take me home to sillycon valley
week 3: Tim O’Reilly, “What is Web 2.0″ / Richard Barbrook & Andy Cameron, “The Californian Ideology”
sooo i think that this week’s readings are in fact a truly magnificent, wondrous study case in ideology. our first reading is nothing less than a seminal blogpost by tech guru tim o’reilly on web 2.0. writing back in 2005, timmy tells us all about how the economy of the internet managed to survive after the *TOTALLY UNEXPECTED I MEAN WHENEVER ELSE THIS HAPPENED IN THE HISTORY OF CAPITALISM* dot-com crash of the year 2000. the post is a business lesson in, basically, how to develop companies like facebook or twitter – timmy from the block has got it all: the web as a platform, software as service instead of commodity, the long tail, folksonomy over taxonomy, sites that act as “middlemen” in communication... boy he had it all figured it out.
this is especially true, and particularly interesting, when our boy casually drops definitions like “architecture of participation,” “users [who] add value,” and “architecture of politics.” in these three formulations there is, frankly anything that is truly relevant about the web 2.0. to careful and hopefully critical readers, “architecture of participation” should draw attention towards the need for the web 2.0 to make users feel that they’re making the internet, that they participate in the beautiful amazing blissful perfect not-at-all-solely-for-profit enterprise of the web company. “users [who] add value” is something else we know fairly well: it refers, of course, to the economic value that users produce by using the free platform. this economic value, yes i know everybody knows it these days, is the users’ data. but the one that should really really really ring a bell to anyone who is sane enough not to be a disgusting individualist is “architecture of politics.” now. kids. can we please stop believe that nobody had figured out in advance how the internet is first and foremost a political tool? look, hey, this totally un-influential guy knew it very well in 2005. we were only mesmerized enough not to see that. and now, too bad for us, dystopia is reality and internet rigged our elections and surveillance is rampant except that it is enforced by private organizations instead of the state. which is worse. way fucking worse.
but enough with the anxiously depressive part. i wanna talk about how this is all ideological mumbo jumbo produced by the hideous neoliberal bourgeoise apparatus. and to do this i need barbrook and cameron. their article is so damn good in explaining to us young padawns how the hell could happen that hippies could ally themselves with reaganite enterpreneurs obsessed with their ridiculous ideals of dEmOcRaCy and tHe InDiViDuAl. just like all great story, that of the californian ideology starts with a fake revolution: that of the 68. ok moment of awareness 2.0: can we all please make a big big circle and repeat all together that “NO, THE 68 WAS NOT A REBELLION AGAINST THE BOURGEOISE, IT WAS JUST SPOILT BOURGEOISE KIDS MESSING UP WITH THEIR RICH PARENTS BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO SCREW MORE, MAKE MORE DEBTS, CRIPPLE ECONOMIC SYSTEMS, AND DESTROY OUR ECOSYSTEMS TO SATISFY THEIR VERY BOURGEOISE NARCISSISTIC «NEEDS»”? ok thank you kids. need that every now and then.
so, we were saying. Californian Ideology™ is a direct descendant of the 68. it is the deformed and demonic son of late capitalism. it stemmed out of two different utopias: one pathetic – the electronic agora – and one horribly dystopic – the elctronic marketplace. and it wonderfully showed us that wonderful social liberal ideals are nothing if people do not organize to contrast those who own to much wealth: as the history of the californian ideology shows us, those who want money for themselves and slavery for others always win, if they’re not contrasted harshly enough. drop that knowledge on them, comrade Mao.
and so here we come to the crucial point. as barbrook and cameron wonderfully illustrate, unfettered libertarianism and techno-utopianism leads us back to the good old plantation. except that now we’re all slaves to bezos and zuckerberg, which btw funnily enough means “sugar hill:”
anyways, remember our bro timmy? think he was explaining a neat little business plan to make us all successful cyber-enterpreneurs? no, karen, i am very sorry. he was just starting to plan world cyber-slavery. so screw him, say barbrook and cameron: the state – that is the people – should get back control over what they produced. and this is the exciting part of the article, because my new heroes barbrook and cameron subtly suggest that we should start nationalizing (yes!!!!! nationalizing!!!!!!) parts and infrastructures of the internet. and at this point i am getting so much excited because imagine give back to the people platform like facebook google and amazon, and use this operation of creating a united european public digital economy to start building...
if you’re starting to feel spicy down there in your panties, well, you’re not the only one. but now on to culture time.
first, we should appreciate of Raphael prophetized the slaughter of cyber-capitalism by a socialist EU in his 1503-05 painting “Saint George Fighting the Dragon.”
then, you may want to imagine all of this to be enforced while this song from Megadeth plays in the background.
it’s your choice you can have also Ariana Grande in the background i don’t really care.
talk to you later!
Image Sources: Reddit, DeviantArt, Web Gallery of Art
[please note that this post deliberately ignores certain conventions in punctuation because i am still experimenting on the aesthetic aspect of the blog]
