The early web’s amateur creators were a wildly heterogeneous cohort

Evidence

The first YouTube hits were quite primitive. Two Chinese art students called themselves Back Dorm Boys and lip-synched the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” inside a cramped dorm room. “Star Wars Kid” was an unintentionally comedic video of a Canadian teenager wielding a golf ball retriever like a lightsaber. These low-quality productions could hardly compete with the prestige TV of the era, like The Sopranos and The Wire. The initial wave of Web 2.0 content often felt like a digital riff on America’s Funniest Home Videos: bloopers, fails, and moments of accidental hilarity. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 178 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

It turned out he was not alone; there were others who shared his fascination with creating zany stuff that might, almost magically, erupt across the Internet. He got to know a man who called himself “Ze Frank,” a sort of self-styled web-jester. Ze Frank’s own road to Damascus had involved a web-based birthday invitation in which he featured, performing funny dance moves; it had earned millions of hits and won him a Webby Award. Peretti also met Cory Arcangel, a conceptual artist who, among other things, had made art that required him to hack Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers. Then there was a social scientist, Duncan Watts, who tried to understand media contagion with mathematical models. In these guys, Peretti found a posse. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 945 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The web enabled mass amateurization of creative work formerly reserved for professionals — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 905; Early viral-web pioneers formed a scene crossing art, comedy, and network science — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 945; Early viral Web 2.0 content was amateurish and accidental rather than polished — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 178 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Early viral Web 2.0 content was amateurish and accidental rather than polished #corroborates (0.80) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 178
• Early viral-web pioneers formed a scene crossing art, comedy, and network science #exemplifies (0.75) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 945
• Web 2.0 culture made audience size an alternate status hierarchy alongside engineering wealth. #expands (0.70)