I don't know if I'd say that that's as inspiringly insane as Chocolate Rain.
A hypothesis: I think it's really just a function of marketing. I've been spending some time over the past year reading "pre-genre" books --- these are books that existed in a genre before the genre existed (for example: fantasy novels before Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings or Howard wrote Conan the Barbarian). At the time, the authors really don't have anything to react to so they have a lot more freedom and a lot more weirdness going on. After someone slaps genre label on it, there's an inevitable calcification: I've seen complete lists of dos and dont's for detective fiction, for example. Tastemakers at that point serve as gatekeepers and promoters, but part of their requirement for promoting is usually fealty to the genre. I suspect that there's still the same level of weirdness and interesting material out there --- the reason being that the internet has an infinite pool of amateurs to draw from. What changes are the structures of promotion and endorsement; once people figure out how something "works" (and it's not so much figuring it out as defining it), there's an influx of professionals and a calcified endorsement structure develops. Blogs are a good example of this, where it was originally just Jorn Barger and his personal insanity, and we now have professionals from before blogs, professionals developed in blogs, and blogging companies. In conclusion: the interesting stuff is still there, but there's a large structure interested in pointing you to the less interesting and more profitable stuff. It's an inevitable part of the process. Youtube is starting to morph into the same thing as blogs are now, still amusing amateurish but rabidly becoming slicker as youtube stars become more common. Same thing with podcasting. In a few years there will be some new thing and we'll see the same process again. On Nov 11, 2008, at 10:58 PM, Tomas L. Byrnes wrote: > Who says it’s boring? > > http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5430343841227974645 > > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:funsec- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Alex Eckelberry > Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 7:43 AM > To: Trollie Fingers; [email protected] > Subject: Re: [funsec] OT: Why is the internet so boring now? > > Isn't it just that the novelty has worn off on a lot of the things > we used to think were cool? > > > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:funsec- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Trollie Fingers > Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 8:53 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [funsec] OT: Why is the internet so boring now? > Seriously. Why is the internet so boring these days? Is there > anything that I'm missing? Anything that can be done to make it > better? > _______________________________________________ > Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts. > https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec > Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list. _______________________________________________ Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts. https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.
