Social Surplus and the Sitcom

If you’re looking to define the “critical technology” of the 20th century, Clay Shirky might suggest the sitcom. A counter-intuitive suggestion, to say the least, considering that the last century began without powered flight, the transistor, or even sliced bread. In his speech at Web 2.0 Expo this past week, Clay remarked upon the cultural evolution which catalyzed, if not necessitated, the structure and ubiquity of the media landscape we know today… as well as why (and how) that model is evolving once again, and forever:

Starting with the Second World War a whole series of things happened — rising GDP per capita, rising educational attainment, rising life expectancy and, critically, a rising number of people who were working five-day work weeks. For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before: free time. And what did we do with that free time?

Well, mostly we spent it watching TV. We did that for decades. […] And it’s only now that we’re starting to see the cognitive surplus as an asset rather than as a crisis. We’re seeing things being designed to take advantage of that surplus, to deploy it in ways more engaging than just having a TV in everybody’s basement.

This is something that people in the media world don’t understand. Media in the 20th century was run as a single race — consumption. […] But media is actually a triathlon, it’s three different events. People like to consume, but they also like to produce, and they like to share.

While I’m not convinced that the introduction of “I Love Lucy” trumps, say, the internet, antibiotics or the modern bikini, the analysis of social surplus’ effect upon the next wave of evolution in media demands attention. So put down the remote and go check it out.

UPDATE (4.29): You can also watch the video at Blip.TV