The Cult of the Amateur

by Andrew Keen

Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today's new digital media in this lively, readable and witty polemic, which reveals how an avalanche of amateur content is threatening our values, economy, and ultimately innovation and creativity itself. Highly topical, provocative and controversial - the counter-argument to The Long Tail, The Wisdom of Crowds and the 'mad utopians' of Web 2.0, it is a wake-up call offering concrete solutions on how we can rein in this assault.

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology, Cultural, Sociology, Internet, Business, Psychology

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Andrew Keen is one of the world’s best known and controversial commentators on the digital revolution.He is the author of three books: Cult of the Amateur, Digital Vertigo and his current international hit The Internet Is Not The Answer which the London Sunday Times acclaimed as a "powerful, frightening read" and the Washington Post called "an enormously useful primer for those of us concerned that online life isn't as shiny as our digital avatars would like us to believe". He is executive director of the Silicon Valley innovation salonFutureCast and a much acclaimed public speaker around the world. In 2015, he was named by GQ magazine in their list of the "100 Most Connected Men”. His next book, How To Fix The Future, will be published worldwide in January 2018

Reviews

[Oriana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me start by saying that I opened this book with a totally open mind. Seriously! I too think that blogs, MySpace, and YouTube are doing horrible things to our culture in this country, so I though I was going to be the choir this guy was preaching to.

Not so.

And let me say, too, that the reason this is two stars and not one (and actually was almost three) is that it really made me mad, and really made me think, which is no small feat. Plus it got me into several (loud) arguments with my boyfriend in public places, which is always a plus.

Anyway. The fundamental flaw in this guy's logic (in my perhaps overly optimistic opinion) is that he thinks everyone is really stupid. And I'm not at all saying that there aren't a whole lot of stupid people, but Andrew Keen just takes it too far, postulating a world where, for example, due to the wild proliferation of blogs, no one will be able to tell the difference anymore between what some douche happens to rant about while drunk and a distinguished news article on a particular topic. Seriously? Even the dumbest among us knows the difference between cnn.com and doucheymcdoucherson.blogspot.com. (I hope that's not a real blog.)

See, Keen is really just a crazed alarmist, decrying every aspect of user-generated culture. He is also extremely enamored with his writing skills, and utterly enraptured with dramatics. In the second half of the book, he uses a lot of case-in-point sob-stories which made me cringe and cringe and cringe. Like the Mormon college kid who got so 'addicted' to online gambling that he had to go rob a bank. Dear god.

Below are a few of the incendiary things Keen says, and my incensed reactions:

From the anti-blog chapter: With more and more of the information online unedited, unverified, and unsubstantiated, we will have no choice but to read everything with a skeptical eye.

Oh my god no!! Truly Andy? Are you telling me that, prior to the internet, you never though any writer of any article or story or book might have a personal bias or agenda that a reader might want to take into account before blindly following? You are a douche.

From the anti–self publishing chapter: Do we really need to wade through the tidal wave of amateurish works of authors who have never been professionally selected for publication?

Um, no. Here is what you do: do not read self-published books if you do not want to contend with amateur writing. Is there a serious book person anywhere who can't tell on sight a self-published book from one put out by a major (or minor) press? If scillions of people want to go to a vanity press and have their inane mumblings made into a 'book', that does not affect you or me. Let them be happy! They will most likely never become a bestselling author, and they wouldn't have anyway.

In a chapter where he talks about Beck releasing that album where people could choose their own cover art, and then equates that with the loss of the musician-as-artist due to the dilution of expertly produced music: Similarly, the Barenaked Ladies recently launched a 'remix' contest, allowing fans to download songs from their latest album and re-mix and re-edit them into new versions, the best of which will eventually be released on CD.... That's like a surgeon who, instead of performing the surgery, leaves the amateur in the operating chamber with some surgical instruments and a brief pep talk.

This is the one where I started shrieking. First of all, buddy, even the most fervent devotee of art would never, never conflate making a record with performing surgery. What is wrong with you? And second of all, how great is that Barenaked Ladies thing? See, that is not actually a case of amateurs diluting artistic output, but of giving amateurs a chance to prove that maybe they also have some talent! No one is saying that we need a CD of thousands of bad remixes, but if out of the thousand submitted, maybe ten are really good, how great would it be for those ten people to be on a CD, an opportunity which it is very unlikely they'd have been afforded otherwise?

This is the last one because I bet no one's reading this anymore since it's so freaking long. But this is from the chapter about how amateurs are ruining advertising too. Take, for example, the competition that Frito-Lay ran to 'discover' an amateur commercial for their Doritos corn chips. According to the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the average professionally produced thirty-second spot costs $381,000. Yet Frito-Lay paid a mere $10,000 to each of the five finalists in the competition, leaving $331,000 on the table. That's $331,000 that wasn't paid to professional filmmakers, scriptwriters, actors, and marketing companies—$331,000 sucked out of the economy.

Holy fuck that made me so furious. Sucked out of the economy??? Here is what that means: the 'economy' of making commercials (and by extension movies, TV shows, pro sports, and all the rest of it) is BLOATED, CORRUPT, AND TOTALLY ABSURD. If you are going to tell me that we NEED to be paying our movie stars $1 million per picture, or our ad agencies $331,000 per THIRTY-SECOND FUCKING SPOT, you are out of your goddamn mind. The current system is totally fucked, and if 'the cult of the amateur' is what it takes to, if not fix it, then at least force it to make some fucking changes, that is fucking great. Keep sucking, amateur film- and commercial-makers!


There's a lot more, but I really do have better things to do than be mad about this book. And honestly, when I wasn't being made furious, this guy does have some not-so-dumb things to say. I mean, like I said, I think a lot is wrong with "Web 2.0" (what an awful buzzword). But Keen really goes too far, and makes the whole thing preposterous. A lot is good about it, too, and he doesn't really seem interested in talking about any of that.

[Lon Harris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Keen gets off to a dazzlingly bad start, misstating the concept of Google search on Page 6.

"The logic of Google's search engine...reflects the "wisdom" of the crowd. The search engine is an aggregation of the ninety million questions we collectively ask Google each day; in other words, it just tells us what we already know."

Is this intentionally dense? I mean, yes, Google uses the experiences others have had in some ways to create your new experience when you enter a search query, but that's hardly the same thing as "telling you what you already know." If I want to know the year in which James Dean was born, and Google sends me to IMDb, which tells me it was 1931, sure, SOMEBODY had to know that already, but not me. And I was able to get there easily because IMDb has built up authority because...it's almost always right about everything! So what's the problem again?

Keen wants nothing less than to challenge all the Leading Thoughts about the Internet. Particularly the notion that providing the general population with the tools to create their own media content is in any way culturally beneficial. As I read the first few chapters of Keen's Web 2.0 smackdown, I would notice an odd statement here or there, but kind of dismiss it because I admired the overall scope of the project.

