Yet another media guy who's offended at the idea that us paeons out here might be creating content:

The video-sharing site YouTube is a poster child for this sensibility, since anyone can upload just about anything to it. For a sense of what this new world is like, you can consult the site's "Top Favorites." There are several dance segments, people imitating ninjas or lip-synching songs, and a (very funny, actually) dog who growls at his own leg. You can spend 10 minutes and take in all of it. Spend much more, and you start feeling guilty about the time you're wasting.

That's right boys and girsl, it's all crap, because no professionals were involved. He also casts a dim eye at blogs:

Another way that people describe mash-ups is "user-generated content," referred to by the smart set as "UGC." Most of the time, when companies talk about user-generated content, they mean nothing grander than the pictures you store on Web sites or the pages that MySpace members spend hours fussing over.

Talk about framing. Hey Lee - 10 minutes spent with "The Enquirer" is mildly amusing, while more than that feels like wasted time. Can I extend that argument to your scribblings too? After all, you're paid media, and it's all the same thing, right? So what's worthwhile?

These aren't all tweedy costume dramas. No. 1 is "Fawlty Towers." No. 2 is "Cathy Come Home," a Ken Loach drama about the homeless that first aired in 1966 but is still vividly remembered. The rest of the list includes dramas and sci-fi and talk shows and sitcoms, all of them, in their own way, weighty meals for the mind. You can watch them decade after decade, and never feel guilty at all.

I'm not going to say anything bad about that stuff - I love "Fawlty Towers", for example. However, just because professionals create some good stuff doesn't make it all good ("Gigli", anyone?). Likewise, just because there are insipid instances of amateur content doesn't mean it's all crap. You might think a pro would get that, but hey - he's only a professional writer...