Web 2.0 and bandwagon design.

I get it, I really do... Its just that I hate it.

Anytime creativity has a price put on its head and designers are pressured into a "fashionable" because someone defined it as "NEW!" and whats "in" or "c00l" or whatever (I ran out of quotes) I want to bleed from my eyes, throw my computer out the window and focus my creative career on painting with mud on cave walls. At least in my cave there wont be some monstrous corpulent corporate entity thats so large it cant see where its going wont have the power to influence and subjugate those ache to do something different.

I get that web 2.0 is supposed to be all about some new magic software that makes the web more seamless, interactive, and aversive... but its not. Its just a bunch of old dogs that have been there wanting to play all along except someone has tied them together and painted them with fluorescent stripes and said HERE, I have brought you a eight legged zebradog from mars and it cures cancer!

The masses look and say hey wow... that seems familiar... like something I used to like... but I've never had a zebradog from mars! I'll take it! Soon everyone is trying to keep up and the poor dogs cant run so well with half their legs in the air and all tied together but people need something new. Even if its not.

O.k. I get it. Vista with its triple glazed "glasstic" (I just made it up TM!) look has all the hallmarks of something new, I mean look, its glossy! Right? Reflective! Yea! That means its clean like a new car or a clean window, just be careful you dont walk right into it. The interface can get in the way when its compromised.

Art and creativity are ripe for compromise and even corruption. They are by definition what people perceive them to be and will be judged as such. So when you are creating, writing, cooking, doing anything that involves part of you in the process... every once in a while... dont draw from what is fed to you, look away from the neon and the commercials, look within and pull out something that is uniquely you. Its a great way to grow.

-Peter Ochabski
http://www.ArtScientific.com