But it's hard to ignore some of the gaps in logic here, and by the final few chapters, as they started really piling up, I found myself completely losing my patience with the book.

I'd go so far as to call some of Keen's arguments intellectually dishonest. He surely knows this sort of reasoning doesn't hold together, but proceeds anyway.

A STAGGERING amount of the evidence presented in the book is anecdotal. What's more, most of these anecdotes don't apply specifically to the Internet and are not particularly illuminating.

For example, Keen opens a chapter about amateur reporting by discussing a 2006 hoax YouTube video made to look like a genuine German newscast. He clearly means for the story to illustrate how the Internet makes such fraud easier to disseminate and more commonplace, saying "Welcome to the truth, Web 2.0 style."

But in fact, wouldn't a savvy population with access to technology be more difficult to fool with such a hoax than one that was largely technophobic? Wasn't this hoax in fact quickly revealed to be fake? Keen says "Only those with the keenest of eyes could see that this YouTube video was not from the real Tagesschau," and he's probably right, but those individuals who did notice it probably got the word out that this was fake relatively quickly.

I mean, it's not as if phony newscasts are unique to the Web 2.0 era. I seem to remember Orson Welles pulling off a similar stunt on the radio a few years back...

The passage that really sums up all that is wrong with Keen comes early on, around Page 30, when I was still giving his screed a sporting chance. I quote:

"Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, and Robert Fisk, the Middle Eastern correspondent of the Independent newspaper, for example, didn't hatch from some obscure blog - they acquired their in-depth knowledge of the Middle East by spending years in the region. This involved considerable investments of time and resources, for which both the journalists themselves, and the newspapers they work for, deserve to be remunerated."

No, no, no, no, no, no and no. This is precisely wrong. I don't want to read Fisk because I owe him back wages for all the time and money he spent getting smart. I want to read him because he has an interesting and well-informed perspective. And the Independent pays him because I want to read him, and they want me to look at their advertisements, just like advertisers pay Atrios because millions of people want to read him every day.

Conversely, I DON'T want to read Friedman because, DESPITE his extensive years of experience and education, he's constantly wrong about pretty much everything. I mean, "DESERVE to be remunerated?" Is he joking? Friedman doesn't deserve anything but blame for helping to lead this country into a ruinous war and continuing to profit from his mistake to this day.

Keen's valuing a nice-looking resume over common sense, a diploma over decency. It's really mind-boggling to me that he would heap scorn on someone like Middle-Eastern scholar and blogger Juan Cole while singing the praises of all these professional journalists who have carried water for the Bushies lo these past 7 years. Sure, they've had experience, but what have they done with it? Bloggers are at least providing a different perspective than the monotonous drone of the Beltway crowd with its constant coverage of the campaign horserace and smack-like addiction to tawdry scandal.

I could raise more questions - doesn't every blogger start out an on "obscure blog"?; isn't it possible that a person could start a blog and also have in-depth knowledge about a certain subject? - but what would be the point? It's just rhetorical silliness, like arguing with one of the Keen's hated Internet trolls, particularly the final chapter.

After nearly 200 pages of ranting against every facet of the online experience, Keen offers up some ludicrous "solutions." Most of them are obvious, inoffensive statements that nearly everyone, even Internet evangelists, would probably suggest in some form or another. "Convicted sex offenders shouldn't use MySpace." "Search engines shouldn't save your information." "Parents should pay attention to what their kids look at online."

The remainder of Keen's "solutions" are coincidentally the exact ones that reactionary, corporate-friendly politicians have been offering up since the '90s. Weak.

[Kelly · Rating 1 out of 5]

In a nutshell, the book comes close to making some valid points, but treats them so frivolously and superficially that by the end of the last chapter you feel like you've just spent an hour listening to your great-grandma's best friend Eileen talk about how much her corns are bothering .

Throughout the book, Keen lacks any sense of historical context. You feel like he believes that nothing happened in popular culture prior to 1990. He blames the internet for television's audience fragmentation, for instance, when in reality that has been a growing problem for networks since the 1980's and the rise of cable. He seems to think that YouTube gave birth to opposition research - but political candidates have been following each other around with video cameras long before the macaca scandal. He complains that now, people can "seek out the information that mirrors back our own biases and opinions and conforms with our distorted versions of reality" - like no one ever did that before. He claims that "[b]efore the Web 2.0, independent media content and paid advertising existed separately, in parallel, and were easily distinguishable from each other." Like product placement in movies. He says "What happens to truth when politicians begin buying channels on YouTube to trash their opponents?" Well, probably the same damn thing that happened when they began buying airtime on television, or ad space in newspapers.

Keen is decidedly pro-establishment. He bemoans the fact that new are stealing time away from television and movies. Right, because TV and movies produce such top-quality entertainment every time. I'm sorry, but is Hamster Dance really that much worse than The War at Home? Is it such a tragedy if people start reading Perez instead of watching Access Hollywood? And I honestly believe that the Salad Fingers series (Google it) has more artistic value than Norbit, Silent Hill, and The Mangler 3: The Mangler Reborn combined.

The "amateurs" and "Web 2.0" that he denounces throughout the book aren't even responsible for his most virulent complaints. Peer-to-peer file sharing, for instance, with its impact on the entertainment industry, has been around much longer that "Web 2.0" and has nothing whatsoever to do with "democratized media." It's merely a technological innovation like the cotton gin.

In short, Keen is a Luddite. Every transitional technology is met with resistance from established technology providers. There's a period of time when people don't really know what to do with the new technology. And eventually the system corrects itself and life goes on. This is why it's called transitional technology. It's absolutely true that the legal system hasn't caught up with the internet and associated technologies - but it will. The entertainment industry will, too. And people will learn that you can't cite Daily Kos or WorldNetDaily in your term papers any more than you can cite the Enquirer. Basically, all he wants to do is "protect the legacy of our mainstream media and two hundred years of copyright protections." Which is fine. But if that's your goal, just say so in the introduction, not your final chapter, and deal with that issue - don't pretend you actually care about the minds and hearts of people when it all comes down to protecting industry.

Ah yes, his last chapter, titled "Solutions." Possibly the most annoying chapter in the whole book. What are Keen's brilliant, expert solutions?
- Adaptation of existing businesses to new technology
- Restructuring of web sites to provide higher quality content
- Adaptation of existing legal principles
- Parents being aware of what their kids are doing.

All of these have been happening, and they started long before this book was published, and Keen adds absolutely nothing original.

Way to anger the librarians!

[Matthew · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's been a very long time since I've read a book so in opposition to most of my core values regarding creativity and expression. From page one and on almost every page following, I've found things that offend me. This book avoided a no-star rating only because the writer has inspired me to be more committed to my views on independent creative endeavors.

[Angelo · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you tend to get pulled into discussions about the pros and cons of social media, Andrew Keen’s “The cult of the amateur” is a good book to get you all fired up. It is full of holes, plenty of hyperbole, and comes across as an angry dissertation by someone who wanted to get things off his chest in a hurry. But that’s precisely why it’s important to check it out.

