The Tyranny of Mass Culture
Chris Anderson thinks we are “seeing a shift from mass culture to massively parallel culture”.
It’s an interesting essay on the way in which the memes you assume everyone knows turn out to be the in-jokes of minorities with the same niche interests. Watch the blank stares when you inform a group of non-geeks, “All your base are belong to us”. To outsiders, the l33t are merely ill33terate.
I’d question, however, the assumption that there was ever a meaningful water cooler culture. Certain people with no real lives or interests of their own place an excessive value on the vicarious pleasure they get from following the antics of celebrities, the vicissitudes of soap stars and counting the number of times some men can kick, throw or carry balls over lines, across nets and into holes. Water cooler culture was never more than their arrogant and vocal assumption that everyone else shared their narrow world view or cared about what they thought of last night’s television or last Saturday’s game.
I love literature but I don’t force my opinion of the latest Saramago onto people I know don’t read. I love linux but I don’t start conversations with strangers about what features I expect to see in the 2.7 kernel. I too rarely see an equal courtesy from self-styled football fans or the television addicted.
The dullards who bend my ear in offices, taxi cabs and hairdressers don’t have the imagination to realise that others may not necessarily share their interests. At least the geeks sniggering at a Goatse t-shirt in the New York Times are sniggering because they know it’s a private joke.