Note: This column represents the opinions
of the writer and as such, is not purported as fact
At last,
the contents of Aardvark's "million-dollar ideas" notebook
are revealed for all to see!
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This morning, as I read the news that
Spike Milligan had died,
it struck me that the Internet is missing something.
Thanks to his scripting and the character voices he performed in
the infamous Goon Show, Milligan became one of the most popular
and well-known stars of radio.
During the 1950s and 60s he became a household name in the UK and
throughout the various territories of the British Commonwealth.
He also became a familiar face on TV and in print during the 1960s and early
70s, thanks to other comedy shows and childrens' books in which he featured
his own unique brand of zany humour.
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When you look at it, each new communications medium has created a pool of "star
talent" -- people who are catapulted to stardom by virtue of the massive exposure
those media give them.
The printed word, movies, radio TV -- they've all created their own "household names."
So where are all the Internet superstars?
Who has been thrust into the limelight by virtue of the Internet as a
communications medium?
Don't be tempted to dismiss the Net as not being a real entertainment
medium. Fire up your web browser and you'll find examples of every genre
of news, information and entertainment there is on the Net -- it's just that
nobody's been able to leverage that exposure to make themselves a "media superstar."
And, in asking this question we must be careful to distinguish between the
people who make the medium and those who have been made by it.
We've all heard of Marconi because of his implementation of ideas first
mooted by Tesla, with the result that radio became a communications medium --
and we've all heard of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, etc because their companies
are heavily into creating the infrastructure and key locations on
the Net. Neither Marconi nor Gates however are "stars of the medium."
So just who are stars of the Internet?
Perhaps Dilbert?
Given that the size of the Internet audience is reported to be anywhere from
200 million to 500 million people world-wide, isn't it just a little surprising
that we don't have a group of people who have become globally recognised through
their apperance on it?
We have the Oscars, the Emmies, the Brit Awards -- all of which hand out awards
to people who have become famous by virtue of their media presence -- but when
you look at the Internet equivalent (The Webbies),
awards are dished out to websites, not unique personalities.
Could it be that the Net is so radically different to print, movies, radio
and TV that the audience tends to be far for stratified -- thus limiting the
audience for any one genre or area of interest?
Or could it be that we're just lacking talent and creativity? Is it just the
geeks who like writing clever computer code or hacking together some HTML
who are attracted to show off their work on the Web? Are all the culturally
and artistically creative people still preferring to work in other media?
Maybe it's just early days. Perhaps we'll start to see people emerging
from the ether to rightly claim the title of being an "Internet Celebrity"
Perhaps I've missed the obvious and you'd like to give me a list of
"Internet media stars". If that's the case, please
drop me a line.
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