„Person of the Year“ – nur „Consumer of the Year“?

Ein lesenswerter Kommentar von Siva Vaidhyanathan zur Ernennung von „You“ als Person des Jahres durch das Time Magazine. Es geht im Kern um das Verhältnis von Individuum und Kollektiv, und dass „Web2.0“ oder andere modische Begriffe hier eine wichtige Differenzierung verwischen. Nicht als Netz von Monaden in MySpace und anderen Datenkraken sind wir stark, sondern als gemeinsam verantwortlich Handelnde: „Me, ‘Person of the Year’? No thanks“

Notice that Time framed the Person of the Year as „you.“ That should sound familiar. Almost every major marketing campaign these days is about empowering „you.“ „You“ have freedom of choice. „You“ can let yourself be profiled so that „you“ only receive solicitations from companies that interest „you.“ „You“ could customize „your“ mobile phone with the „Hollaback Girl“ ringtone, but „you“ would not because that’s so 2004. So you choose Ne-Yo’s „Sexy Love“ instead. „You“ go to the Nike Store to get your own design of shoes. Because „you“ roll like that. After all, „you“ are an „Army of One.“

But to quote the Who, „Who are You?“ Are you the sum of your consumer preferences and MySpace personae? What is your contribution worth? It’s worth money to someone, if only as part of a whole. (…)

The important movement online is not about „you.“ It’s about „us.“ It’s about our profound need to connect and share. It’s about our remarkable ability to create among circles — each person contributing a little bit to a poem, a song, a quilt, or a conversation.

So it’s not about your reviews on Amazon. It’s about how we as a community of Web users choose to exercise our collective wills and forge collective consciousnesses. So far, we have declined to do so. We have not harnessed this communicative power to force the rich and powerful to stop polluting our air and water or to stop the spread of AIDS or malaria. We have not brought down any tyrants. We have simply let a handful of new corporations aggregate and exercise their own will on us. And we have perfected online dating.

But there are signs of real profound triumphs of „We.“ Wikipedia is the best example. Blogs are another. Communities — both local and global — have generated amazing collections of content and communication in recent years. They have truly challenged the status-quo in ways that Time hypes so well.

Es wird also darum gehen, ob man es mit den ganzen Mitteln, die technisch jetzt da sind, schafft, solche kommerziell orientierten Intermediäre wie eben MySpace, Google, Xing oder wen auch immer überflüssig zu machen. Aber das haben wir ja hier schon immer gesagt:

What’s truly revolutionary about the current communicative moment is part of a 20-year process of the steady proliferation of digitization and networking in the hands of millions of people. It’s not about a handful of sites that make such connections easier and cheaper. Those are valuable changes. But they are not revolutionary in and of themselves.

(Und wie wird man dann MSNBC los, wo ausgerechnet genau dieser bedenkenswerte Artikel veröffentlicht wurde?) (via)