Whither popularity?
Why is popularity such a fundamental part of the success in life? Even after we leave the knockabout halls of high school, with its intricate social pecking orders, popularity in various forms is still fundamental to our interactions.
As one of countless aspiring writers, I'm part of a mob of people, arms up and frantic, hoping to be picked or recognized for their talent, their incisiveness, their art. There are so many of us that the only mechanism we seem to have is popularity to determine who should gain attention and fame. Google, one of the most ubiquitous names in the online world today, based its famous search engine algorithm on the concept of popularity. Its PageRank system, at heart, is based on the idea that popular is good. For the most part, popular sites are ranked higher in its search engine results, and sites are deemed popular when other popular sites link to it.
As effective and revolutionary as this was at the time, when search engines like the once-famous Altavista would often return pages of irrelevant results, it does result in another problem: popular sites become popular and unpopular sites, no matter their merit, languish in obscurity. This is the blog culture we're now growing up in, one which ensures that only sites deemed "linkworthy" by other popular sites will gain attention. Think of the vaunted Slashdot effect, where a linked site from Slashdot.org will fall to its knees under the load of the thousands of incoming visitors.
Now, perhaps bloggers feel that, hey, they know best. They think, as arbiters of taste and culture, we will be able to ferret out the obscurities and bring them into the light. Where Google, by design, relegates unpopular sites to the no man's land of page 10 results, the bloggers will subvert the order and make them popular. It's the same philosophy behind Google-whacking and search engine optimization, I suppose, although those have less salutary motivations.
The question is, have bloggers been able to finally equate popularity with quality and vice versa? Are we entering an Internet age where the most popular (linked to) sites are also truly all excellent sites? Perhaps blogging, or filtering as some have called it, is essential to combat Google's design flaws. I'd like to hope so, but in fact, the result is not unlike other tastemakers and those who eventually gain a level of popularity and authority that calcifies and makes them unable to see innovation and highlight truly unique things. (Case in point: Coach Leach's profile by Michael Lewis, who seems to be the very definition of an unpopular, innovative and by all rights fameworthy person for his exploits in football coaching, but who is resolutely ignored by the majority of those who should be able to recognize his talent.) If anything, bloggers are quickly approaching that same stage of calcification, absorbing the attention of the bulk of the populace online and leaving the unpopular but truly unique individuals to figure out ways to infiltrate this newly established order.
posted by Nelson @ 1:05 p.m.
3 comments
3 Comments:
Popularity is an implicit goal of practically any endeavour, is it not? I'd have a hard time believing that a starving artist would be unhappy to have her work enjoyed (or puzzled over) by scholars or the masses.
Popularity is the single, clinching lifegoal of many, many people. How they achieve it, how it is manifested, and its implications, are what life is all about. Not for everyone, but I'd say the greater majority seek it whether they know it or not.
In online journaling, the same is true. Not everyone wants to be an alpha, but having feedback on your work is somewhat required. Would you pour your research and writing efforts into a place that had zero hits? Yes, you could do that, but I doubt you'd do it for long!
My feeling is that you need to "be known" for something other than what you're writing about. A claim to something that is unique to you, which gives an illusory backdrop to what you write about. Would anyone read Wil Wheaton if he weren't on Star Trek?
I don't think I was deriding the concept of popularity in writing this, as much as how ineffective it can be in revealing certain corners of the world. For some reason, the first example I think of off the top of my head is the concept of contrarian investing -- actively looking for unpopular stocks that are hated by the majority but which turn out, in a different time and place, to have exceeding value. (It's this disconnect between popularity and merit/value that I was trying to highlight, however badly.)
I think this community-culture based iteration of the Internet might want to keep that in mind, after all the rating and tagging is said and done.
I think your Wil Wheaton example is almost ridiculously apt, because here's a guy whose popularity is almost completely out of proportion to what (I feel) is his talent and or merit. What does he write that isn't written by a thousand other people? His popularity, derived form other sources, as you point out, is the sole driver for... well, his popularity. Once again, popularity breeds popularity and merit may or may not factor into the equation.
Well said. The perfect and overused example of popularity versus merit is the infamous VHS versus Betamax argument.
There was another factor that contributed to the "success" of Wil Wheaton. He was a more-or-less public figure that latched onto the blogging phenomenon quite early, and in so doing, lent a small amount of credibility to the whole enterprise. Not singularly, mind you, but as yet another factor that served to "tip it over".
Shows me that timing is a critical aspect of these things. Being early is sometimes enough to guarantee you your audience. For example, try and go out and start another Slashdot today. They were there first and have much more experience in that realm. You likely won't succeed.
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