Elton John wants to shut down the internet
Hat tip to the (recently news-worthy) Fake Steve for juxtaposing that blog title with this photo. Juxtaposing someone's fuddy-duddy opinion with a photo of them in a Donald Duck suit is an unfair, but totally effective, way to cut the opinion down.
Does anyone have a photo of Michael Gorman in a duck suit?
Labels: elton john, fake steve, michael gorman
posted by Tim at 2:32 PM
4 Comments:
It may be unfair, but what I find a little worrisome is precisely that it is so effective for so many people... Isn't this just another example of the shallow engagement most internet readers have with the information available to them? It took me half an hour of surfing to even get a vague idea of who was mocking who and for what (and, honestly, I'm still a little unclear). Perhaps Gorman has a point about authenticity after all (and isn't so ridiculous for hoping internet media will continue to evolve, just as print media has)... I'm all for the "democratization of information," but I'm much more interested in the idea of a "community of knowledge." How can such a community be established in an increasingly splintered virtual "society" where people's most common bond is their shared role as "consumer" (whether they are consuming products, facts, or amusing but irrelevant photos of men in duck costumes)?
But you're right. Man in duck costume = funny. And I guess that's what really matters.
I think there's a difference between shallow engagement and engagement within a circle of people who know what you're talking about. Certianly my glancing mention of Michael Gorman was not an argument—it was an inside joke to people who know me, my opinons and so forth.
Far from having a shallow engagement with this issue, I've blogged about it at length. Good grief, I my talk at the American Library Association was 50% a discussion and refutation of Gorman's "Sleep of Reason" article. And then I posted it online. And then my response was discussed on a dozen blogs, which lead to replies and responses that have only died down. If I were any more engaged with the Gorman controversy I'd be Gorman.
Anyway, my point was in fact that Fake Steve—a parody blog, incidentally—was unfair, but still got at something, that there is something silly about caring what a singer known for wearing oversize glasses and cartoonish (but usually not literally so) costumes has to say about authority and technology.
No, but I do have a picture of Andrew Keen in a gorilla costume.
Well, we could make a picture of Michael Gorman in a duck suit, but that would be cheating, wouldn't it? :)
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