Sure, I'll Be a Monkey

Luddite — n 1. any of the textile workers opposed to mechanization who rioted and organized machine-breaking between 1811 and 1816 2. any opponent of industrial change or innovation

Andrew Keen doesn't seem to get it. Things are clearly changing, but what makes it so catastrophic that he wants to organize a metaphorical internet-breaking?

Oh, that's right. Because he thinks that he stands to lose his job to millions of amateurs, some of whom can write circles around him. If you literally gave a million monkeys a million typewriters, eventually they would come up with some nonsensical gibberish. Someone could then take that paper, and distribute it to whoever passes by them on the street. In the same way, if you gave millions of amateur artists and writers the opportunity to bang their heads on the keyboard or whatever it is they want to do, they could publish it on the internet. The same thing is going to happen: NO ONE WILL READ IT. Keen tells us “In the time you took to read this paragraph, ten new blogs were launched.” He says this as if all these new blogs were clogging up the internet like it was a series of tubes. He then goes on to assume that a majority of these blogs are where “kids” are getting their “credible news.” They should be getting it from “objective professional journalists” instead. Yeah, Fox, MSNBC, CNN. Probably objective, questionably professional, and kind of journalists.

Wikipedia pops it's head into Keen's article too, with the exact same argument that's been used against Wikipedia for almost half a decade. “Everyone can contribute, so it's false!”. He brings up that Walmart and McDonalds changed their Wikipedia pages. What he fails to acknowledge is that someone noticed it and fixed the problem. Who? Certainly not an “editorial staff.” According to Keen, Wikipedia doesn't have one of those.

Keen's also got a problem with Youtube. Evidently most of the videos that are posted on Youtube are trite and unwatchable. Shocking, right? He also says later that Youtube is killing the film industry, and he's actually serious. The paragraph is about internet piracy bringing down box office numbers, which is undoubtedly a fact, and he brings up Youtube. It's like he didn't want to sound too reasonable so he tossed it in to alienate even more people.

Reddit and Digg, although I don't personally use them, don't seem to be the worthless piles of junk news Keen's making them out to be. Just click on the category you want. They do have a “politics” section. It's not all about a “flat-chested English actress.” Unless you want it to be. The problem I have with this section of his introduction is the way he slips in Israel, Lebanon, and Hezbollah. The middle-east sucks right now. Everybody knows that. But Keen brings it up like it's a secret to the intellectual elite, and everyone else is stuck in their own little fantasy world of “underground tunnels in Japan.” The elitism is sickening.

Keen's thoughts on Facebook and Myspace: “It's hardly surprising that the increasingly tasteless nature of such self-advertisements has led to an infestation of anonymous sexual predators and pedophiles.” I had to read that sentence a couple times to make sure he was serious. There were no sexual predators or pedophiles before Myspace? Rome begs to differ. And does calling them anonymous suddenly make the internet scarier? I just don't understand this guy's unhealthy opposition to new media.

He actually does make a point about newspapers though. They may be dead soon, and that certainly is a shame. Luckily, we can get all of our biased information on the internet. Wouldn't it be ironic if eventually the major news outlets would start charging their internet services and handing out newspapers for free?

So I say good. Let the monkeys take over. Everything seems to be going alright. We have access to everything we'd ever need to know, and even stuff we didn't think we needed to know, like what you'd find on Wikileaks. Keen and his archaic ilk can fade into the background, for all I care. I was starting to think that their corporate-funded “experts” weren't telling me everything anyway.