Jordan Peterson on the rise of the new media

The popularity of my ideas is partly a consequence of a technological revolution. I've seen that more clearly since October partly because I can see the mainstream media dying at a faster and faster rate and the alternative media expanding faster and faster.



So television, radio, and the classic print media had shared one thing in common which was an extreme restriction in bandwidth. This was especially true of television because each minute of television, given the necessity to broadcast and the expense, was unbelievably expensive. And so there just wasn't time to do anything on television. There's no time. And so if you had something important to say--or even something unimportant for that matter--most of the time it had to be compressed into something approximating 30 seconds. Which wouldn't even be your words. It would be a journalist commenting on what you said.

And if you were really pushing the envelope, maybe you'd have 25 minutes on a talk show that was devoted to your ideas. But then even that would be highly scripted. And so television made people look stupider than they were even to the producers of television because of this narrow bandwidth.

The rise of video online and audio as well, has blown the bandwidth limitation out of our mass communication. And it turns out that people are smarter with longer attention spans than we thought.

What happened with me was that for one reason or another I was an early adopter of that technology. And so there's this massive technological transformation--which is a Gutenberg revolution in the provision of video and audio. No barrier to production because it doesn't cost anything. Anyone can do it. People can communicate with it. You can cut up YouTube videos. You can make your documentaries. The entry point is easy.

Audio podcasts and that sort of thing which can be of indefinite length allow people to use found time to listen. More people can listen than can read. Like all of these things add up to a massive technological revolution. And it's that upswell in technology that in part has propelled what I've been doing to this mass audience.

And so that's been a relief to figure that out because it depersonalizes it to some degree. Right? And so I used the metaphor--when I've been asked about this before--of being on a wave. I'm surfing on a giant wave. But the wave isn't something that I've done. It's part of this technological revolution. So that's a relief to know that.

And I'm quite convinced that that's the case because there are other people who are occupying the same space essentially. Joe Rogan is a very good example of that. And the various commentators on YouTube who've become increasingly influential and powerful. Same thing.

Driven by the technology, they happen to be early adopters.