cult of the amateur, part one

My library hold was taking way too long, so I went to Barnes and Noble and bought Andrew Keen's book, and something telling happened while I was in the store.

At first, I couldn't find it. I scoured the "cultural studies" section (which was mislabeled, and what was labeled as "cultural studies" was actually authors A-G in "African-American studies"). I scoured the "current affairs" shelves and the "new nonfiction" area. Nope.

I go get in line at the information kiosk. The guy in front of me, a 14-15-year-old kid with his mom, was ordering Uncanny X-Men books. Does he not know you can order anything you want from the Internet? And they bring it to your house? And usually it's cheaper? Guess not. Maybe the information age hasn't quite reached everyone yet. I wonder if that kid has a MySpace page.

The guy helping him is probably my age, and at oldest he's maybe 27. He finishes with the other guy and motions me up to the counter. I'm hoarse from this cold/sinus infection I've had for 10 days so I have to lean in to be heard. "I'm looking for a book by Andrew Keen, K-E-E-N." "What's it called?" he asks. I tell him. He types it into his book-locater computer.

"Let's go take a look in our Science and Technology section." And there it was, on the bottom shelf, three hardback copies under the "Chemistry for Dummies" selection. He picks up a copy and hands it to me.

"If you read it, come back and let me know what you thought of it. I just wrote a review," he said.

"Oh. I read that this guy was a has-been that's kind of wrong and really full of himself," I said. I mean, I had read that. It's not really what I think, but I wanted to see what kind of reaction I'd get out of this guy.

"Maybe you're not old enough," he says, and purposefully walks away. I hope he meant he thought I was a teenager, and that I was part of the Googlegeneration, with a Wikipedian world view that pays no mind to intellectual property rights or editorial hierarchy. I hope he meant that he thought I was so young I couldn't be helped (I mean, I guess I look younger than I am, and it probably didn't help that I was there in the middle of the day with a cold in jeans and a t-shirt). I hope he didn't mean that I looked stupid.


Anyway, I've read the first chapter and he's already said a lot of things I've said here in this blog, plus some other things. He's mentioned the monkeys with typewriters and the dogs on the Internet. He's talked about Huxley and Big Brother and Facebook and MySpace all in one chapter. I wonder what the rest of the book could be? I mean, it feels like he's already covered all the bases.

I'll keep you posted.

Oh, and while I was typing this, the library called. They have the Keen book for me. Crap.