My cousin, Snoop Dogg, and Convergence Culture

            My first experience with convergence culture was in 2006. My cousin and a friend made a music video to rapper Snoop Dogg's song, “Drop it Like it’s Hot.” The video made by two bored teenagers living in a suburb near Green Bay, Wisconsin combined the professional, cool, and obscene culture of rap with an amateur, silly, and suburban culture. The video successfully illustrates Henry Jenkin’s thesis in his book Convergence Culture. Jenkin’s argues that a new type of culture has evolved, one that involves the mingling of the amateur and the professional, as well as old formats of media with the new.

            Jenkin’s thesis is best shown in my cousin’s video when Snoop Dogg raps of “killers in the street. ” The video switches to a picture of my cousin sitting on an empty road, listening to “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers on a boom box. With this pun, we see music of one professional shown through the means of amateurs to relate to that of another professional.

            Jenkin’s argument is one that has become increasingly relevant every year. Indeed, the way I access much of my culture is through the means of social networks. I choose to watch YouTube videos and shows based on the comments of my friends and I select which songs to listen to via their playlists on Spotify. I have watched on YouTube the commentary on a separate commentary of someone playing Mario 64.

            Recent years have also proven Jenkin’s argument that the “black box” will not exist. . (Although Microsoft is trying as hard to build the Black Box as they can by adding broadcast TV to the upcoming next Xbox.)  It seems there will always be a demand for tangible media, because of its permanence and inability to be erased. There will also be portable types of media and types meant for the home. Thus, no single “black box” will ever dominate the media industry.

            One aspect of Jenkin’s argument that is most interesting is how it directly conflicts with Andrew Keen’s argument that democratization of media is killing culture. Keen presents the rise of the amateur as something that detracts from the professional's work, whereas Jenkin's portrays it as something that adds. Jenkin's mentions that the earlier adopters were "white, male, middle class, and college educated," but that this seems to be changing. It would be interesting to hear Keen's reaction to this, but I think it would be negative, for most of Keen's argument seems to be founded on elitism.