These are the kind of arguments someone in the room will bring up when debating whether comments ought to be moderated, or the management team should care about comments by the ’stupid public’ in relation to a YouTube video.

Keen is the kind of person who would have dismissed Abraham Zapruder’s film as unreliable and amateurish, just because he was not a real journalist. Keen is very passionate about the morphing or passing away of the old media. Some of what he observes is accurate, about the digital economy, the downside of internet as an economic and communication conduit. The usual suspects are paraded: click fraud, Google bombing, anonymous Youtube videos (like the Penguin attack on Al Gore by a PR firm), online gambling, fake blogs etc.

For every Perez Hilton and Matt Drudge, bottom-up distribution through blogs, podcasts, Flickr and Digg has created discourse about journalism and law, for instance –from the likes of Jeff Jarvis, Lawrence Lessig and Glen Reynolds. He omits mention of how the pajama bloggers he vilifies fact-checked and checkmated Dan Rather. He would be terribly upset that NBC anchor, Brian Williams writes a blog, and that the queen of England released her Christmas day message through the same democratized distribution network that amateurs upload content, YouTube.

But Cult’s true weakness is in mixing up his argument about amateurism, with an argument about all things digital. To suggest that YouTube, Google, iTunes and CraigsList is causing the extinction of newspapers, television and record labels misses the reality about how these older media were structured, and how some of them failed to respond to changing audience behavior and interests. Smart journalists realize that this isn’t the slippery slope, and that they could adapt. A few weeks ago Dan Shearer, senior editor of the Mesa Republic hailed a citizen reporter for being the first responder with information and pictures of a church fire.

“Ignorance meets bad taste meets mob rule” does fit some of the awful content that passes for entertainment and news, but we haven’t said bye bye to the experts and gatekeepers. It’s just that they are different, and operate differently. To me “ignorance meets bad taste meets mob rule” has nothing to do with the democratization of media; it’s what we have put up for years on (sigh) the six-o-clock news on television, long before the digital tsunami hit.

Just for the record (I bet you’ve heard these arguments before) this is the lens through which Keen sees social media:

* Amazon: “chief slayer of the independent book store”
* YouTube: “a large commercial break”
* Google: a “parasite,” and “an electronic mirror of ourselves”
* Pastors who research sermons online are “plagiarists,” Lessig is “misguided,” and the internet is a “moral hazard.

There is hope. The last chapter, Solutions, does offer some ideas as to what could be done to save the world from going to hell in a hand-basket. But I won’t spoil it for you. It’s a book I still believe everyone even mildly involved in media and communications ought to read, after Wikinomics. When looking up Wikinomics on Amazon, it does not come up as “Customers who bought this item also bought,” recommendation. But then the “chief slayer of the independent bookstore” wouldn’t be reliable, would it?

[Raphael Lysander · Rating 3 out of 5]

شفا هذا الكتاب غليلي حينما تهجم على عدم دقة ويكيبيديا، لكن المشكلة في هذه الكتب أن معلوماتها تصبح قديمة بالنسبة للتكنولوجيا بتاريخ نشرها! إن مخافة الكاتب من اندثار الصحف بسبب أن الجميع أصبح مراسلا قد تغير حيث نجد صعودا للمجلات والصحف العالمية التي واكبت التطور بعد أن مل الناس من ضعف مصادر الخبر وكذبها وصاروا يبحثون على مصادر يعتمد عليها في حيواتهم وظهر نوع جديد من الدكتاتورية هي دكتاتورية المواقع العملاقة أمثال غوغل وفيسبوك التي تضع قوانينها الخاصة فيما يصح ولا يصح وتحذف مثلا صفحات تؤيد القضية الفلسطينية بدعوا الارهاب او العنصرية فيما تبقي علي صفحات تسخر من دين ما بدعوا حرية الرأي
لكن ما لا شك فيه هو استمرار دكتاتورية "الغباء" حيث الصحيح هو ما يوافق عليه الجميع حتى لو كان وراءه اجهزة مخابراتية مثلما حصل في الانتخابات الأمريكية وهي أمور خطيرة لمن يناقشها الكتاب لأنه يصير قديما بتاريخ نشره كما أسلفت

[Jeremy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book made me all kinds of cranky. I accept the premise on its face, that the web is chock full of amateurs blathering on about their most mundane thoughts and dreams. I part ways with the author when he claims that our culture and values will be destroyed because of it. By decrying the fate of the major movie studios and record labels, and the precipitous drop in their revenues, it's pretty clear who he's writing this book for. By pretending that the public at large has a relationship of inviolable trust with traditional media outlets, he's essentially ignoring reality. And his reverence for some rarefied 'cultural gatekeepers' is an insult to anyone who would use the Web to express themselves...

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into reading this book having already viewed a Google talk video where the author discussed it and took Q&A. I found that the core tenet of the book, that the "Web 2.0" so-called democratization of all media is a profoundly bad thing that undermines talent and professional skill and does nothing to enrich our lives, is pretty accurate. The promise of the democratization, that an average citizen can publish a blog post, a song or a video that is as valuable to the reader, listener and viewer, is preposterous. There is more separating professionals and amateurs than access to raw tools.

I agree that the points made in the "moral disorder" chapter need to be addressed as well -- the internet should be a place that has its freedoms without exposing children to porn.

I think the arguments made by the author get stretched a little thin in the 1984 (v2.0) chapter -- this argument is a little 1997, that Google and Yahoo have all of your personal information and they will sell you out, so don't even accept cookies. I think that viewpoint is a little extreme, I'm not sure I buy it anymore.

I'm happy to have read this book -- I think it brings up some great questions that need answering.

[Gamal Mohamed · Rating 3 out of 5]

جوجل يعرف عنا أكثر من أقرب المقربين إلينا
الكتاب جيد فى موضوعه ينذرنا فيه الكاتب من مخاطر الشبكة العالمية وتأثيراتها خصوصاً السلبية منها على المعرفة والثقافة والفن والموسيقى وغيرها من المجالات
لكن مع هذا من الأمور التى لم تعجبنى فى الكتاب هو مبالغة الكاتب كثيراً وتضخيمه للأمور
وكذلك الترجمة السيئة

[Douglas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Given that Andrew Keen is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, whose writings have appeared have appeared in a number of prestigious publications, I surmise that he is reasonably intelligent and well-informed about technology and culture. It is with great shock and disappointment that I read the book "The Cult of the Amateur."

Keen believes that all these empowered individuals (like you and me) are 1) poisoning civic discourse by blurring the lines between facts, inferences and opinions, 2) destroying excellence in culture by cutting, pasting, remixing and mashing up existing culture, and 3) destroying time-honored societal institutions like newspapers, the mainstream media, the recording industry and Hollywood.

