After reading “the cult of the amateur” by Andrew Keen, I was ready to write my blog about my opinion of Keen that was very similar to what my classmates have said. Calling your readers monkeys is not a good way to sell a book (because these days even my 89 year old Grandfather has a Facebook account), or convince a whole generation that the Internet is bad for them. I still feel that way, but last night I went to the theater to watch San Jose Broadway’s version of “The West Side Story”. While I was there, one of the points that Keen made became clear to me, and I am forced to agree. The fine arts are being lost. As I sat in the Center of Performing Arts, I looked around and the average age of the people in the theater was probably 60 years old. My generation does not choose to spend their money on the theater. It made me wonder if this art is one that I will be able to share with my grandchildren or if the costs of running these types of shows will outweigh the profits being brought in, and a whole industry will be lost. As an Economics major, I have to concede that markets change, and that is how we move forward in society, but it saddens me that my generation would rather spend their time in front of a computer or TV instead of reading a book or going to the theater.
Then today, I watched Keen interview Carmine Gallo, the author of “The Power of Foursquare”. It seems to me that Keen is as guilty of selling out as his friends he went camping with. There was nothing on his show about how bad the Internet is, or how it is ruining society. He had Gallo on the show, and Gallo plugged his book and foursquare the whole time. Keen’s show made me want to download foursquare to my phone, not to stay off of these social networks that Keen seems to loathe so much. Watching the interview made me lose the little bit of respect I had for him.