I was reading a Slashdot article today about the online music licensing system the EU is considering. My mind followed a bunny trail onto a completely different subject about independent artists and how the Internet presents a very different opportunity for dissemination of music and such. This is nothing new, but as I thought about it, I had a thought that I had never really addressed in my mind full on.
What can this mean for the world of fame? For my parents, most information about the world at large was delivered through newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. Their sources were limited to (at most) 3 channels of television and then whatever local radio stations there were and probably only a single newspaper. (Though, for my dad, living in Kansas City, I imagine there were some other minor presses to get information from.) Because of this, if ABC, CBS, or NBC wanted to make someone famous, they just put them on TV and viola, instant celebrity. This has been changing over many years, though. As television got to be cheaper to produce, more stations arose and with the advent of cable, most folks suddenly had 10 to 13 channels to choose from. As the techno-geeks graduated from BBSes to the Internet, we started gathering information from more and more sources.
Now, most newspapers have to publish online just to compete. I can gather news from any number of news sources now. ABC, CBS, and NBC still have quite a bit of leverage to create celebrity, but not anything like they used to. Now, if I don't like any of my local radio stations, I can generally find online ones for free or to pay for. By satellite I can now get hundreds of channels of video or radio. Not only this but the Internet is starting to become a more personal, cozy place. I can now find out much about my friends and organizations I follow through the web and email in a much more direct route than waiting for USPS mailed letters and newsletters. Anyone can publish video, music, and information at almost no cost.
Since the web is organized by connectivity driven through links allows the world to flow around the webs of people around you. If someone comes to my web site, they can find a post by one of my friends, which leads them to another of my friends web site, and, perhaps, my friends friend can become my friend because we share interests that we might not have realized before.
Anyway, again, none of this is new stuff, but this led me to realize that as the power of the big central sources of news ended, we could see the end of an era very interested in fame and celebrity. We'll never be rid of the famous or celebrities, but I think we've already seen a waning. In their place, I think a better environment is rising where we don't care so much about the latest celeb and their pathetic lives, but we can become more interested in the lives of our friends and friends' friends. Thus, in a way, this has the effect of making our little worlds larger with respect to the former world which made it seem smaller.
Anyway, it was an interesting thought to me...
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