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8. April 2009 by justdanika.
“Mass amateurization is a result of the radical spread of expressive capabilities, and the most obvious precedent is the one that gave birth to the modern world: the spread of the printing press five centuries ago” Clay Shirky - Here Comes Everybody
Mass amateurization is the hit fad right now caused by providing people with the tools to “dable” in almost anything. It is no longer unusual to be a jack-of-all-trades. Everyone can learn, study and become conversational in almost anything.
This varies from things (wine, food, technology) to professions (travel agency-expedia, CPA-turbotax, blogging-journalism). The society we live in today provides mountains of information that can keep you busy for days endlessly wielding through websites, reading information, conversing with total strangers and developing a stong opinion on a topic.
The longer you talk about a subject (a product, service or experience) the more substance that subject now has to its name. The stronger “it’s” sense of importance becomes. People provide objects with meaning by spending time further developing their relationship with it even when they are not engaged with it.
Mass amateurization has become an every day occurrence. It is important to realize that when designing, to understand that people will want to fully understand their products. They don’t put web page addresses on objects just to take up space. Designers of those objects know that by allowing further engagement with those objects on an intimate level will further develop the “relationship” with the product.
The more people connect to an object, the more they will promote it and create a “story”, a narrative for the object, bringing it closer and closer to the life of a person. Giving the object power beyond that of the physical object.
Designers must understand this power, research it and design for it from day 1.
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