Off-and-online, this is the age of the amateur. From amateur singing/skating/dancing talent shows to DIY art; YouTube, open-mic nights down your boozer and the situation in the run up to the US election where some bloggers are now more influential in US politics than newspaper columnists. We may even love spoof amateurs better than the real thing as Geraldine McQueen, Peter Kay's cross-dressing Irish transexual fake talent show character charted higher than the actual Britain's Got Talent winner. For some rise of the amateur is a triumph of democracy over elitism, for people like Andrew Keen, author of the Cult of the Amateur, it is practically the end of civilisation as we know it.
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