You will find many ideas in the course of this book which have been suggested, vigorously debated, and ultimately rejected by the blogosphere, such as "Wikipedia is a stupid, poor man's version of the Encyclopedia Britannica," "anonymous blogs are a grave threat to public discourse," "journalism is a discipline like law or medicine, requiring rigorous training and certification," "blogs and their readers form an echo-chamber, a group of people who only listen to what they want to hear," "John Kerry was unjustly maligned by a small cadre of right-wing bloggers," and on and on. If the material in this book appeared in the form of a blog, it would be vigorously "fisked," examined on a page-by-page basis and ripped to pieces. It is ironic that Keen writes in glowing terms of Robert Fisk, the man from whom the term "fisking" comes, in the course of the book.

About a quarter of this book is an anti-blogosphere screed, with no balancing mention of mainstream media malfeasance, such as the attempt of the producers of 60 Minutes to influence the 2004 Presidential election with fradulent documents, or the leaking of confidential government information by the New York Times. Sometimes it gets personal, when Charles Johnson of little green footballs is referred to as "a rabidly pro-Israel blogger."

There are concerns raised later in the book about privacy, online gambling and online pornography. While I share his concerns about privacy, I reject the idea that its either a recent problem, or a problem with amateurs not bowing to the wisdom of their betters. While I'm in agreement with him that the cultural mainstreaming of gambling and pornography are unwholesome developments, I reject the idea that they have anything to do with the empowered individuals Keen finds so troubling in the first part of the book. It's almost as if he mentions every cultural problem that has something or other to do with the internet, and hoping that you'll associate it with the amateurs mentioned in the first part of the book.

Keen mentions in the introduction that he started to become disenchanted with Tim O'Reilly's Web 2.0 vision of the empowerment of individuals in September of 2004. And that is the hideous, horrible problem with this book. It is so September 2004. It is full of nostalgic longing for the day when the producers of 60 Minutes could decide who was going to be President, the day where Walter Cronkite could say "And that's the way it is," the day where the New York Times declared what was and wasn't newsworthy. The point of this book was that September 2004 is a better time than now, a point with which I vigorously disagree.

The only redeeming factor is that instead of just whining, he offers some websites at the end of the book that he sees as promising developments, such as Citizendium, Joost and iAmplify. He sees these websites as correcting the excesses of Wikipedia, YouTube and MySpace, respectively.

[Roger Tavares · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could be a good book. Some facts are strong and valid, and could be better analyzed. But the book lacks in methodology, analysis and good informational basis. These faults make this book an amateur, such as those the book itself criticizes.

[Kaethe]

Oh noes! After a brief period in the history of humanity when people were paying others to amuse and inform them, now they are once again amusing and informing themselves and one another.

[Maggi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Add to list of books that make me want to become a hermit in the woods.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based on the title, I thought this was going to be another book about the Bush Administration. But instead of being about the incompetence, hubris, cronyism, and greed that’s running our government and ruining our country, The Cult of The Amateur is about the incompetence, vanity, narcissism, and greed that’s running the Internet and killing our culture.

Overall, Keen’s polemic is a very relevant book and one I wish everyone would read. It’s sure to spark a lot of debate at dinner parties between the second and third bottles of wine. So bring a fourth just in case. You won’t agree with a lot of what Keen asserts, and you shouldn’t, because like the Silicon Valley insiders he rallies against throughout the book, he too is out of touch with the majority of American Culture and how we as a whole use the Internet. Keen takes it all a bit too seriously. Everyone I know acknowledges the entertaining silliness of all the crap on YouTube and Craigslist, taking it with a grain of salt for what it is. Keen seems unable to do this. He is very upset about the questionable trappings of Wikipedia’s open forum and inherent problems, but he takes this site far more seriously than anyone I know. There have always been numerous resources in modern man’s world, some more reliable than others. How is this any different?

Very early into the book I found myself asking, is he too paranoid? Or has our technological culture in fact become a duplicitous web of spineless, lying predators? And if so, isn’t that just mirroring real life, which is full of duplicitous, spineless, lying predators?

Keen draws on a few misguided commercials supported by partisan bloggers in the 2004 and 2006 elections as evidence of an overwhelming “partisan minority that uses ‘democratized’ digital media to obfuscate truth and manipulate public opinion” (Swift Boat Veterans For Truth anyone?). Technology has certainly legitimized and given voice to the amateur, but when the rich and powerful continue to do so much more harm in this world, is it the extremist blogger we should be worrying about? The Government, The Church, The News, and Big Business have been taking swings at the Truth for so long, I guess it’s our turn at bat. Thanks, technology!

I categorically disagree with Keen’s assertion that every free classified ad on Craigslist is the loss of a paid classified advertisement to a newspaper. I post things on Craigslist because it’s free. If it wasn’t free I just wouldn’t post it anywhere, newspaper or otherwise. I feel the same way about downloading free music. I used to download songs because they were free. If I couldn’t have downloaded them for free, I wouldn’t have instead bought the CD, I wouldn’t have bought it at all. For the record industry to count every single download as a loss to its industry is just wrong. But it has clearly affected the industry (see the closing of Tower Records and the hundreds of other independent music stores), just nowhere on the scale that the greedy record industry claims. Having worked in promotions for a radio station, I know firsthand that if you show up anywhere in America at an amusement park or a bowling alley or a gas station or a fast food restaurant with t-shirts, keychains, and koozies to give away for free, you will be swarmed and raped until they are all gone. Every last cheap, menial, insignificant one of them. If you set up a table and charge for them, you will not get rid of a single one. That’s America.

Though I will agree with Keen’s opinion about Web 2.0 and its vicious mauling of Talent. He states that, “Talent, as ever, is a limited resource, the needle in today’s digital haystack. You won’t find the talented, trained individual shipwrecked in his pajamas behind a computer, churning out inane blog postings or anonymous movie reviews. Nurturing talent requires work, capital, expertise, investment.” Though this opinion of Keen’s is certainly likely to fall on disagreeing ears in this country as going directly against the American Dream. We are a nation adamant about The Big Hope. He are still hell bent on supporting and fulfilling the promises of Horatio Alger that we will insist on the “democratizing” values of Web 2.0 to be true. We have to believe that the cream rises to the top. For the time being anyway. Even as such a childish dream continues to chop away at the sturdy trees of talent. I agree, we are losing CRAFT. But this is not doomsday. There is a lot of excitement over the potential of technology and people’s vanity are definitely being exploited. I think the wave will roll back to sea eventually.

Keen insists on portraying the people of this Internet Revolution, this Web 2.0 culture as vain, narcissistic, self-fulfilling, and self-congratulatory. And I will not disagree with him. But I feel that it is more important to identify this generation of writers/bloggers, YouTubeing Videographers, and anonymous Amazon reviewers as direct descendents of Gonzo Journalism. We have Hunter S. Thompson to thank and blame for this incestuous parade of “self-congratulatory clusters,” “digital narcissists,” and “vanity presses.” As the great HST did not report on an event unless it included his interaction and presence in the story, so too have we demanded that it is US who is interesting. It is US who is important. It is US who dominates the primary narrative. It is our story, our world and we’ll be damned if any power will continue to dictate and pander to us anymore. The Good Doctor predated and predicted this entire genre and approach of living and interacting with the world around us. We are truly in the Gonzo World now. There is no going back. Are we Doomed? I sincerely do not know. But we better stock up on some Wild Turkey, grapefruits, and ammunition. Just in case.

