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from what i've figured out, the main difference between net-based work and older print-based forms is the breakdown of the old distribution model. part of that model was a more-or-less system of critics, who generated reviews, the main function of which was to tell the readers whether a particular object is class-appropriate first and within that whether it is "good" or not. so like folk have been saying, it's now easy to put stuff out, make it public---but it's not at all easy to get that stuff which you make public noticed or picked up or whatever. i dont think this has to do so much with the quality of work--and i don't think it's only now the case that alot of folk who enjoy working with a particular medium don't necessary make fantastic things. alot of the time alot of things that are made are not very good--but alot of the time alot of the things that arget made are very good indeed. i agree with charlatan on this, i guess.
but ore generally, we've lived within a highly centralized and centralizing model of cultural distribution for a very long time and are only now starting to get an idea of what decentralization might look like--the only thing that's changed across this is the nature of the intermediary system(s).
as for the question of what is and is not crap---it's like arguing about what fun is.
i dont think it matters from the point of view of a producer what you as consumer think about the thing you consume.
i think when someone who makes stuff asks you what you think of it, chances are they're just being nice. you know, sociable. because there's no way to account for or speak to the diversity of psychological backgrounds in the world, there's no way to account for what other people like or do not like in what you're doing---i think folk mostly work guided by an idea of what they themselves like or enjoy and hope that other people like or enjoy similar things enough so that maybe, just maybe someday you can stop working these stupid day gigs and devote your attention to making stuff.
past that, it doesn't matter.
i think that in the pseudo-democracy of consumer-cult folk have acquired this strange notion that their consumer preferences actually matter at a level that goes beyond toggling on or toggling off--you choose to enter a particular game or you play another one. but they don't matter.
i don't regard this as an attitude that is particularly anything--it just seems to me how things are.
it's hard to make stuff and harder still to make good stuff and harder still to know what good is and almost impossible to keep that notion of what's good from moving around so in a way its like chasing the dragon. if that's true, then folk who make things have enough problems on their hands without worrying about what consumers think. if you don't like what someone makes, go interact with something else. all it means is that you would prefer to do something else with your time. the object you do not choose to interact with may or may not suck because you make that choice. maybe the object is fine and you suck. it's possible. just saying....
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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