The
Long Tail is the name, coined by Chris Anderson at Wired, for the long
thin right-hand side of Clay Shirky’s Power Law curves (example above).
It represents the large and diverse majority that, for one reason or
another, attracts little attention relative to that garnered by the
'Big Head'. Why is this? Usually because this majority lacks the power,
the single-mindedness, the authority and the money, at least one of
which is needed to attract significant attention. It's the
poor-to-middle income earner. The non-bloc voter. Those on the wrong
side of the digital divide. The consumer who can't or won't spend
extravagantly. The unexceptional and disconnected student or
entrepreneur. The front-line worker. The alternative media. The
unemployed and underemployed. The reader, viewer or listener. The
spectator. The uninformed. The disaffected.
The very metaphor of a “long tail” cries out impotence: The tail never wags the dog. The tail is the end, the part near the rump, always trailing the leaders, always behind those in front.
That's
why I prefer the circular metaphor of the Centre and the Edge, with
their conflicting centrifugal and centripetal forces in uneasy balance.
The Big Head is the Centre, those with power and authority, the Centre
of Attention, the A-List. The Long Tail is everything else, from the
circles caught between Centre and Edge to the Edge itself.
Those
outside the Centre have superior numbers but, because of our diversity,
these numbers carry no advantage – we are at least as likely to
disagree strongly with others outside the Centre as with those in the
Centre.
The Long Tail doesn't reflect the subtlety of the many
constituents who are neither in the Centre nor on the Edge, but are
either somewhere in between, or are, in different respects, both in the
Centre and on the Edge. Like
those politically in the Centre (left or right side) but socially,
economically or philosophically way out on the Edge – such as the poor
and sick still seeking justice working within the system. Or like those
wealthy progressives politically and philosophically and
technologically estranged from most of their economic cohorts – who don't think tax cuts for the rich are a great idea.
The
Long Tail is a 'markets' way of looking at populations, not a social
network view. I recently saw a guy wearing a T-shirt that read "I am
NOT a consumer demographic", and I wanted to go over and hug him. In
the Long Tail, we are each a population of one, infinitely diverse and unique.
So there are two problems with being outside the Centre, in the Long Tail, that prevent us from being a force proportionate to our numbers:
- We
lack cohesion, and an effective way of finding truly like minds, so we
are impotent, and hence ignored by the mainstream media (and just about
everyone else); and
- None of us is completely outside the Centre in all respects or for all our lives, so there is no affinity
to the Edge the way there is among those in the Centre, where their
relative unity of worldview (and sense of being outnumbered) makes them
cling together in self-congratulatory and self-supporting economic,
political or technological unity – to the point they are defined,
connected and entrenched by their rarified affinity
The key point here is that, on the Edge or in the Long Tail, important stuff (ideas, issues, information and connections) gets no attention, or at least no sustained attention:
There is just too much stuff for the important to be discovered and
kept in public view. Two days ago my readership spiked 50% because of a
flurry of readers of two different articles I wrote months ago, one
that had been 'discovered' by an A-lister and the other that appeared
on one of the 'what’s hot' social bookmarking lists. But a day later
the attention was gone, the same as it is for those in the real-world
Long Tail who get their fleeting fifteen minutes of fame in the
mainstream media or some brief celebrity on YouTube.
It doesn’t matter that the Long Tail represents, in aggregate,
more people, more page-views, more wealth than the Big Head could ever
dream of. When there is no attention, or when it is too broadly or
quickly dissipated, there is
no opportunity for significant impact or change or coherent action. So
many of us end up aspiring to the popularity of the Centre, to the
point we are willing to compromise everything just to attain it, not
(just) because we crave the attention and appreciation, but because we
know it’s essential to get attention first if we want to change
anything. We become reluctant whores to the Centre because only through the Centre's potent infrastructure can we reach the others outside it.
What
we need is a model, a process, a capacity to identify, connect and
collaborate with those outside the Centre without being co-opted by the
Centre to achieve it. I’ve looked for examples, but they’re hard
to come by. Until then, we’ll remain impotent, disenfranchised, and
frustrated. The hinterland (from the German words meaning ‘the land behind’) may be beautiful, but it’s not, at least not yet, where it’s happening.
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5:55:17 PM 
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