Very simply, Keen comes across as very elitist. Like lamenting the loss of the horse and buggy upon the invention of the automobile, Keen weeps over the lowered prominence of newspapers and radio. Our hallowed institutions are crumbling. This is a Revolution. That is the point. Sadly, it is our blood too that is running in the street. Many of our own heads will find their way into the stock of a guillotine before the Queen follows suit. And follow suit she will. As Keen himself explains, “Such amateurs treat blogging as a moral calling rather than a profession tempered by accepted standards; proud of their lack of training, standards, and ethical codes, they define themselves as the slayers of the media giants, as irreverent Davids overcoming the news-gathering industry Goliaths.”
Rallying against the “Noble Amateur,” Keen displays a naïve faith in the current system. The Media, The Government, and The Church are also often wrong and have been forever. Keen takes issue with Web 2.0’s embrace of anonymity and its lack of transparency. But herein, Keen fails to acknowledge an inherent contradiction in his argument. He demands transparency while also damning the dangerous qualities of the Internet found in pornography, gambling, and identity theft. Does anonymity not provide safety and security in an environment so filled with such unscrupulous folk?

Today’s controversy surrounding Global Warming provides Keen with probably his best argument and most legitimate reason to attack Web 2.0 and its “values.” Since outlets such as Wikipedia allow for every single writer, no matter their expertise and lack thereof, equal space to share their pronouncements, today’s Internet has allowed for the mass publication of a generous helping of egregiously wrong information. Beyond being the true Gonzo Generation, this is the George W. Bush Era. It is a content, uninformed citizenry Out There, indeed. Is the Internet to blame?

But it is not the Internet or technology that is to blame for this misrepresentation, fraud, and identity theft, is it? I hate to be such an apologist, but isn’t this just human nature? Finally, us pedestrians, us groundlings can easily join the soiled, corrupted ranks of churches, criminals, governments, pirates, dictators, and henchmen.

Keen spends the final quarter of his book taking a moral lashing at the ills of the Internet. However significant, following the complex ethical arguments of the rest of his well-argued and researched book, his attacks on gambling and pornography seem out of place. It’s too easy a position to take. It’s like the politicians who publicly promise that they are, “against crime.” Well, no shit. The Internet is a filthy, disgusting, dangerous place unfit for young eyes. But so is the street I walk down everyday to go to work.

Keen quotes Paul Simon halfway through the book and Simon’s position seems to be the most reasoned, practical opinion to have about the entire issue. Simon says that, “I’m personally against Web 2.0 in the same way as I’m personally against my own death. Maybe a fire is what’s needed for a vigorous new growth, but that’s the long view. In the short term, all that’s apparent is the devastation.”

Andrew Keen is like one of those Southern California homeowners who recently lost their house in the fire and is sick of having some Silicon Valley yuppie tell him that his loss is for the best. So maybe we are flooding our own world, but at least we’re not relying on the powers that be to build inadequate levees and then to fail in providing for its plighted citizenry. We’re building those inadequate levees ourselves!

Finally, Justice.

[Sun_with_luv · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5/5

[Jeroen · Rating 1 out of 5]

The crux of The Cult of the Amateur, journalist Andrew Keen's polemic on participatory Web culture, lies right at the beginning. In fact, the only passage I really enjoyed here is the following, in the foreword:

Last summer, Stephen Colbert invited me onto his Comedy Central show, The Colbert Report. “You, sir,” Colbert shouted, leaning forward and jabbing his finger under my nose. “You, sir, are an elitist!”

“Yes, I am,” I admitted, backing away from Colbert's finger. “What's wrong with that?”

Finally!, I thought, someone who doesn't shy away from this fact. As with the word “luddite”, the term “elitist” has become a pejorative which successfully circumvents any real discussion on a topic. And I think Keen's examples of news make perfect sense (“It doesn't embarrass me to admit that I trust information about the Iraq war from accountable, well-trained New York Times reporters more than I trust it from anonymous bloggers”), though the example is, in hindsight, an unfortunate choice. But my enthusiasm turned sour rather quickly as Keen went on:

Nor am I ashamed to acknowledge that I prefer the professional wit of Stephen Colbert to any raw YouTube comic, and the refined music of Bob Dylan to that of an amateur self-broadcasting artist.

“Professional wit”? Such an odd pair of words. I don't think such a thing exists. Even if it does, it doesn't sound like too good a thing to me. Perhaps it is the kind of wit employed by doctors and nurses to break the tension of bad news. And then there's “the refined music of Bob Dylan”. Dylan has been called by many names, but I doubt refined has often been among them, and I suspect Dylan himself might consider this an insult.

While clumsily worded, Keen's point in most of this book comes down to the idea that the talents of people like Colbert and Dylan are scarce, and that they are not so easily detected amidst our modern data deluge. It's a form of tokenism of course: Dylan is a rare example of an uncompromising artist who found a large audience. For every Dylan there's a hundred other talented artists whose records – published and all – were never truly picked up (in fact, the internet has helped to bring many of these obscured records back to the public eye and back into print).

Keen's whole book is maimed by a sort of circular argument that runs like this: he first defines talent by the reputations attributed to various sorts of people by the old media, and then contrasts the old and new media's ability to root out this talent. The new media will by default seem ineffective when compared to this perfect correlation of old media and established names.

I could and maybe should mention here that I generally come down on Keen's side of the debate. I subscribe to the views of Lanier and Carr that there are many worrying consequences of our digital revolution. But whereas I applauded Keen's frank co-option of the elitist term at the beginning, it does seem that his willingness to do so ultimately stems from blindsightedness. Keen is in fact part of the reason for the negative connotations of that word. He is part of the problem.

Or, to paraphrase one of his beloved, established, old media artists: “you give elitism a bad name”. Cue guitar solo.

[Tim Chang · Rating 3 out of 5]

pretty far on the rant-ish end of the spectrum, but some excellent and thought-provoking points are made.

