Rushkoff used to be a kind of countercultural figure and a leading "cyberculture" expert, back when that title made any sense. . . . He hasn't had much interesting to say since he published the dizzyingly weird, hyperbolic book of cyberculture ethnography Cyberia in 1994. Then he went on to become a media pundit, writing Media Virus!, where he not only defended Beavis and Butthead as an implicit, countercultural project that taught viewers how to criticize the television from their seats, but he used the term "meme" in the incredibly broad, vague and useless sense that has currently become chic with livejournal users and adbusters enthusiasts alike. His web log keeps it pretty simple, and its a good resource to find out what the main arguments going on are.Now I understand why Rushkoff attempted to open up a new market (modern American Judaism) for his punditry - he had squeezed whatever celebrity he could out of the old one. Unfortunately, he condescended to his customers and didn't do sufficient market research - now isn't that exactly the stuffy mindset dot.com hipsters used to lecture "brick and mortar" businesses about?
(via Jeff Jarvis)
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