January 16th, 2008
The shrinking planet and YouTube
Some kid in Australia is getting the kind of press that major movie studios would pay millions to acquire, all because he threw a party while his parents were out of town that got a “bit” out of hand. As a teenager, I threw parties when my parents were out of town, too. I remember having to explain a few months after one such party a pile of pull-tabs my mother found under the couch (yes, I am old enough to remember when pull-tabs were common on all canned drinks). Of course, my parties never had 500 attendees, and those who did attend didn’t riot when the cops appeared to break up our illicit gathering (which did happen…once).
So, “Cory the Australian’s” party was a bit extraordinary. Far more extraordinary, however, is that tales of it were carried on major news sites around the world. If a story of a kid in Australia who throws a larg-ish party manages to circle the world many times, that’s a sure sign that technology is breaking down the traditional spatial barriers that lead to strong cultural distinctions. The fact that Cory, save for his accent, would look right at home sitting around a pool in Los Angeles merely enforces that notion.
Globalization is often viewed with suspicion by groups on both the left and right who are skeptical about the changes globalization entails to local culture. Less noticed is the more corrosive effect a global international network capable of streaming text, audio and video from any corner of the globe that is hooked into that network (which these days, is most places). In the larger scale of things, the fact that the Taliban felt it necessary to punish youths who were found getting a haircut popularized by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie “Titanic” is small potatos. Today, people from any corner of the globe can see, hear and communicate with anyone else.
That obviously has ramifications in the world of business. The spread of the Internet drives the outsourcing wave that is changing the way software gets developed. It also has ramifications for global culture. Cultural ideosyncracies tend to grow as a result of spatial separation, either real or self-imposed. Ireland has a ridiculous number of accents for a country the size of New Jersey, a legacy of a time when most Irish were born, lived their lives and died on the same patch of land upon which their families had lived for hundreds of years.
Today, it’s harder to maintain such isolation, which means its harder to create cultures as distinct as they were in the past. Germans listen to hip hop bands from New York, and Americans watch YouTube videos uploaded by people in Australia.
Some want to stop globalization in its tracks in hopes that it might slow, if not reverse, the changes that are happening to local culture. Such barriers are unlikely to last long, however, unless you also shut down the cultural linkages that criss-cross the globe in strings of 1s and 0s. As cultures start trading ideas ever more readily, blocking products from China will start to seem as strange as Illinois deciding to embargo all products from Indiana.
That, to my mind, is a good thing. I’ve never pretended to be anything less than enthusiastic about the erosion of borders and cultural barriers that are a proven source of conflict and misunderstanding.
Sovereignity is the clarion of the neo-Luddite.
John Carroll has delivered his opinion on ZDNet since the last millennium. Since May 2008, he is no longer a Microsoft employee. He is currently working at a unified messaging-related startup. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 01/16/08
