Word of the day: Mainstream
So, after asking Yahoo! Answers, I found out the following about the word Mainstream:
Just a question I am pondering as I am preparing for an appearance on CBC Radio tomorrow morning:
Sounds Like Canada, CBC Radio network program weekdays 10:00 a.m.
Host: Jian Ghomeshi
Interview topic: The Longtail (discussion on book by Chris Anderson)
Other guests: Stuart MacDonald in Toronto, Michael Geist in Ottawa
I believe that, really...everything is the "Long Tail" (or is it everything is miscellaneous?). Like those creeks, the mainstream is nothing without the variety of people that contribute to it.
I'm confused, though. We've now used the 'Long Tail' to explain everything from citizen media to Amazon's endless list of offerings to the luxury economy to nichification to the decline of the blockbuster.
Yes...it seems as if people are individuals with individual needs and wants and all of that and, yes, it seems that the limitless possibilities of the web is cracking open this desire and making it more than possible to scale to these needs.
Still...I don't see either the idea of the mainstream or the blockbuster going away anytime soon. Before you ask WTF?! hear me out. We are paralyzed with choice and it is only getting worse. At the same time, Dave Rogers is right, people are not changing as fast as the technology is. We still measure/judge/etc. in shear numbers. That is what people understand.
Unfortunately. Or maybe fortunately.
What this does is two things for the future:
1. It forces companies who want to reach their audience to be smarter about it. To really work hard at pleasing the customers they have. To build communities. To concentrate on serving well. If they don't they are screwed.
2. It's forcing everyone to re-evaluate success. Most likely the dominant view of success as gianormous multi-national gazillion dollars a year company will remain pretty intact for years to come, but I look around and see it becoming more and more respectable to run a perfectly successful small or mid-sized operation that is well-loved and respected and serves your community well. Gee, we actually have heroes now who don the covers of magazines.
And, yes...the 'mainstream' will continue along the way the 'mainstream' always has (which is no particular monolithic way, but, hey, it's simpler to understand it that way...it IS the mainstream after all), but we will all get to grow our own little piece of the garden in our own little piece of the world.
Screw the mainstream, I'm happy in my fringe...and doing just fine.
Mainstream is the prevailing current of thought, influence, or activity. Think about the word a moment.I wonder at what point did it evolve into describing a mass of people? If I am to understand Tao Barbie...the mainstream relies on all of the arteries and streams and creeks to keep it fed...it's 'made up' of a variety of different water sources. This makes the mainstream not so generic after all...just consolidated...
If you have a main steam or main river of water, like the Mississippi river or the Mekong in Asia there are other smaller creeks, streams, arteries, and canals that contibute to it and run along side of it. Most people would travel or build on the main stream (they may even be considered the "mainstream" society). A few might travel or live on the banks of a smaller streams (and are not so mainstream).
From Tao BarbieTM...
Just a question I am pondering as I am preparing for an appearance on CBC Radio tomorrow morning:
Sounds Like Canada, CBC Radio network program weekdays 10:00 a.m.
Host: Jian Ghomeshi
Interview topic: The Longtail (discussion on book by Chris Anderson)
Other guests: Stuart MacDonald in Toronto, Michael Geist in Ottawa
I believe that, really...everything is the "Long Tail" (or is it everything is miscellaneous?). Like those creeks, the mainstream is nothing without the variety of people that contribute to it.
I'm confused, though. We've now used the 'Long Tail' to explain everything from citizen media to Amazon's endless list of offerings to the luxury economy to nichification to the decline of the blockbuster.
Yes...it seems as if people are individuals with individual needs and wants and all of that and, yes, it seems that the limitless possibilities of the web is cracking open this desire and making it more than possible to scale to these needs.
Still...I don't see either the idea of the mainstream or the blockbuster going away anytime soon. Before you ask WTF?! hear me out. We are paralyzed with choice and it is only getting worse. At the same time, Dave Rogers is right, people are not changing as fast as the technology is. We still measure/judge/etc. in shear numbers. That is what people understand.
Unfortunately. Or maybe fortunately.
What this does is two things for the future:
1. It forces companies who want to reach their audience to be smarter about it. To really work hard at pleasing the customers they have. To build communities. To concentrate on serving well. If they don't they are screwed.
2. It's forcing everyone to re-evaluate success. Most likely the dominant view of success as gianormous multi-national gazillion dollars a year company will remain pretty intact for years to come, but I look around and see it becoming more and more respectable to run a perfectly successful small or mid-sized operation that is well-loved and respected and serves your community well. Gee, we actually have heroes now who don the covers of magazines.
And, yes...the 'mainstream' will continue along the way the 'mainstream' always has (which is no particular monolithic way, but, hey, it's simpler to understand it that way...it IS the mainstream after all), but we will all get to grow our own little piece of the garden in our own little piece of the world.
Screw the mainstream, I'm happy in my fringe...and doing just fine.
3 Comments:
But the reserve analogy should be the Ancient Egyptians.
They never built along the banks. They always built away from the banks of the river Nile !!
And yes, their building's still stand after many many years. We are so fortunate, that we can look back to these buildings :)-
Built to Last is only possible on the fringe. Organic growth and development can only occur at the outer circles.
Look all over ,ancient Babylon, China, Egypt -what remains was built away from the "mainstream".
Hi Tara
I don't think the long tail removes the mainstream: because of better and cheaper access and distribution mechanisms we are no longer artificially limited to the mainstream, being the top 100 movies or top 10000 books etc etc, as identified and explained by Chris Anderson.
And if there is a fixed area under the curve (measuring spending or attention or whatever) then extending the tail has to lower the head, but it doesn't remove it. We are never going to have a flat distribution of attention.
However it seems certain that the new media will reduce the amount of money and time spent on the old: I now get most of my news from websites and blogs, not from TV or printed newspapers (though there is still something about sprawling on the floor with the Sunday newspaper and a cup of coffee that the laptop doesn't quite beat. Also spillage is less expensive...)
So the new mainstream might be a different mainstream to before. And because there are more and quicker ways for new stuff to come to communal attention - blogs, viral e-mail, Digg - then Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame might be down to about 45 seconds.
(Please don't take it too far with those physical geography metaphors!)
Good luck on the show.
Bill
I love your enthusiasm and passion. And, "oh by the way" your word smithing enables your ideas to come alive, whether or not people always agree. Job well done!
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