I went to a birthday party last night. The man of the hour threw himself a huge bash and invited his many friends. He rented out a theatre and structured the evening as a variety show, with himself as Master of Ceremonies.<\/p>\n
What was most fascinating to me about the occasion was how the birthday boy took to the stage and proceeded to perform, not as himself, but rather as a series of characters: First a late-night comedian, then a freakish quiz show host. He presented one sketch after another, each more outrageous than the one before.<\/p>\n
And I found myself wondering whether I was witnessing some sort of cultural feedback loop, in which the emerging digital culture of personal invention is starting to redefine the world of flesh and blood.<\/p>\n
Our culture is already moving beyond the make-believe “democracy” of American Idol<\/i>. Media has become fragmented, decentralized. We are entering a time when the traditional content producers are losing control of the conversation, when each individual has become a potential point of broadcast. Consumers are becoming better at voting with their clicks, and the MySpace<\/i>-driven rise to fame of a Lily Allen could become the rule rather than the exception.<\/p>\n
The long tail is starting to wag the dog.<\/p>\n
So I wonder, was I witnessing a glimmer of the future? In the age of YouTube<\/i>, will more and more people assess their milestones, measure the worth of their lives, by an ability to create a persona, to transmit a virtual self?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I went to a birthday party last night. The man of the hour threw himself a huge bash and invited his many friends. He rented out a theatre and structured the evening as a variety show, with himself as Master of Ceremonies. What was most fascinating to me about the occasion was how the birthday … Continue reading “Wagging the dog”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}