Here were the key takeaways and questions that the book raised for me:
- democratization of content/media results in the loudest (and often least credible) getting most attention, and hence you can't trust anything on the web.
- this is leading to the death of culture (and the loss of taste makers and fact checkers) and commerce -- the trend is towards overall value-destruction (vs. value creation) since free/niche ad can't create enough jobs and $ to replace the traditional industry that's being destroyed
- accountability + democracy is key -- if web2.0 is anonymous, then chaos rules and there can be no trust to engender true community
- China is villified for piracy of product, but why not web2.0 users for mass piracy and plagiarism of content and IP?
- web2.0 is a giant vanity press: masturbatory and self-referencing. Wisdom of crowds also equals mass delusion? (e.g. Wikipedia)
- web2.0 benefits = niche categories (pop culture/realtime?) + giving voice back to audience. But the role of editor/moderator will need to come back in to offset this...
- the best strategy now for advertisers is splogging, flogging and social media engineering?
- web2.0 is mostly public version of idle chat/IM...often a flood of rants by the loudest and the most ignorant. Norm and Annie Lei: "America's biggest asset is lots of dumb, ignorant people...how to exploit and moentize them?" Ex: forum boards are dominated by customers you don't want, e.g. no-life loudmouths
- solution: monetize masses' desire to be famous? Rather than selling DVDs, sell people the perceived chance to be in a movie?
- web2.0 is worse than big brother -- the dumbest masses are becoming their own big brother now?
- Is Google becoming the real life Matrix? (Also self-created by the masses...)
- if we operate as if everything will be free and meant to be pirated, what incentive exists to create truly good stuff. Ex: free bikes and cars everywhere leads to lowest common denominator
- web2.0 is a weapon for have-nots and losers vs established system and gatekeepers: similar to the old "God is Dead" argument?
- solution: front of tail premium/moderation + long tail audience participation (Citizendium vs wikipedia), with *clear delineation* (ex: Guardian Unltd online vs NYT online)
- doomsday scenario: Jorge Luis Borges' "Total Library" with no logic or organization
- truth is destroyed if everyone's voice is equal? Then there is no truth but the one you create for yourself
- should advertisers "buy" or fake "trust" via shilling on SNS and blogs? Pay for UGC/social campaigns instead to drop costs? Disguise ad as content, since you can't tell difference on web2.0 anyway?
- citizen journalism is good for niche, frivolous, pop culture -- since the writers are not accountable or trained, it's best for them to focus on stuff that "doesn't really matter"?

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

First of all, I find it highly amusing to review this book online, since Keen thinks the proliferation of blogs is the scourge of all culture.

The first few chapters are one long, often repetitive, diatribe. He bemoans the “editor-free world” on the Net because the result is propaganda, deception, and advertising disguised as entertainment or news. Plus, people lose jobs, since traditional media outlets for paid reporters, editors, and music labels are losing their consumer base to the new Internet outlets, where amateurs post content for free. Wow! I just summarized 95% of this book in two sentences.

Keen tries to tease a great deal out of his simple premise by going on and on about the concepts of trust, authorship, objectivity , annonimity, and reliability. He ends up seeming alarmist partly because he does such a poor job of exploring or even admitting to any of the positive aspects of the new “Web 2.0 world,” such as egalitarianism, freedom of expression, and expanding grassroots organizing. He waits until the very last chapter to breeze through “solutions” that should have been integrated with chapters to systematically explore both positive and negative aspects of specific technologies.

Although Keen makes a good case for never using Wikipedia again (because of its lack of professional oversight), and supporting well-researched, reliable sources for news and information (such as Encyclopedia Brittanica), he otherwise sounds like a technophobe who wishes it were still 1982. But my biggest problem with this book is the way Keen implicitly supports non-internet main-stream media as the best source for reliable news, as well as traditional non-internet outlets (i.e., big music labels) for consumer goods.

As I am reading The Cult of the Amateur, I have also started Noam Chomsky’s Understanding Power. So far, this is an amazing book. Among other things, Chomsky addresses deeper issues that Keen doesn’t seem to recognize when it comes to media outlets. Keen firmly puts forward a division between the Blogosphere or Web reporting and traditional news outlets: the former is the source of propaganda, advertising disguised as news, and unreliable information, and the latter is not. This is so laughable I cannot believe Keen could put it to paper. Traditional media doesn’t feed us propaganda every day?! Are we not saturated with advertising disguised as news, from the local broadcaster to NPR? Keen’s edited news world promotes the status-quo, where powerful media conglomerates control everything we see. Personally, I’d rather have my “editor-free world” any day.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

While Keen does make some interesting points, his constant railing against all aspects of Web 2.0 grows old. We get it. You don't like user-created content, at least when it is created by people other than yourself (more on this later). Keen might be trying to get us to rally to the cause of saving the Internet, but in the end one can't help but wonder if he is just a bitter man who missed the 2.0 boat.

As one can expect from the title of the book, he is not fond of amateurs, stating that professionals are far superior. Either he had his book edited by amateurs, or professionals aren't as great as he thinks they are, since I found at least 3 glaring typos or grammatical errors in the first 100 pages of the book. It was obvious that this book was rushed to print so everyone involved could cash in. The author's credibility suffers greatly as a result.

And the final kicker in all of this: while Keen has written about the evils of bloggers, Youtube and web tracking, all 3 are right there in plain view on his own website. I guess these things are only bad when other people are using them, not when you're trying to promote a 200-page book that costs $22.95. I'm just glad I got this one from the local library.

[Mike Van Campen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I expected to be upset by this book. I was. This is no more than a poorly reasoned and weekly supported anti-Web 2.0 rant by a failed Internet entrepreneur. His claims that the participatory nature of Web 2.0 will ruin culture because it removes the highly trained cultural gatekeepers (publishers, record and move producers, etc.) from the equation of what we read, watch, listen to, etc. is ludicrous. If these gatekeepers were providing such high quality content the 2.0 revolution wouldn't be an issue (and they never would have allowed this disaster to be published). Folks read blogs, watch viral videos, and discover new music via digital sources because it is what the want to do. I could go on and argue him point by point but... Most laughable is his silly lament for the loss of soulless mega-store Tower records, which he argues had huge depth of selection. Yeah right, it has never been as easy to find obscure music as it is now with iTunes and other digital music services (although they could do better in the bluegrass arena). In the last few chapters he ties online gambling and porn into his argument though these have nothing to do with Web 2.0. What a mess!

[Antonio Fanelli · Rating 2 out of 5]

Condivido gran parte delle tesi sostenute in questo libro, che nei quasi dieci anni trascorsi dalal sua scrittura si sono dimostrate persino troppo tiepide.
La conoscenza, lo studio, l'esperienza ormai sono disvalori anche in TV e sui periodici.
UN qualunque ex-dj può discettare di vaccini inprima serata sui canali pubblici sostenuti dal canone; un primo ministro può definire "professoroni" gli esperti costituzionalisti che mettono in evidenza le falle della sua riforma e così mettendoli dalla parte del torto senza bisogno di argomentare.
Su google, qualunque cosa si cerchi, la prima pagina è praticamente solo wikipedia...

Perché solo due stelle allora?
Perché un intero volume è eccessivo per argomentare le tesi. Un pamphlet smilzo sarebbe stato più che sufficente.

[Matus · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't remember when was the last time I got so frustrated and angry with a book that it hurts to read it and I want to yell at it every 15 seconds.

