Rarity versus theInternet

Before the modern Internet, lots of media was "rare" -- bootleg recordings, strange videos, obscure bands -- but today, nothing is rare. As a consequence, Rex Sorgatz argues, the social capital that comes from having an encyclopedic knowledge of some band's b-sides has been greatly diminished, and the Comic Book Guy school of know-it-all-ism has transformed itself into the nitpicking commentariat. Read the rest