The Democratization of Culture

I must say that I am enjoying my embedded videos. I just checked in to see what YouTube had put up there, and clicked on a rather nice poetry reading. This may be the real use of these things- a constant trolling for new, relevant and interesting content, not necessarily from traditional sources. We have all become accustomed to getting our stuff through "authorized channels"- department stores, newspapers, published sources and (dare I say?) libraries. In this model, the validation process is built into the production and distribution process, the theory being akin to peer-review for scholarly works or market forces in the case of books and movies. The reasoning is that these businesses are in it for the money, and the money is in what people want: ergo the publishers and producers are giving us what we want. BUT are they? I think the whole Web 2.0 thing proves that we are not getting what we want from the traditional sources.

After viewing some quite professional music on the Baeble site, seeing some quite amazing videos and photographs on YouTube and Flickr, it occurs to me that what we are really witnessing here is a total democratization of culture.

If it's still up there, check out- ....darn, it's gone. Now I'll have to search YouTube to find it again, but I will.

Wait- it's back! It's called "When Mystery Winks and Smiles". If it floats by, please click on it and it will play. This is not actually immediately obvious on the widget, and may not work in all browsers, but it sure is fun.