Yes, I do have the benefit of 8 years of hindsight. But it is incredible how every single distopian prediction this book makes didn't materialize. It just utterly fails at imagining alternatives, it is pompously elitist and arrogant, and it just doesn't get technology or the internet or innovation or change or people or the world.

I want to finish the book but at this point it's just become pure torture to read it. This is the definition of a close-minded Luddite pamphlet.

[Nicole · Rating 1 out of 5]

Keen should be ashamed of himself. This book is littered with factual errors. It also has many statistics taken out of context that seem alarming, but when compared with historical statistics completely destroy his argument rather than support it. Did Doubleday even fact-check it?

Either this book is a satire meant to show that the publishing world is no better than the Web 2.0 world he decries, or it's a complete travesty.

[Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

Infuriatingly dismissive of the intelligence of others or the possibility that non-experts may still produce useful/good/interesting content (even in domains such as lifestyle blogging that I am surprised he even deigned to concern himself with). An interesting premise for a book that was deployed against too broad a range of content and therefore became unfounded social critique written in a self-important, hectoring tone.

[whimsicalmeerkat · Rating 1 out of 5]

Andrew Keen does well to identify the book as a polemic. It is poorly written and rambles. While I find the subject interesting and timely, this is not the book one should read to explore it. I also have some problems with so-called "Web 2.0" culture, but I do NOT want this man speaking for me.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Check out my interview with Keen on THE FUTURIST Website:

From the Jan-Feb 2008 issue of THE FUTURIST
In his new book, The Cult of the Amateur, (Currency, 2007) blogger and Internet entrepreneur Andrew Keen explores today's new participatory Internet, (often referred to as Web 2.0). He argues that too much amateur, user-generated, free content is threatening not only mainstream media—newspapers, magazines, and record and movie companies—but our very culture. We asked Keen what today's Internet trends mean for the future of our increasingly Web-driven society.

THE FUTURIST: Summarize the basic premise of your book for us; what do you see as the great danger in the way the Internet is allowing millions of content creators to undermine established media?

Keen: I don't believe this is any kind of conspiracy. Most of the technologists behind Web 2.0 want to do well and they're decent people. The relationship between the rise of new media and the crisis of old media is causally complex. It would be a dramatic oversimplification to argue that the only reason mainstream media is in crisis is because of the Internet. They are intimately bound up with one another and are cause and effect, in some respects. But people stopped trusting and reading newspapers before the invention of the Internet. People, particularly in the U.S., have problems with all sorts of authority, with or without the Internet. It's a reaction against cultural authority.

It's no coincidence that most of the intellectual leaders of the Web 2.0 movement are children of the sixties. There's a book by Fred Turner of Stanford called Counterculture to Cyber Culture that traces the birth of Silicon Valley and today's Internet to people opposed to traditional forms of authority. When we look at Web 2.0 we're staring into a mirror. We're a society that's intent on exposing the unreliability and corruption of authority, whether that authority is an editor at a publishing house or newspaper, or an executive at a record label, or a producer in Hollywood, or a politician. The representatives of mainstream media have become a convenient punching bag, much like politicians.

The alternative to mainstream media, which is the Internet, is by definition untrustworthy because it doesn't have gatekeepers. It lends itself not to imagined corruption, but to real corruption. Ironically, the continual distrust of our supposedly unreliable mainstream media has given us a new media that is, by its very definition, unreliable.

FUTURIST: Was there a specific incident—perhaps something that you witnessed during your Silicon Valley days with Audiocafe—that convinced you that today's Internet is killing our culture?

Keen: I describe it in my book. I had an epiphany at an event called Foo Camp, which is Friends Of O'Reilly Camp. It's the classic Silicon Valley Unconference conference, with lots of people espousing jargon about democracy and interactivity and cultural flattening and openness. It was at that event in September 2004 that I had my transformation. I went from a digital believer to an unbeliever.

FUTURIST: What happened?

Keen: I just had enough of these wealthy Silicon Valley guys talking about democratization. It was the height of absurdity that these affluent people thought they knew what anybody else wanted culturally, politically, and mentally. It occurred to me that what was going on was intellectual fraud.

I think it's worth stressing that the book begins with this epiphany. The book itself, as a narrative, is premised on it.

FUTURIST: How do you see this trend evolving in the future? For instance, just as our technology habits got us into this mess, is it possible that a different, future technology might get us out?

Keen: I don't think this is a technology story. Hopefully, what's going on now will force people to realize that expertise does have value. Third parties—gatekeepers—add value to all media. They help produce much more truthful content. People will rediscover the value of expertise and authority figures who know what they're talking about, so I hope that Web 3.0, when it arrives, will reflect something new. Rather than the empowerment of the amateur, Web 3.0 will show the resurgence of the professional. Having talked to a number of people who are building their next-generation Internet businesses around proven expertise, I'm more optimistic now than when I first wrote the book. Many of the new Internet media startups pay the people who contribute content to their sites and don't allow them to hide behind anonymity.

FUTURIST: When do you think this change to Web 3.0 will be noticeable?

Keen: I think it's already happening. When you look at the Web sites like Mahalo.com (which is paying its contributors), HowThingsWork.com, and a number of other businesses I've written about, you see the change that's taking place. Smart people in Silicon Valley are now invested in those kinds of businesses.

But I have a feeling that the tipping point will come with something involving Google or one of the Google companies, like YouTube. YouTube is the driver of the Web 2.0 economy, and they epitomize the hypocrisy of Web 2.0, as well. They're making a fortune from the advertising sold around free amateur content, but they articulate this ideology of personal empowerment. I've seen some incredibly disturbing videos posted on YouTube. I think we're going to see a profoundly immoral example of how media—without a gatekeeper—lends itself to nastiness. That will be the low point.

The high point, so to speak, for Web 2.0 was when Time magazine voted "you" as the person of the year. I think we're going to look back at that as the PetFood.com moment.

FUTURIST: Is there anything else we might do now to reverse these trends?

Keen: One area I think we need to concentrate on is anonymity. I think it's one of the most corrosive things in the Web 2.0 world, and it lends itself to corruption, rudeness, vulgarity. I spent some time at Berkeley with a few research guys from Yahoo. All of their research shows that, whenever a site is dominated by anonymous posters, the quality of the content is dramatically lower than when the site encourages people to reveal their identities. I think that more and more business will come to understand that relying on anonymously produced content is actually a way of losing money.

For the rest of us, we need to ask ourselves, "Is Web anonymity really necessary in a democracy?" I just don't think it's justified unless you might be put in jail for your opinion.

The other great concern for me is media literacy. Young people need to understand the difference between Wikipedia and The New York Times online. There's a difference between a blog and book. I'm thrilled that education professionals out there are now teaching media literacy in schools. I think it needs to be taught not only in schools but also in universities.

FUTURIST: You've written a book, you blog online; what else do you do to get this message out there?

