"The point I'm trying to make here is to question the prevalent belief that giving everyone equal access to the same tools has levelled the playing field. It hasn't. But why hasn't it?"
Possible explanation: The interweb allows space for the small, niche orientated, sites to exist as well as producing acute concentration around the most popular sites.
"[The Long Tail] can also imply a large measure of inequality: a large base of small guys and a very small number of supergiants, together representing a share of the world's culture - with some of the small guys, on occasion, rising to knock out the winners. (This is the "double tail": a large tail of the small guys, a small tail of the big guys.) - Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
NNT calls this "an ever changing extremistan ... Nobody is truly established. The little guy is very subversive."
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A Question:
I was wondering whether there might be a clustering of opinion amongst music blogs. When one writer proclaims the new Grizzly Bear album to be the 167th Greatest Album Ever, does this then influence other writers to follow suit?
Because if everybody is writing about the new Grizzly Bear album, surely you want to make your opinion known too. And if everybody is saying it's great, well, who wants to be the odd person out? (I'm not saying the new Grizzly Bear is good or otherwise. I've never heard them. I do however wonder whether it's part of group nature for opinions to cluster. And surely music writers aren't living in a vacuum, especially these days, so chances are they've read something about the music before they have the chance to listen. nor need this be a very conscious process - I think it's human nature to enjoy something more if you are told beforehand that you will enjoy it.)
Is this why some sites favour a points/star system? Making it very clear that they are with the predominant opinion.
I'm going back a bit here:
ReplyDelete"The point I'm trying to make here is to question the prevalent belief that giving everyone equal access to the same tools has levelled the playing field. It hasn't. But why hasn't it?"
Possible explanation: The interweb allows space for the small, niche orientated, sites to exist as well as producing acute concentration around the most popular sites.
"[The Long Tail] can also imply a large measure of inequality: a large base of small guys and a very small number of supergiants, together representing a share of the world's culture - with some of the small guys, on occasion, rising to knock out the winners. (This is the "double tail": a large tail of the small guys, a small tail of the big guys.) - Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
NNT calls this "an ever changing extremistan ... Nobody is truly established. The little guy is very subversive."
*
A Question:
I was wondering whether there might be a clustering of opinion amongst music blogs. When one writer proclaims the new Grizzly Bear album to be the 167th Greatest Album Ever, does this then influence other writers to follow suit?
Because if everybody is writing about the new Grizzly Bear album, surely you want to make your opinion known too. And if everybody is saying it's great, well, who wants to be the odd person out? (I'm not saying the new Grizzly Bear is good or otherwise. I've never heard them. I do however wonder whether it's part of group nature for opinions to cluster. And surely music writers aren't living in a vacuum, especially these days, so chances are they've read something about the music before they have the chance to listen. nor need this be a very conscious process - I think it's human nature to enjoy something more if you are told beforehand that you will enjoy it.)
Is this why some sites favour a points/star system? Making it very clear that they are with the predominant opinion.
just, because:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWfuwcO-C3s
Polar Bear, the front man of Fleet Foxes named the Grizzly Bear album as the best of the noughties.
ReplyDeleteSomethings I just don't understand.