a bit alarmist, and perhaps elitist in spots. To compare things like Wikipedia with Maoism, even if it makes for a catchy title seems a bit too extreme of a stance to take. I’m not disagreeing with the essay here—it has lots of good insight, as one would expect from Lanier, on online meta phenomenon—I just think some of its rhetoric is a bit much and makes the essay come off a bit heavy-handed.
In one section, he critiques American Idol for being a sort of collectivism through its voting for a winner, but comments that if John Lennon were in the competition, he wouldn’t have won, or if he did he wouldn’t be the John Lennon we know. I agree, but I’m not sure I’d give it the “that’s a bad thing” spin that Lanier does. While a genius like Lennon is a rare thing, I am willing to bet that there have been many more Lennons who never got noticed than the geniuses we see, and American Idol for all its … American Idolness does expose more people and allow for more chances for overlooked genius to be found, which overall is a good thing.
Also, there’s one bit that Lanier seems to miss in the American Idol phenomenon. It’s not just the masses voting in a scenario where the masses have no taste whatsoever (the somewhat elitist position that Lanier takes throughout the essay; note: I don’t disagree with it in the least; I’m simply pointing out what it is and that there is a notable slant to the essay). There are also 3 very opinionated and loud-mouthed judges who voice their opinions weekly on the show. As annoying as Paula Abdul or Simon Cowell can be, they are influencers in the competition. Their comments and their presentation on what’s going on on the stage live, I think, affects the way a lot of those people sitting at home texting in their votes decide who to vote for, as do the commercials for the show, and the non-live pre-edited sections of the show. There is an editorial voice to American Idol, keeping it from being a complete free-for-all vote, but it’s an editorial voice of influencers, pushing the show into the realm of results that work the best for them and keeping their audience (while also working to keep their influence somewhat out of the limelight). Watch an episode of So You Think You Can Dance, another creation of Cowell’s, and you will see this same pattern of influence in action.
The same can be said of many of the online collectivisms popping up all over the web. They have their influencers. Digg has Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht drinking beer and cracking jokes each week on Diggnation. They are influencers who others in the Digg community look to and follow in their voting patterns. Wikipedia has the regular users, but also has a structure of influencers in place through moderators and the people behind the scenes keeping the tool going. No matter how purely collective they are trying to be, there are influencers in there influencing the thing whether they know it or not.
What’s missing, I think in online collectivisms today, is a good solid service that simultaneously taps into the benefits of the online collectivism, the processes of the group mind and the democracy of a large group working together (or working against one another from diametrically opposed stances, while still in their oppositions working together contributing to the thing), while maintaining a layer of influencers, but with an added bit of transparency and honesty about those influencers. That would help add the voice and context needed by many of these communities and help readers better judge what grows up within the communities and better spot the useful bits amongst the numerous bits of juvenalia that pop up all around.
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