Keen: I'm doing a lot of speaking, I'm presenting to people in Vancouver. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be in Amsterdam, then London, then Greece, then Frankfurt. This is a message that's caught on. I've got translated versions of the book coming out in China, Taiwan, and Poland. The book is an opening salvo, a polemic to get people to think about these issues. I hope that after my book, people will write more thoughtful, scholarly works on this subject. My book is not a scholarly book. It's not a balanced book. It's an attempt to begin a conversation.



To read an excerpt from Keen's book where he discusses Foo Camp, go to: www.andrewkeen.typepad.com

This interview was conducted by Patrick Tucker .

[Bob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Often described as a polemic, "The Cult of the Amateur" is simply a screed against societal and economic change. It is a moralistic bombast against the populist notion of cooperation and collaboration in favor of a single point of reference determined and espoused by an expert. The author pulls out all of the goblins: narcissism, lying, thievery, gambling and pornography; to warn readers that their culture is under siege by know-nothing friends and neighbors bent on self-expression and actualization at the cost of a national dialog. To believe the premise, our society will unravel — even our economy is at stake! — if my neighbors and I allow ourselves to chronicle the times we live in without heeding the checks and balances of experts. We are, with each visit to Wikipedia, with each blog post and each download; jeopardizing jobs in traditional publishing, distribution and media. What purports to be a defense of our national character ends up being a defense of the hayday of mass media where three networks and a handful of newspapers made the news and controlled the water-cooler-conversations through a self-chosen circle of "experts." I have found it impossible to separate the words on the page from their outspoken author, Andrew Keen. Lacking direction and focus, Keen leaps from conclusion to conclusion often contradicting himself: as in his mourning the loss of niche knowledge among the staff of Tower Records and lambasting the uncontrolled blogosphere for perpetuating a never ending series of narrow interests. Keen’s academic pedigree shines through each sentence and illuminates his general distrust of the common man. This book is an unconscious paean to media darlings of a by-gone era: the condescending, idealistic academician as talking-head. Yes. Gambling can be dangerous and pornography is not for children. No. The crowd is not imbued with wisdom. Our society is experiencing significant growing pains and experimenting with new technologies and freedoms. Through seven chapters, Keen focuses only on the negative consequences of technological advances and condemns our innate human curiosity and expression as irrevocably bad. In the eighth and final chapter, Keen finally allows that there are benefits and acknowledges that we may yet reign in this beast of Web 2.0 and realize our own folly. He might be right. We may yet welcome experts into our conversations, should they decide to participate rather than instruct. Doing so will strike a balance between narcissistic echoes in the blogosphere and self-referential experts espousing their wisdom. It is a bit of a strain to think how Keen, after seven chapters of self-righteously divisive language, can make that allowance; but the final chapter is a welcomed return to reality and pragmatism. If you must read this book, I highly recommend checking it out from an American library—where royalties are not paid.

[Mark Mikula · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Cult of the Amateur takes the view that opening up the web to all voices has a decidedly negative impact on our culture. With newspapers needing to layoff workers, Keen makes the point that expertise is being lost to masses of people who are, in many cases, ill-equipped to maintain journalistic standards. The web's cloak of anonymity and the amateur status of many bloggers and videographers also keep individuals from being held accountable for their views. Keen also questions how many individuals contributing to the web are actually shills for political parties or corporations, merely in place to add to the spin. With so much content available on the web and limited tools to estimate its value, users can easily be confused or overwhelmed.

He does not restrict his argument to journalism. He also presents the dwindling numbers of independent book stores and record stores as evidence of the trend. I found the book to be a compelling read, floating many ideas with excellent points of view from many people affected by the trend.

My minor quibbles: I think that the chapters could have been more starkly defined. The anecdotal evidence for the erosion of culture tries to stay on point, but the arguments for one industry do not stay in one chapter. They keep resurfacing. To me, it felt like the points being raised were diluted because the focus was returning to already covered ground.

Also, toward the end of the book, Keen brings up examples of Internet gambling and pornography, both of which he effectively ties into the argument for examples of web-supported industries that contribute to the erosion of culture. But his argument then goes in the direction of making a plea for parents to be gatekeepers for their children. These sections seemed ad hoc and more appropriate for a separate article outside of the book.

That aside, I strongly recommend the book, especially to anyone who feels threatened by the web or challenged by the difficult task of separating worthwhile content from electronic detritus.

[Jaime · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a person who makes her income online, I could not resist reading a book that claimed – in the title no less – that the internet is assaulting our economy. Luckily, I made a good choice with this one and could hardly put it down until I finished reading it.

Andrew Keen starts off with a strong argument. You have heard of the Infinite Monkey Theorem? Infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters can create Shakespeare? According to Keen, “Today’s technology hooks all those monkeys up with all those typewriters” and Keen doesn’t like what he’s reading.

With plenty of statistics to draw upon, Cult of the Amateur takes us through the world of Web 2.0 and its influence on today’s world – which isn’t as good as you might think. From the music industry to the media, the internet has emerged as a severe threat to the way things happen today.

Keen likes to point out how amateur journalists (if they can call themselves that) are poisoning the media. However, in a world where the media has legal permission to lie, I think Keen’s defense of the media is somewhat misplaced. While he doesn’t outright say it, he implies that all authority figures are honest when it’s obvious they’re not. It’s no wonder the amateur hour has taken off – people don’t trust authority anymore.

There is so much Keen touches on – from media, to the music industry to the economy – adding up to way more than I can talk about in this one review. But trust me, it’s all fascinating.

With all the build up about the problems, naturally I was looking to what kind of solutions Keen would propose to battle what he’d built up into an overwhelming tide of idiocy and mediocrity. Keen completely impressed me not only with his proposed solutions but with his criticisms of current systems.

In the conclusion, he even admits the faults of his beloved music industry, understanding that people will forgo a sixteen dollar CD in favour of cherry-picking songs for a dollar each on iTunes.

[Duncan · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are two books with this name and I thought this was the other one. This one is the stupid one, a scree against youtube, wikipedia and crowds in general.

It is primarily about the ill effects of the web.

My critique, such as it is, benefits from hindsight, as when the book was written wikipedia had only 3 million entries. Still, as polemic, this book is all noise and no substance. It decries mob rule on the web and the fall of the expert. It intentionally devalues daily human activity. It presents supposition as fact. It addresses no issues I can see; none of its complaints are actionable.

Keen gives away his game early on. He says, in a prologue, that he is an insider at the creation of web 2.0, "nearly" became wealthy in the first dotcom bubble. (I nearly became wealthy, too, a couple of times. Wanna hear about it?) He then admits that he did not lose his love for the web all at once--no, it took almost 48 hours.

He worries that the ability of any person to post any thing without being first vetted somehow will...I guess destroy the world. That's a reasonable worry, though it's arguable. He proposes, as far as I can tell, no alternative.

This is a diatribe against the whirling of the earth. I read the beginning earnestly, dipped in at various poorly written junctures and skipped to the end. It is intellectual laziness masked by outrage at the state of things.

That it is now in its thirteenth edition shocks me.
I threw it away.