Here Comes Everybody

The business section of today's Times has an article by David Carr about new patterns of media consumption by teenagers and younger consumers. In short, the kids want to choose, and they want the choice immediately, and they want their choices networked with their friends choices. This is the premise of a book Carr discusses in the article, entitled Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. It's written by an NYU professor named Clay Shirky.

There's a lot of matter in here for cultural organizations.... Carr's description (inspired by the book) of how different generations shop in a Virgin Superstore has a lot to say to museums and historic sites in particular.

Fans of James Joyce' s Finnegans Wake, however, will also recognize the title as the "name" of the book's main "character," also known as Humphrey Chimpenden Earwicker, also known as Tim Finnegan, etc. etc. HCE is an eternal archetype of mankind, men and fathers especially. an eternal father who stands for all humans conceived everywhere.

In my past life as a Joyce scholar, I often said that the world was not yet ready for Finnegans Wake , that it was still too far ahead of us to be considered avant garde. The networked, international, multi-lingual, anti-authoritarian, eclectic, referential, eternally linked generation that's bringing us Web 2.0 may be exactly the people who will be ready for it. The book title (which is not a deliberate Joycean reference) suggests so. Joyce would have loved it... but he wouldn't have called it a coincidence.