Jeff Jarvis goes off on another ridiculous rant against all things establishment in his most recent blog post entitled "The myth of the creative class" In his post he argues that what was considered the "creative class" in the past is disappearing because the Internet allows people to show their creativity which in turn puts everyone on a level field. Here's a quote...
One survey I quote says that 81 percent of us say we have a book in us. Another survey says that a coincidental 81 percent of young people think they have a business in them. We make tens of millions of blogs. We take hundreds of millions of Flickr photos. A few hundred thousand people write applications for Facebook. Paulo Coelho (see the post below) asks his readers to make a movie of his book and they eagerly do so. Stephen Colbert challenges his viewers to remix John McCain and they do. Howard Stern doesn’t even ask his listeners and they produce no end of song parodies and anthems to Baba Booey. The art and entertainment of Lonely Girl 15 becomes not just the videos they make but the videos viewers make. Every minute, 10 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. People create T-shirt designs on Threadless and sneaker designs on Ryz and things of all descriptions on Etsy. BMW invites drivers to color a car and 9,000 people do. And on and on.
This has surely always been the case. The internet doesn’t make us more creative, I don’t think. But it does enable what we create to be seen, heard, and used. It enables every creator to find a public, the public he or she merits. And that takes creation out of the proprietary hands of the supposed creative class.
Now let me say up front that I won't argue against the Internet's ability to allow the little guy to make money off a niche. That said, the contention that this trend somehow means the "end of the creative class" is ridiculous in its arrogance.
Someone writing a blog or creating a song parody does not even compare to the act of writing a quality book or making an actual new song. There have always been hobbyists and actual professionals and just because the hobbyists have slightly more visibility does not mean they are suddenly elevated to the same level as a professional.
Which brings me to my first point...
Point #1: There will always be 5% of people (give or take) who are talented in the fields that are considered "creative" and they will be considered a "creative class"
From everything I've seen in my life society works something like this. We all have a talent for something. No matter how worthless someone might be perceived as they have some skill. Something that they are uniquely tailored to do.
But not every skill is considered creative. No one says "what a creative maid she is" or "how creative of him to do that bookkeeping." Certain things are considered creative, certain things aren't and the idea of a "creative class" developed to identify those who are talented in those areas that are categorized as "creative fields."
Let me say in advance that I am not part of that class so this isn't someone trying to defend their position in the pecking order. I accept my place outside that class of people.
But THAT'S the point! I have a talent. I'm a darn fine programmer, I have a talent for organizational issues and a few miscellaneous skills on top of that. But I can't dance, I can't sing and I couldn't produce a poem if I had a gun to my head. I am not capable of doing those things and I know enough to have respect for those who can.
Because they can't do what I do. They can't program or manage people or any of the other skills that are part of my skill set. So being like Jeff Jarvis and saying I'm skilled in all my areas and dismissing "the creative class" as something anyone can do is tremendously arrogant because it's basically saying their skills are trivial.
Which they aren't. So No Mr Jarvis, just because you sound great in your shower doesn't mean you'll be the next great recording artist. That actually requires a talent.
Point #2: There will always be "king makers" who people trust to find the above mentioned 5% and present them to the rest of us
Finding talent is a full time job. People like to talk about the level playing field of the Internet but the truth, as anyone who has ever stood on an actual level field knows, is that a level field means you can't see beyond the people immediately around you.
How sad is it when even the metaphor you use serves to completely disprove the theory your espousing?
The myth of the level playing field comes from this idea that somehow there have been "powers that be" who up until now have forced their tastes on everyone by only providing what they think is quality work. But the truth is, those "powers that be" are the people who are desperately trying to sell things to us and their goal has always been to go out and find the most talented among us to present to the public.
This is true of all the so called "establishment" in media. Record Labels, Newspaper Editors, Book Publishers and all the rest exist to weed out the things they don't think we'll like.
More importantly we as a society need that. Weeding out all the junk is a full time job and no normal person has the time to do it. Wisdom of the crowd breaks down when everyone in that crowd has their own life to attend to and can't be bothered to go out and sample a bunch of new stuff.
In fact, if anything the crowd is inferior to an established "king maker" because the crowd chooses to elevate that which it stumbles upon by random chance while someone whose job it is to find the best stuff actually goes out in search of it.
Final Point: Self Importance makes us forget how much talent goes into the things we can't do
I titled this entry "Self Importance and Self Deception: So Happy Together" to illustrate how these two character flaws create a thought process by which we show disrespect for how much work goes into making creative works. If you think you're so great that you can "do anything as well as the pros" and are willing to hold something like lonelygirl15 up to the Dark Knight and call it the same thing than sure, you'll believe the Internet destroys the creative class.
But anyone with an ounce of objectivity sees the above claims for the self deceptions they are and realizes that the root of those deceptions is not wanting to admit that there are people who can do some things better than you can. Once you allow that objectivity into your head the claims of people like Jeff Jarvis begin to look more silly than prophetic.