GeekinthePink

The whole participatory culture idea concerned me. The idea that anybody and everybody can actively sway culture to his or her agenda--well, to say the least, it is disturbing. I saw a Dr. Phil show on the guys who were involved in the "Jena 6" and of course, Dr. Phil found the most extreme guests to juxtapose eachother. He had a member from an African American right group (which, in this case, was more of an anti-white group than an African American right organization) and he had a member of a white supremacist group. So he had conflict about how the boys were treated between two minority opinions in the culture. He didn't have your average citizens on the show. Of course not. Now, this is an example of participatory culture. Dr. Phil (sorry I think he is an exploiter anyway, I don't like him)found two sides that were sure to vehemently oppose one another. He utilized his own power of creating conflict to flame the fire of racism behind this small-town controversy.

Further discussing this idea, I can't help but think the average person being able to participate in culture is going to lead to the breakdown of society. A couple of steps past post-modernism. Yeats' "The Second Coming" keeps coming to my head--"The best lack all conviction, while the worst/are full of passionate intensity." In this postmodern society, every voice can be prominent--including the voice of ignorance. If the ignorant are given a voice, and people regurgitate these ideas, culture would continually take a beating. Thus, the sane voice would be drowned out. Can you argue with a fool? Well, you can, but I don't think you want to because most of the time, you can't change the mind of a fool. (what are you thinking? They are a fool! Reason is not their tool! It's their emotion thy use!) Ooh. This really reminds me of Ayn Rand but I won't go there. I'm not trying to sound all didactic like her. The whole idea of average joe shmoe billy bob hilly billy (phew what a name) taking pictures with his camera phone from nowhere, Alabama and putting them on CNN just really bothers me for some reason. Go figure.