Can An Expert Googler Grasp Street Dance?

As we near the end of 2010, we have to wonder how this first year of the second decade in the 21st century is shaping our street dance culture. In some ways, things haven't changed. There are still the same debates that rage on in our inner circles - on the historical facts of where certain dance styles originated, who stole key ideas from whom, and how the young generation of dancers is missing something that our elders possessed. We're all human, after all. None of us can ever hope to be perfect although we may find ourselves categorizing each other in order to make sense of the chaos which can be life itself.

There's a lot of noise online. And if there was ever a cultural cinematic milestone reflecting our social loneliness, it is David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network, which debuted earlier this month. The film creates a mythical story for the public about the early years of Facebook's founding and somewhere along the way, we're staring into the mirror wondering if our own isolation is reflected in the story of a fictional Mark Zuckerberg, whom the film features as its anti-hero protagonist and co-founder of Facebook. Street dancers are like any other humans online. We have come to live part of our lives in digital bits whether it's sharing our pictures, 140 character witty status updates, or practice session videos with a sometimes faceless audience in a digital alternate universe. We're not alone. But sometimes, it really feels that way. And we need to feel like we're not alone by posting something online that makes us feel better about ourselves - as if making a digital fingerprint will make us feel like we matter.

The online world is a mess. And thousands of entrepreneurs are trying to make sense of it, trying to organize it in ways that we can enjoy it as part of our conscious lives. Social networking, search engines, online video and picture sharing are extensions of our constantly forming identities. What was once private activities that we formulated in journals or inner circles is now shared on a larger platform. For dancers, this is a confusing environment. In the past decade, Google has shaped our cultural perceptions of each other by placing value upon search items ranked by relevance via their PageRank system. So when a newcomer to street dance culture searches for a dance tutorial or a historical document on a street dance style, how can they be sure that they are finding the most well-informed and balanced source? Perhaps in other cultures this would be an adequate route. But we know that within street dance culture, very little has been documented or even organized in an accessible format for the general public. Street culture in general exists within the vibrant inner circles that are most directly experienced by stepping into those communities. Rarely do the dancers themselves make it a priority to provide a Wikipedia entry that explains their history, aesthetic approach, or reasons for their craft. Why should they? It's not immediately relevant or seems as necessary in terms of living daily within that culture.

So the newcomer who may not know their street dance foundation but has expert Googling skills is left without an informed direction. They will need to figure it out for themselves. And they'll form their own conclusions based on what appears in Wikipedia, which search results are the most highly ranked from Google's search engine, and which Youtube videos have the greatest number of views. Relevance is then measured in terms of hard numbers determined by the metrics of these online platforms. Cultural information online gets crowdsourced, but is it well-informed?

How can we bring a significant change to this scenario? We need champions. We need individuals and organized groups who are relationally connected to street dance communities. These champions can take a stand and start organizing, narrating, and presenting aspects of our street dance community online to a public who is dying to be well-informed. The champions can enter the crowdsourcing movement and help inform what is relevant. That's how Wikipedia works, after all. Anyone can offer an entry into its database, but there are still a handful of quality control authors who measure its authenticity based on their criteria. This isn't a perfect solution. But it's a start. Otherwise what's the alternative?

Is it possible that street dance culture in its most authentic form can be overshadowed or lost in this hyperactive, digital noise that's filtering into our laptops, smartphones, and information streams everyday? If we look at the 1980s and conclude that an overexposure and miscommunication of street dance culture in mainstream media drove millions away, will we experience something similar in the lack of informed information sharing online in our current times? Someone has to take responsibility for this. Is this you? Do you feel a burden to make an impact on a younger generation who needs your leadership in their education and artistic journey?