The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture [Hardcover]

Andrew Keen (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 5, 2007

Amateur hour has arrived, and the audience is running the show

In a hard-hitting and provocative polemic, Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today’s new participatory Web 2.0 and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American achievement.

Our most valued cultural institutions, Keen warns—our professional newspapers, magazines, music, and movies—are being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Advertising revenue is being siphoned off by free classified ads on sites like Craigslist; television networks are under attack from free user-generated programming on YouTube and the like; file-sharing and digital piracy have devastated the multibillion-dollar music business and threaten to undermine our movie industry. Worse, Keen claims, our “cut-and-paste” online culture—in which intellectual property is freely swapped, downloaded, remashed, and aggregated—threatens over 200 years of copyright protection and intellectual property rights, robbing artists, authors, journalists, musicians, editors, and producers of the fruits of their creative labors.

In today’s self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion, however ill-informed, can publish a blog, post a video on YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur becomes dangerously blurred. When anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented.

The very anonymity that the Web 2.0 offers calls into question the reliability of the information we receive and creates an environment in which sexual predators and identity thieves can roam free. While no Luddite—Keen pioneered several Internet startups himself—he urges us to consider the consequences of blindly supporting a culture that endorses plagiarism and piracy and that fundamentally weakens traditional media and creative institutions.

Offering concrete solutions on how we can rein in the free-wheeling, narcissistic atmosphere that pervades the Web, THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR is a wake-up call to each and every one of us.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Keen's relentless "polemic" is on target about how a sea of amateur content threatens to swamp the most vital information and how blogs often reinforce one's own views rather than expand horizons. But his jeremiad about the death of "our cultural standards and moral values" heads swiftly downhill. Keen became somewhat notorious for a 2006 Weekly Standard essay equating Web 2.0 with Marxism; like Karl Marx, he offers a convincing overall critique but runs into trouble with the details. Readers will nod in recognition at Keen's general arguments—sure, the Web is full of "user-generated nonsense"!—but many will frown at his specific examples, which pretty uniformly miss the point. It's simply not a given, as Keen assumes, that Britannica is superior to Wikipedia, or that record-store clerks offer sounder advice than online friends with similar musical tastes, or that YouTube contains only "one or two blogs or songs or videos with real value." And Keen's fears that genuine talent will go unnourished are overstated: writers penned novels before there were publishers and copyright law; bands recorded songs before they had major-label deals. In its last third, the book runs off the rails completely, blaming Web 2.0 for online poker, child pornography, identity theft and betraying "Judeo-Christian ethics." (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

What the experts are saying about Andrew Keen’s thought-provoking polemic


“My initial reaction to the book was: ‘Geez, I have a lot of things to think about now.’ For people immersed in the social communities of Web 2.0, this is bound to be a thought-provoking and sobering book. While I don't agree with everything Keen says, there is page after page of really interesting insight and research. I look forward to the much-needed debate about the problems that Keen articulates—which can't be lightly dismissed.”
—Larry Sanger, co-founder, Wikipedia and founder, Citizendium

“Marvelous and provocative . . . . I think this is a powerful stop and breathe book in the midst of the obsessions and abstraction of folks seeking comfort in Web 2.0. Beautifully written too.”
—Chris Schroeder, former CEO, WashingtonPost/Newsweek online and CEO, Health Central Network

“Important . . . will spur some very constructive debate. This is a book that can produce positive changes to the current inertia of web 2.0.
—Martin Green, vice president of community, CNET

“For anyone who thinks that technology alone will make for a better democracy, Andrew Keen will make them think twice.”
—Andrew Rasiej, founder, Personal Democracy Forum

“Very engaging, and quite controversial and provocative. He doesn’t hold back any punches.”
—Dan Farber, editor-in-chief, ZDNet

“Andrew Keen is a brilliant, witty, classically-educated technoscold—and thank goodness. The world needs an intellectual Goliath to slay Web 2.0's army of Davids.”
—Jonathan Last, online editor, The Weekly Standard

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Crown Business; 3rd Printing edition (June 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385520808
• ISBN-13: 978-0385520805
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (136 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #125,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andrew Keen is an Internet entrepreneur who founded Audiocafe.com in 1995 and built it into a popular first generation Internet company. He is currently the host of "Keen On" show, the popular Techcrunch chat show, a columnist for CNN and a regular commentator for many other newspapers, radio and television networks around the world. He is also an acclaimed speaker, regularly addressing the impact of digital technologies on 21st century business, education and society. He is the author of the 2007 international hit "CULT OF THE AMATEUR: How The Internet Is Killing Our Culture" which has been published in 17 different languages. Andrew's latest book "DIGITAL VERTIGO: How Today's Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing and Disorienting Us" is published on May 22, 2012.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

179 of 205 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought-provoking, but lacks some essential logic July 6, 2007

By A. J Terry VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Because I work in traditional media (book and magazine publishing) and regret how magazine and newspaper publishing are being decimated by competition from cheap (and free) Internet ad sales, I thought I'd like this book more than I did. Particularly since I agree with its premise that the vast majority of the free content on the Internet that is not supplied by traditional publishers is of less-than-professional quality. And that the Internet is home to a great deal of junk information, narcissistic self-expression, childish insults (the number of people who are 45 going on 13 is astounding, as is the number of the quasi-literate), slander, and scams.

However, although _The Cult of the Amateur_ is highly thought provoking, it is marred by sloppy thinking. For one thing: "Amateur" is never defined. Professionalism is a complicated concept in the fields of literature, music, visual arts, and dance (the last is a field this book does not cover, but it is one I am familiar with as a performer and teacher). Professionalism is often not defined by whether the person makes his or her living as a writer, musician, etc. Most people in most arts fields, including some highly skilled and well-known artists, simply cannot earn a living working in the arts full time because the pay is typically too low. Professionalism is sometimes defined by whether the artist has passed "gatekeepers," in the form of publishers or producers, or by winning contests. On the other hand, in the fields of live music and dance performance, this is often not valid, as the hiring parties often do not know enough technically to know whether the performers are any good. I have heard professionalism defined as whether the artist continually strives to achieve his or her best--and then studies and works to improve even more.... That would have been a good definition for this book to adopt.

But even the book's implied definition of professionalism, which is the passing of gatekeepers, is not consistent. For example, the book discusses how some amateurs were recruited by major companies via contests to create advertising material for those companies. The winners were paid, more than a pittance though less than seasoned pros--which seems reasonable enough, since beginners in a field are usually paid less. Instead of viewing this as a situation where some beginners gained a toehold in the field of professional advertising and a credit to put on the resume when applying for advertising jobs, the book laments it as professional opportunities and money being thrown away on rank amateurs. But: The contest winners did pass the gatekeepers.

The book fails to address another aspect of the Internet that degrades the quality of the publications on it: The Internet heavily rewards change. The ethos is that change is inherently good, and frequent change means a much higher search engine rank. And many people are blogging, or providing free informational articles, to promote their businesses. (Another aspect of the Internet this book does not address: It assumes everyone except big businesses blogs, posts, and chats on e-lists out of sheer narcissism.) Not infrequently these promotional bloggers or site owners are professional writers who have passed "gatekeepers" elsewhere.

But: If they were writing for traditional book and magazine publishers, together with the publisher they would _finish_ each work and perfect it as far as humanly possible. Every monthly issue of a magazine is a different, polished publication. Even the most frequently updated books, such as directories, are only published annually. But the work on a website is supposed to be never done--meaning many of the best writer/website owners post half-finished work and fluff just to keep up their search engine rank. Others constantly chase people to write free "guest" articles--so the website owners can get on with their real writing work. The least scrupulous website owners and bloggers (these are not, I sincerely hope, professional writers), merely lift material from other sites: The ethos of change is yet another incentive to violate copyright.

The book also displays no historical sense beyond a few years ago. (When I first saw the subtitle, my snide thought was, "Today's Internet as opposed to that of the Middle Ages?") For example, it decries book self-publishing as an Internet phenomenon. Which isn't technically correct, since most books are not actually published on the net. But to get back to history: Self-publishing was the main model of book publishing before the 19th century. Everyone can name "great works of literature" that were self-published, as well as "great authors" who published pseudonymously (which this book says is also an Internet phenomenon). Everyone can also name what now are judged really awful self-published books that were bestsellers in their time (for example, Lady Caroline Lamb's celebrity tell-all novel about her affair with Lord Byron). And, some at least can name journalists, such as the novelist Colette's first husband Willy, who shamelessly wrote positive reviews of work by spouses, friends, etc., at times under false names.

As someone who has both worked for "traditional" publishers as an editor and writer, and who has self-published, I don't feel the dismissal of all self-published books as junk is fair. Both traditional and self-publishers tend to view the public as a very important gatekeeper: Does the book sell well? If so, it's of significant value to a significant number of consumers--and its sales keep the publisher in business. Why is someone who invests all their money in self-publishing books considered a narcissist, while someone who invests all their money in self-publishing software is considered an entrepreneur? Well, that's partly because our culture has a low estimation of the arts, an attitude this book continually ascribes to the Internet but which is far more wide-ranging and long-standing. If people valued well-written works, our best magazines and newspapers wouldn't need to sell ads for other companies' products to stay in business--and therefore would not be suffering so from competitive advertising on the Internet. And also, readers would not be so eager to violate copyright law, a problem the Internet has increased exponentially by the ease of pirating works and distributing the copies.

I agree with this book's premise that there is simply too much stuff on the Internet. There is far more information and entertainment available to everyone, than any one person can ever use or effectively sort out. However, that has been true for a long time--the information just didn't use to be on the Internet. People have always chatted informally, and critiqued books, plays, etc. for their friends--they just didn't do as much of it in writing. Since the invention of photography, people have shown around their home photos and movies (and earlier, their amateur watercolors). Since the average person became literate, people have kept diaries--most just didn't make them public.

And, there have always been amateur publications and minor professional ones--little club newsletters, neighborhood newspapers, and so on. Publications for which there was _some_ gatekeeping, but readers never expected them to be of the same quality as a large daily newspaper or national magazine. Nor have readers ever expected a tabloid to be the same kind of publication as a major daily. But, I do not agree with the author's premise that gatekeepers for publications, no matter how prestigious, are so invariably right that readers should simply accept whatever they say. Everyone should learn to analyze and evaluate the information they receive (though most people don't seem to) no matter whether the source is a blog on the Internet, a tabloid, or a major daily newspaper

I believe, by the way, that the insatiable appetite for attention and confession displayed on many amateur e-groups and blogs, is fueled by the practices of some traditional media, especially television and the tabloids. After years of seeing the media obsess over the most minute details of celebrities' lives--not to mention any real scandals--people have come to believe that the public is equally fascinated with all details of their own lives, and that publishing those details turns them, too, into celebrities. Any potentially scandalous behavior of their own seems like just good copy, as celebrity drinking problems and adulteries do to the tabloids. For these amateurs any attention--real or fancied--is a valued payment.

_The Cult of the Amateur_ points out many problems inherent in this transitional period. The models for magazine, book, and newspaper publishing, and the distribution of music and films, are drastically changing. Major and excellent businesses are losing money; many smaller ones have been bankrupted.

But, I believe that within a few years a new stratification of publication and distribution will arise, to aid both readers and publishers. Professional online (or even printed) publications, paid for by subscription or otherwise, will aid readers by doing what traditional book and magazine publishers have always done. That is, by sorting through a vast quantity of information submitted, choosing and collecting that of particular interest on a specific topic, or to a certain group of readers, then editing and otherwise refining the information to ensure the best quality and presentation. Ultimately, such online publications would greatly aid readers adrift in a sea of search results--and also, by making money, be able to pay their contributors and editors. (I agree with this book that most writers and artists can't spend the huge amount of time, and often money, required for professionalism unless someone pays them; whether this is consumers buying the work, or companies helping to produce and/or distribute the work in return for a share of the profits.) So, perhaps people wanting to read amateur work will read blogs, just as people who do not want an in-depth book review have always asked friends casual questions about the book. But readers wanting quality will turn to professional publications, on line or in print; just as they've long turned to newspapers, rather than rumors, for most of their news.

Unfortunately, the publishers that figure out how to make money in the new world of publishing and distribution, may not be the same as some of the best ones now in business. Also, making money in publishing, music, and films _does_ depend on the enforcement of copyright law, and given the ethics of many Internet users, I think publishers need better technical protection systems than any now existing. I do not believe most publishers can continue to rely on ad sales--there are just too many places to advertise cheaply on the Internet.

This book continually points the free-ad-competition finger at Craigslist. But the fact is that any small business can now create a large, four-color, long-term website of their own for less than the price of one printing of one classified (or small display) ad in a major newspaper or magazine: And most of them are doing it. Also, an enormous number of websites, including amateur ones, are trying to sell banner ads and links. With so many Internet venues for cheap advertising--even if Craigslist went out of business instantly--the revenues from most advertising sold either on the Internet or off it are likely to continue minimal.

I also believe that new software will be developed to help the individual consumer search for and sort out the material of most interest to him or her (which is a different issue from whether it is "good"). Read more ›

321 of 377 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Confused, Prurient and Amateur: A debate is needed, but this isn't the book to lead it July 24, 2007

By O. Buxton

Format:Hardcover

Since Andrew Keen is so instinctively dismissive about amateur contributors to the internet - people like me - it's hardly surprising that I should instinctively dismiss his book, so let me declare an interest right away: I like Web 2.0. I've been a contributor to it - through Amazon customer reviews, Wikipedia, discussion forums, MySpace, Napster and so on - for nearly a decade now, and I've followed the emergence of the political movement supporting it, exemplified by writers such as Larry Lessig and Yochai Benkler, with some fascination. and no, I've never made a dime out of it (though I have been sent a few books to review, not including this one).

Andrew Keen is that classic sort of British reactionary: the sort that would bemoan the loss of the word "gay" to the English language, and regret the damage caused by industrial vacuum cleaners on the chimney sweeping industry. His book is an empassioned, but simple-minded, harkening to those simpler times which concludes that our networked economy has pointlessly exalted the amateur, ruined the livelihood of experts, destroyed incentives for creating intellectual property, delivered to every man-jack amongst us the ability - never before possessed - to create and distribute our own intellectual property and monkeyed around mischievously with the title to property wrought from the very sweat of its author's brow.

Keen thinks this is a bad thing; but that is to assume that the prior state of affairs was unimpeachably good.... You don't have to be a paranoid Chomskyite to see the pitfalls of concentrated mass media ownership (Keen glosses over them), or note that the current intellectual property regime - which richly rewards a few lucky souls and their publishers at the expense of millions of less fortunate (but not, necessarily, less talented) ones, isn't the only way one could fairly allocate the risks and rewards of intellectual endeavour.

Keen's world is one where there is a transcendental reality; a truth, purveyed by experts, trained journalists, and in great danger of dissolution by the radically relativised truths of Wikipedia where the community sets the agenda, and if two plus two equals five, then it is five. So much Big Brother: Orwell's novel gets repeated mention, it apparently having escaped Keen that a media owned by a concentrated, cross-held clique of corporate interests - which is what the old economy perpetuated - looks quite a lot more totalitarian than publishing capacity distributed to virtually every person on the planet.

Keen laments the loss of a "sanctity of authorship" of the sort which vouchsafed to Messrs Jagger and Richards (and their recording company) a healthy lifetime's riches for the fifteen minutes it took to compose and record Satisfaction (notwithstanding their debt - doubtless unpaid - to divers blues legends from Robert Johnson to Chuck Berry) and seems to believe individual creativity will be suddenly stifled by undermining it. There's no evidence for this (certainly not judging by MySpace, the proliferation of blogs, Wikipedia, and so forth, as Keen patiently recounts), and no reason I can see for supposing it to be true on any other grounds.

On the contrary, Yale law professor Yochai Benkler in his excellent (and freely available!) The Wealth Of Networks has a much more sophisticated analysis: there is a non-market wealth of information and expertise - residing in heads like yours and mine - which the networked economy has finally unlocked, for the benefit of all, and at the cost of the poor substitute that preceded it. That this might have compromised the gargantuan earnings capacity of one latter day Rolling Stones (to the incremental benefit of a few thousand others) is far less of a travesty - and more of a boon - than Keen thinks it is. Now rock bands have to sing for their supper. Keen may regret that but, as a concert goer, I sure don't.

Keen also, irritatingly, keeps returning to the Monkeys and Typewriters analogy (writes your dear correspondent, a monkey). It is true there may not be much talent behind the infinite typewriters, but the evolutionary lesson is that there doesn't need to be, as long as we have tools, be they Google algorithms or manual reputation management devices (things like Amazon's "helpful review" voting buttons) to sort the wheat from the chaff. And like it or not, we *do* have these tools: they're the sine non qua of Web 2.0, the thing without which it would never have got off the ground.

And Wikipedia (or Linux, or eBay, or Amazon's customer review system) is potent evidence of that. That there are notorious cases, a few of which Keen recounts, doesn't detract from the fact that Wikipedia is largely comprised of brilliant articles, with helpful links and useful surrounding discussion, a complete history, and those articles that aren't so good are obviously not: all you need to pack for a visit is your critical faculties. Again, if the choice were blind faith in Encyclopaedia Britannica or a sceptical read of Wikipedia, I know which I'd have, and which I'd counsel for my children - especially since Wikipedia is automatically up-to-date, preternaturally following the zeitgeist, and replete with good know-how on things that Britannica would never have in a million years. Most of the time, we don't need a nobel-prize certified article, and in Britannica wouldn't get one anyway, if what we wanted to know about was *The Knights who say "Ni"*.

