The irony of these periodic laments on the death of creativity is that creativity has blossomed. Poserdom has gone from Willow and Grey’s little corner of the interwebs to a fairly big thing. In the process, countless people who always wanted to do “art,” but couldn’t draw a straight line with a ruler have been empowered to realize their modest visions. It may not agree with the taste of everyone, it may be crude, repetitive sophomoric or whatever you want to throw at it, but it works for them. Naturally enough, folks saw an opportunity to make some money catering to the needs of a growing market. That is the way markets evolve. Why should they care about quality when people (probably including a few of those complaining about the lack of it) continue to accumulate terabyte collections of stuff – half of which they haven’t even installed?

When the tools of creativity are democratized, a thousand flowers bloom but it should be no surprise that most of them look alike and precious few of them are prize orchids. The advent of consumer video, for instance, has produced some great stuff no doubt, but most of it is derivative, mundane and bonus points if you flash your teats. The garage bands are on ‘Who Wants to be a Garage Band Millionaire in 60 Seconds’, and the underground comics are on YouTube. The impulse to individuality competes with a deep seated desire to conform and fit in, to go with the meme of the day, and maybe get famous enough for someone to actually care about watching your leaked sex video.

The Poser market is also largely fantasy driven. People, by and large, probably don’t want to unwind and render people in dungarees or JC Penney’s spring line for V4, when they can look out the window and see plenty of them. ‘Sex (and violence) sells’ is as much about neurobiology as it is about marketing. You can’t have it both ways. You either remain a small, select entity that relies on its own resources or you take the money and let the crowd into the tent. If they prefer to watch the hootchie cootchie show, that’s life.

Anyone who was in on the early days of something can fondly remember the clubbiness of the small community, the shared experience and the secret handshakes before it all changed. I certainly feel that way about programming before 500 schlocky video converters and pull my finger – there’s an app for that nonsense, but there are still gems to be found. As Eric Hoffer said, "Every great cause, begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken