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There's art for every level of art appreciation. A lot of user created content is crap. A lot of it isn't. A lot of "good" art is pretentious drivel. A lot of it isn't.
The thing about art is that people like what they like, and if they happen to like derivative bullshit, then that's what they like. The propensity for enjoying derivative bullshit predates the prevalence of user generated content by at least a Michael Bolton. There will always be people who have more discriminating tastes and thanks to the internet they have an even easier time finding content to satisfy their discriminating taste.
And I don't think the internet necessarily promotes drivel. If anything, the internet makes it easier for a person to develop a taste for the good shit. Prior to the internet one had to rely more on traditional media to tell them what was good, which was itself fairly problematic. Thanks to user generated content, someone who lives on the Iron Range in northern Minnesota can listen to Hip Hop created in Minneapolis whenever they want. 15 years ago that person would have been stuck buying CDs at their local WalMart or listening to the vast wasteland that is corporate radio unless they wanted to drive down every so often to re-up in the scene.
Content sharing sites also provide a venue for amateurs and professionals to critique each other's work and share tricks of the trade, which is good for content quality.
Artists benefit too. User created content makes getting their work out there so much easier.
I don't know how one can be truly aware of all of the things made possible by user generated content and still wistfully look back on the days before it.
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