Elsewhere Keen misunderstands Adam Smith, Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jaques Rousseau, the Correspondence Theory of Truth, implies that traditional media isn't systemically biased, assumes his fellow men have no sense of scepticism whatever (because something is watched on YouTube, Keen assumes it is necessarily believed true), and constantly fails to see the double standards in his own arguments: Complaining that traditional media is losing out to a swarm of unpaid, underresourced amateurs, Keen suddenly remarks "but in reality it's often those with the loudest, most convincing message, and the most money to spread it, who are being heard". Plus ca change, eh?

Lastly, Keen laments the passing of specialist record and book shops like Tower, whose "unparalleled" and "remarkably diverse selection" will be lost to us for ever. Clearly he's no online shopper then, since dear old Amazon would lick all of them put together - but Amazon, he says, lacks the dedicted expertise of sales assistants that could have stepped out of Nick Hornby's Hi Fidelity. Except that it doesn't, since it has literally millions of them - people like you and me - who can offer our tuppence worth gladly and without thought of recompense.

The thing is, there *is* a debate to be had here, though not quite the apocalyptic one that this author believes is necessary, and at times Keen touches on it, but his brimming prurience and needless moral disgust - at the cost of level-headed anlysis and expostion - towards a community which has simply adjusted to the new social envinronment more quickly than traditional political and business models have makes this a poor entry for the purposes of kicking off that debate.

In the mean time, Yochai Benkler's The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom and Lawrence Lessig's Code: Version 2.0 (neither of which Keen seems to have read) might be a better place for interested persons to start.

Olly Buxton Read more ›

46 of 56 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Speaking of amateurs April 8, 2008

By Mary Fuller

Format:Hardcover

Mr. Keen makes some interesting points that deserve our critical attention, namely that free content, whether produced by amateurs or not, seems to be leading to a major crisis for industries that rely on the controled creation and distribution of information or creative material. They're losing money. I think most of us who are paying attention know this and we haven't found out what to do about it... yet.

That being said, I found myself dismissing most of his arguements regarding the degradation our culture because of the self-broadcasting possiblilities of the internet. First of all, his tone is horrid. He seems to have no faith in his fellow man at all, unless he holds a PhD or some other impressive credentials. He assumes that because there is a lot of mediocre material on the web, that it is all "for idiots, by idiots".

He doesn't give any of us credit for becoming increasingly savvy about the media we consume. He doesn't understand that we are raising a generation of children who have an extraordinary talent for finding the needles in the haystack of the web. I personally believe that interaction with Web 2.0 enhances our ability to filter information and screen for what we need or want. Sure it's easy to waste time on YouTube, but you're more likely to find interesting content there than on television, where "expert" producers have been feeding us banal trash for years (hello, Jackass? Reality TV show #45,000? Fox News?) I've got 400 channels on my cable, and on any given day there may be two programs I actually would waste my time watching. On YouTube, I can pull up the lastest Electorial candidate debates, or find news clips of Dick Cheney contradicting himself... or cute pandas... but I have a greater measure of control over what I find....

He totally discounts the argument that mainstream media, particularly news media, leave out marginalized voices. He even claims that political bias in mainstream newspapers and magazines are relegated to the editorial pages because there are professional editors in place. Is he kidding? Really? Does anybody really believe that?

It's funny to me that, in his cynicism, he ignores some of the really incredible things that can come out of "democratized" access to creative endevors. A great example came out this past year, when NASA put out a design challenge on their website- they offered $200,000 for the best solution to building a better space glove. The winning entry came from an unemployed engineer who worked on the project in his garage. NASA will be manufacturing his rather elegant design, and got their better space glove for a fraction of what it would have cost to develop it through the regular channels. And aparently NASA got the idea from a blogger! Taking this anecdote and spreading it out, it shows that given the enormous power of free-flowing information, we can tap the under-utilized talents that lay latent in the general populace. We can defintely benefit from better communication. Yes, that does mean that we need to turn a critical eye to what we read/see on the internet, and take a particularly skeptical view of user-generated content, but that doesn't mean that that content can't be very, very useful.

The irony is that as much as he seems to abhor amateur on the internet, Keen himself seems poorly qualified to discuss larger cultural ramifications of the participatory nature of Web 2.0. His bio says he's a Silacon Valley entrepreur, but that hardly qualifies him to write this essay. Sure he's probably witnessed a lot of crap out there, but his analysis is, well, lame. He likes to throw around words like "authorship", "mystery", "sanctity", and "truth" as if Post-modernism hadn't ever happened. For a man who made his money in the internet revolution, he sure doesn't seem to be living in the same bloggosphere I am.

Good thing I borrowed this from the library. Read more ›