Andrew Keen

Andrew Keen's article The Cult of the Amateur is very interesting to me because I feel that I agree with him on some points but then disagree with him at the same time. I am constantly going back and forth about some of the issues he discusses. For instance, the clip of him on the Colbert Report we watched for class made him look a bit elitist but I kinda agree with a him (slighty). He claims that the internet is killing our culture because just about anyone who has the access to and knowledge of computers can post any type of "art" they want. I agree in that I wouldn't want to go online and see some average joe's artwork if I really wanted to be inspired or look at good art. However, this poses another problem in itself. Who is to say that this "amateur" art isn't good quality. Why couldn't someone want to look at this art or other information some average joe posted? Blogs are another exmaple of something anyone could post and write about their personal lives or opinions about an issue going on in the world today. My personal opinion wouldn't necessarily mean anything to some professor researching a topic I happen to write on in my own personal blog. In this example, Keen is making the statement that the internet is killing our culture because my (or someone else's) meaningless blog posts or artistic work is blasted all over the internet as if it isn't worth being there. At the same time, I kinda disagree with him because, like I said above, who is he to say that those blog posts aren't a mode of self expression and deserve to be there? He claims that the internet is for amateurs and amateurs don't actual creat great culture. How can he say something like that? It all goes back to personal taste. I agree with Colbert in that the green screen challenge is a type of art, even though it was created by amateurs. Now so called "stealing" a clip from the Colbert show and posting it on Youtube is a different issue at hand. I kinda agree with him on this but at the same time I don't think it is killing our culture, I think it is changing our culture. To prove my argument, I never watched the Colbert Report before, but after seeing clips from Youtube (and clips in class) I have a new found love for the show. I wouldn't have seen clips if not for Youtube (and this class of course).
This idea also relates to artists posting their artwork online and people stealing it for their own use. This poses a difficult problem when artists start losing money because everyone is stealing their work, so Keen says. Books can be an example of what Keen is talking about here. If an author has his/her book online and someone took a chunk of information out of it, then they wouldn't need to purchase the whole thing if they already got what they needed. Again, I agree with him but at the same time I think that it is convenient for me, as a college student, to search for an article online and not have to rent or purchase the entire book. So, again I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this article because he makes a good point but I think it would be better if he would make the statement that the internet is changing our culture, not killing it.