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So the week before last on The Colbert Report, Stephen makes the following generalization about bloggers: “They have a laptop, an axe to grind and their virginity.”

Well, I have the laptop. And my axe. And…I wonder if there’s a prize for having all three?

Anyway, I was surfing around the net last weekend, figuring to post something smarmy about that generalization and was looking for another pic of Stephen to use. Found several. From there, I got sucked into the vortex of clicking on link after link after link until I ended up at NoFactZone.net (a Colbert Report fanblog). Since I tape The Colbert Report during the week and catch up on the weekends I was about to quickly exit the site to avoid any spoilers, but the post about a preview of this past Thursday night’s guest, Andrew Keen, caught my eye.

To make a long story short, Mr. Keen has lamented about the progress of the Internet, specifically that which is being called Web 2.0. The basis of which is the reason why Time magazine name me Person of the Year. Okay, not me specifically but “YOU!” all of us geeks with the laptops, axes, our virginity (or not), a corner of our parents basement and way too much time on our hands creating various dreck and drivel and clogging up the Internet with it. Apparently, Mr. Keen is to the point of nearly losing sleep over this. We’re all so wrapped up in being authors/creators that we’re no longer part of the audience, he says. Anybody can write a story, make a video or record a song, post it to the Internet and enjoy about fifteen seconds of fame.

He goes on to say…

Yes, the people have finally spoken. And spoken. And spoken.

Now they won’t shut up. The problem is that YOU! have forgotten how to listen, how to read, how to watch… We’ve lost truth and interest in the objectivity of mainstream media because of our self-infatuation with the subjectivity of our own messages. It’s what, in “Cult of the Amateur,” I call digital narcissism. A flattened media is a personalized, chaotic media without that essential epistemological anchor of truth. The impartiality of the authoritative, accountable expert is replaced by murkiness of the anonymous amateur. When everyone claims to be an author, there can be no art, no reliable information, no audience.

Doesn’t he know, as Don Henley has said, “there are no facts, there is no truth. Just data to be manipulated?” I don’t know what epistemological means but apparently Mr. Keen doesn’t have cable, or he’d know already that the mainstream media is already chaotic and seemingly lacking in truth, impartiality and accountability. How many times have we heard about the left wing media? The right wing media? What media are we supposed to believe now anyway? We have grown to the point that we no longer accept mainstream media as the “be all end all” of our everyday worlds. Some of us have become cynical and we take what we hear and see with a grain of salt. This is why blogs pop up. We seek out alternative perspectives and opinions. We seek to share our own alternative perspectives and opinions.

Of course, there is, indeed, complete and total crap out there, this I do not refute. For all I know, Mr. Keen probably thinks that what I produce on the Internet is crap. Crap is in the eye of beholder. (And it’s probably not very comfortable to have crap in the eye to begin with…)

And this isn’t all limited to opinion/editorials. Mr. Keen is including the creative arts of writing and music as well, along with film making. Anybody with a camera can shoot some footage, edit it together with their computer and slap it up on YouTube. I’ve been writing fanfiction for years and posting my stories online. Musicians can record their songs and post them to the Internet and find an audience. All these things can be done without having to go through an audition, or try to find a publisher or try to find a producer. No studio backing, no need for a record deal, no nasty letters saying your manuscript sucks and we only want “established” writers. No middle man.

You know though….even before the advent of the Internet, there has been mainstream dreck and crap in our films, music and books since the advent of films, music and books. Although it seems as though everybody wants to be an author/creator, we are still part of the audience and yes Mr. Keen we’re still listening, reading and watching. And the audience will decide if what’s being presented it worth partaking in. Or, as Stephen Colbert has said “the market has spoken.”

And the market says, I got about six people who repeatedly visit my blog. Dreck?

Anyway, I was extremely fired up about this last weekend but then I realized that truthfully, The Colbert Report should not be making me think this deep about anything. But now that I have caught up on this past week’s episodes and have seen the interview with Andrew Keen I have to ask….

Who the @#$%! is Andrew Keen anyway?! What makes him so damn special to make the decision that what I create and post on the Internet is crap? Oh he’s published a book. Whup-dee-doo. So I’m supposed to accept his conclusion about the internet as the be all end all of the world because….because….because he’s written a book about it?

Phbpthbpthtpbhtp!!