Gesucht: nicht-amerikanische Digerati

Die amerikanischen Digerati ( vgl. den Artikel über Edge) kennen nur sich selbst, als würde das Heil des Informationszeitalters einzig von Land der Frontier und vom amerikanischen Traum bestimmt werden. Aus dieser Perspektive gibt es um die USA herum nur Entwicklungsländer, die von den Pionieren der digitalen Revolution missioniert werden müssen.

Wir haben überlegt, wer denn die Digerati außerhalb der USA sein könnten, und ein paar unserer Autoren angeschrieben, um uns Tips geben zu lassen. Natürlich, wir brauchen keine Digeratis, keine Lichtgestalten der digitalen Revolution. Wir wollen auch nicht ernsthaft eine alternative Liste aufstellen, die wiederum vermutlich ihre dann europäische Einseitigkeit haben würde. Aber warum nicht einfach einmal ein bißchen mit einer solchen Liste spielen? Wer Vorschläge, Einwände oder Bemerkungen machen will, bitte eine Mail an Florian Rötzer schicken.

Ivo Skoric bemerkte ganz allgemein zum Phänomen der digitalen Bestenliste: "Well: America is just getting its "intelligentsia", the thing we East-Europeans know for a very long time, and they call themselves "digerati", probably because they did not read enough books to be considered "literati", ouch, am I a litlle too nasty?
No shit, this edge.org is a Wired thing, and all the listed Digerati belong to the Wired mafia. The article that was written about Wired in Upside on Feb 1 is, however, a slimy concotion: good points but wrong reasons. Upside just want to take Wired's place - this is a sort of an intellectual hostile take over: Upside would like to sell the same vacuous hype about the bright techno-future to the thirsty masses that Wired already does, so they must explain that Wired sucks so that the rich software and hardware manufacturers that advertise in Wired switch to Upside. Anyway, the market are the same 50,000 something people (Digerati)."

Geert Lovink schickte uns folgende Vorschläge:
Marleen Stikker (digital city und waag)
Drazen Pantic (B-92 Belgrad)
Toshimaru Ogura (japanische Anti-Zensur Kampagne)
Rop Grongrijp (hack-tic und xs4all)

Gundolf Freyermuth hat das Prinzip der Digeratis durchschaut und fordert - ironisch? - dazu auf, ähnliches selbst zu inszenieren.

"I just checked out the Edge and have to admit: I love their unabashed promo by principle. The Digerati looks to me like the perfect cyber-"Seilschaft" or cyber mafia. The Citizen writes on The Scout and The Connector, The Saint writes on The Coyote, The Coyote on The Pattern-Recognizer etc. We should stick to that. I mean: if we don't write nice things about ourselves, who will?

The Edge gives us a good example on the virtue of immodesty, and we should follow it to our very best abilities.

I therefore declare you, dear Florian, The Visionary Hunter & Gatherer - you hunt for ideas and texts which you then devour to feed your own outstanding writing; and you gather people and their texts in Telepolis, the digital catacombes, the hiding place of the European digerati who are persecuted like all minorities and new believers in Europe always were.

I don't know whom you will chose to write about, but whoever he or she will be, this person should then follow the promo principle and should in turn write about me. To make it easier for that poor person: I like to think of myself as the The Fearless Messenger; you know, the one who is executed because nobody likes the news he's bringing? However, The Reporter of Cyber or The Digital Emigree would be fine, too.

I'm sorry, but I can't come up with too many other candidates. But this is about self-promotion anyhow, isn't it? Most people I know don't live in Europe. In fact, the only Europeans I know are Germans, and almost all of them still think a computer is something the government uses to control them. So much I learn from the almost illegible handwritten letters they keep sending me.

Here are the very few digerati that came to mind: The Playful Adopter (Wolfgang Menge); The Publisher (Bollmann), The Miner (Ankowitsch, don't know him, but like his letters from the Bergwerk). And what about Borchers? Don't know him either, but the stuff he's writing is mostly ok.

I also think the list should include companies. In Europe, things are not done individually; it's a corporate continent. If someone was able to become an important digerati, it's probably because some company or government institution gave him a desk and invested him with some power.

And we also should include our enemies. The American version is too positive; Europeans love less; if at all, we love to hate. Some candidates in the hate and / or corporate category: The Killing Company (Ziff Davis, for killing pl@net); The Guy Who Loves to Play It Dumb (Peter Glaser); The Rebel Without a Clue (Niels Werber); The Frightened Abortionists (Gruner + Jahr and Spiegel, for aborting their Wired plans); The Incompetent Time Machinists (German Telekom for trying to forestall the rise of the Digital Age) etc."

Stefan Krempl hat sich viel Arbeit gemacht und eine beachtliche Liste zusammengestellt.

Der Saubermann: Edmund Stoiber
Der Verfolgte: Felix Somm
Die Abgekapselten: xs4all
Der Wegelagerer: Ron Sommer
Der Pfadfinder: Martin Bangemann
Der Daten-Dandy: Geert Lovink
Der Wendehals: Alfons Schräder
Der letzte Sozialist: Richard Barbrook
Der Warner: Paul Virilio
Der Anti-Anti: Paul Treanor
Der vernetzte Politiker: Jörg Tauss
Der Pull-Man: Peter Kabel (kabel new media)
Der Clone: Ossi Urchs
The Minister for Tomorrow: Jürgen Rüttgers
Der Prediger: Hubert Burda
Der Herausgeber: Stefan Bollmann
last but not least: Der Cyborg: Florian Rötzer ;-)