Recently, I’ve seen Myers-Briggs Personality Type badges floating around on Facebook and other social Web sites. I haven’t retaken the test in a long time, but I used to be an INTJ (basically, an introvert), and I have no reason to think that’s changed in any meaningful way.
It did, however, get me thinking about how the Internet changed as it got mainstreamed, to the point where it’s not as friendly to introverts as it used to be.
The Early Conceit/Delusion of Content Meritocracy
In its beginnings as a consumer medium, when the Internet was starting to really get hot — I’m thinking early- to -mid-90s, when the first graphical Web browser, Mosaic, came out (1993), as did Nicholas Negroponte’s Being Digital (1995) — there was this notion the Net would be a pure, disintermediated meritocracy, where good content would rise to the top, and the creators of good content would be recognized and gain currency (prestige, influence) on that basis.
For someone who tends towards introversion, the written word, and extreme laziness, this was a golden opportunity — just push out good content, and your genius would be recognized, with no need to hustle, market, or pitch. (This was my personal interpretation of things at the time, and it looks incredibly naïve now, just like those infomercials for making millions on the Internet by putting up a Web site. But I don’t think my naïveté was so incredibly far from the norm, especially when there still weren’t that many people online.)
We know how accurate that vision turned out to be. (It still applies a little bit, as long as your content involves cats.)
The Marketers Arrive
I finally buried and staked that particular delusion in 2004, with the arrival of Digg, where we saw that good links didn’t stand a chance against okay links that were supported by extrovert-friendly promotional strategies, like building networks of Digg friends for link logrolling (i.e. “digg my link and I’ll digg yours”), tailoring your content to be Digg-friendly (e.g. short articles, small words, lots of lists), going out and actually promoting your content, and other ways of gaming the system.
Basically, what we consider to be part of the online marketer’s standard toolkit these days.
It’s Not Really the Marketers’ Fault
Despite my trolltastic headline blaming “marketers” (see: Tailoring your content), the need to do marketing and promotion for your content wasn’t caused by marketers, it was simply a need that they came to fill. With the competition for attention that came about with the democratization of the Net, it was inevitable.
And we keep seeing mini-cycles with each new product and platform that comes out: people discover it, use it, it gets popular, and then people have to dig into the bag of tricks in order to stand out. Look at the blogosphere and Twitter, where first movers of quality were able to get noticed and rewards (including book deals), whereas now net.fame is increasingly the province of previously-established celebrity and brands.
Of course, this isn’t to say that the Internet isn’t dead for introverts, just that they can’t expect the world to beat a path to their door just because they put up a good piece of content. (Which was a conceit in the first place, however much I might pine for it.) So if you have something you truly want to be seen (which makes you something less than a true introvert, anyways), you have champions who are extroverts, be an extrovert yourself, or at least be able to fake it in certain contexts.
It is the way of the world, just like there aren’t any ugly pop stars anymore (save for a few with, shall we say, non-traditional good looks). Although it is interesting to watch the outliers, those systems that are still almost totally meritocratic — say, something like the MacArthur Fellows Program (the Genius Grant folks), which features a totally opaque nomination and selection process. Can you imagine the cluster-chaos that would ensue if it featured open nominations? The mind reels.
Was the Internet ever a content meritocracy? Do introverts have to stop acting like introverts to get noticed online? Leave a comment.
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