Back on the pesky internet

Well, I am re-entering the over-heated atmosphere of the blogosphere after some time out as a stateless satellite circling in orbit. Actually, that metaphor doesn't work, because the last thing I've felt was uplifted these last few months. More like struggling in the shadowlands, weighed down by sadness and fear, unable to see the sky for the toxic fog of despair. Grief, exhaustion, real life, piles of admin, inability to cope with emails and a need to hide away and be silent. Thank you to everyone who has supported me in silence, in companionship and solidarity these last few months. It has been appreciated

Anyway, I am relaunching myself into the debate and raising my voice once more into the cacophonous febrile slum of what Andrew Keen refers to as The Cult of the Amateur as the 'great seduction' of the 'superficial observations' that are 'decimating the ranks of our cultural gatekeepers, as professional critics, journalists, editors, musicians, moviemakers, and other purveyors of expert information are being replaced (“disintermediated,” to use a FOO Camp term) by amateur bloggers, hack reviewers, homespun moviemakers, and attic recording artists.'

Oh woe, and much wailing, and gnashing of keyboards and throwing of toys.

The reasons for my recent online disappearance are well-documented, the reason for breaking silence now at this late hour of the evening is that I am about to go onto Radio 5 live and participate in a midnight debate about Is the Internet Getting Out of Control with presenter Richard Bacon, a chap from Microsoft and Mr Keen himself. I've spent the afternoon reading around what other people have to say on the subject of The Pesky Internet Isn't It Killing Culture and as an awful lot of stuff has been said already by people better qualified by me, I can only cross my fingers and hope that my midnight bletherings don't let the side down too much.

For some good debate on Mr Keen's ideas, see Newsnight comment thread, the Guardian and oh, here, here, here...

...That is one of the joys of the internet, you see, I don't have to trek off to a library, and pile through a dusty series of articles. I can just click, skim, filter, make notes and read without breaking a sweat. Has some of what I have read today been rubbish, poorly-written, uninspiring tripe? Yep - by bloggers and journalists both. Has some been thought-provoking, well-written and stimulating? Ditto. Am I capable of discerning which is which without a ''cultural gatekeeper'' holding my hand? Sure. Have I now got a fair idea of what Mr Keen is going to say and what he has said without actually having to read his book? Probably. Is this rattling Mr Keen's ivory tower? I expect so.

For the people most threatened by the revolting masses talking back are those paid to opine from the tops of the mountain: the old school, mainstream media commentators and opinion journalists. If there are people out there who will do what you do, for free, for the sheer pleasure of it, and who are quite capable of dissecting and critiquing your piece, and who, in doing so, prove themselves equally impassioned, equally well-informed, then that is a threat. Mediocrity will suffer. Too damn bad.

I remember how I used to work on film and music magazines before the days of the internet. Bumptious twenty-something hacks in creaky leather jackets would sneer and bash away, producing pages of overblown, self-referential prose, full of in-jokes and chippy snipes about the latest albums and movies. They considered themselves to be swaggering demi-gods, poorly-paid and foul-mouthed though most of them were. The internet changed all that: now, reviews of gigs and shows come in direct from the audience. The readers disagreed, they argued, they wrote with zip and fire and humour, and the old writers found themselves trounced, bitchslapped or just yawned at. And fired. Now, music and film magazines have much of their content online, and films and albums are rated by a democratic process of readers' reviews, and are the better and the fairer and the more honest for it.

Mr Keen may say that he is concerned for the fate of the musician, the artist, the author, but how many music-makers, wordsmiths and artists have pressed their noses against the glass wall of the profit-driven gatekeepers for years because they were not deemed ''commercial'' enough? How many great artists and writers died in shivering, unappreciated poverty? Surely we should celebrate the democratisation of content that allows people to vote with their feet?

There are millions of blogs, but there is also wall-to wall proliferation of mainstream media choices, hundreds of magazines, news sources, radio and TV stations and we pick and stitch together our own media landscapes that reflect our own interests and prejudices. We shape our own window onto the world. To lambast bloggers for raising our squeaky voices and being part of this crowded landscape is to miss the point: nobody forces anybody to read blogs at gunpoint, and blogs are in any case, not billed as news sources but opinion sources, voices that you can tune in and out at will, or switch off entirely. Much like the pages and pages of comment I pick through in the weekend newspaper supplements, or the magazines I choose to leave on the shelf, or the Talk radio I don't tune into.


There has been messianic talk of a 'new connectivity', Web 2.0 as a successor to the 'human potential movement', how we're all wired now into a hive mind, a collective consciousness, a democratic creativity, we the media, we the audience. That's just as overblown as the Luddite snobbery that purses its lips and dismisses all user-generated content as the proles stampeding outside the gates of the Winter Palace. The internet is a tool, nothing more. How it is used reflects human behaviour.

And how you react to it says much about your faith in, or mistrust of, human nature. I'm pleased to say I come down on the side of it being positive. Messy, yes, muddled, contradictory, with many failings and flaws, and with genius and sadness and joy and sweetness and nonsense and venality and viciousness all muddled up together. That's what being human is. That's what we are. That's what our internet says about us, and to be human is to be amateur, to be flawed, to be learning, to be uncontrollable, to be free, to be real.