Massively Amateur Culture

Last week I gave three different presentations at three very different venues. The venues were Internet2, which is the next generation network that runs 100 times faster than the present Internet; MITX (Massachusetts Innovation and Technology eXchange), which had a special panel on digital marketing; and finally the conference Media in Transition at MIT. My topics included amateur education online, viral videos, and fashion in Second Life.

Underlying all three topics is my primary research interest, which I'll call for lack of a better term, "massively amateur culture." I look at ways that massive numbers of amateurs--65,000 videos uploaded to YouTube everyday; half a million animations at NewGrounds; and Second Life, a 3D virtual world created by its user-players, having virtual acreage equivalent to the area of Singapore--produce works of culture. As my presentation titles suggest, these cover an enormous range, from virtual educational institutions; to compelling 90-second video serials; to a thriving, for-profit virtual fashion industry in massively multiplayer worlds.

One interesting result is that these cultures are robust enough that they begin to compete with mainstream culture. There are many implications of this, but here are two interesting ones.

First, how does "mainstream culture" (e.g., large corporations, media conglomerates, political parties) make use of these new media as platforms to support their endeavors? This is a hot question in many circles, but it is not the only question we should be considering.

Second, and much more interesting to me, is to what extent do amateur cultures and mainstream cultures threaten each other, and what might their peaceful coexistence look like? Right now they have an uneasy coexistence in large part because whole populations still watch TV.

• How will this balance play out as a generation of MMOG players and MySpace users stop watching cable TV?


• Will the "corporate invasion" ruin, save, or barely affect a place like Second Life?


• What happens to politics when some of the most careful research and analysis comes from explicitly one-sided sources, rather than professional journalists?
  

It will be interesting to see where these trains are really going, but without a doubt massive groups of collaborating amateurs are threatening the territory of smaller numbers of trained professionals ensconced in traditional media.