The vision of social media as a vast, harmonious collective that both generates and consumes “user-generated content” is mostly a straw man set up by Web 2.0 critics so they can demolish it (yes, I’m looking at you, Nick Carr), but there’s no question that social media is built on the idea that there’s plenty of talent out there that traditional media isn’t letting you see.

But what if people don’t want to see some unknown singer or musician, no matter how talented they are? What if they really just want to see “celebrities,” regardless of whether they’re talented or not?

That’s the somewhat disturbing implication (to me at least) of ManiaTV’s decision to forego the “user-generated content” and go back to the site’s original model, which was distributing video that featured recognizable names and faces, including Canadian-born Tom Green (who later left the site to go solo from his living room, and recently signed a TV distribution deal).

According to Mania, the site’s user-generated content didn’t really drive much traffic. What people have really been coming to see, CEO Peter Hoskins says, are the “celebrities” — and that’s what advertisers wanted to be associated with as well (he likened user-generated content to “dumpster-diving for gold.”)

“People liked good quality entertainment and advertisers liked quality branded entertainment. Advertisers wanted to distance themselves as far as they possibly could from the user-generated content.”

This is one of the knocks against YouTube and similar sites, that advertisers won’t want to have their message appear alongside a clip of some kid hurting himself on a skateboard. The argument in favour has always been that such sites get so much traffic that advertisers would effectively have to put their ads there or risk missing a key demographic.

So was it just that ManiaTV’s content wasn’t any good, or are people not really that interested in user-generated content? There’s no question that plenty of content on YouTube gets viewed by millions of people, but perhaps they are the exception. What I find depressing is that people would prefer to watch “celebrities” like Tom Green and Dave Navarro instead of some more talented unknown.

I was going to write a post about terms like “user-generated content” – which my boss at globeandmail.com, Angus Frame, and I had a discussion about awhile back, after he said how much he despised the term “citizen journalism” – but I don’t have to any more because Derek Powazek has a great post that says everything I was going to say, as well or better (hey, anything is possible). As he puts it:

“Can I make a suggestion? Let’s all stop using the phrase “user-generated content.” I’m serious. It’s a despicable, terrible term.” Let’s deconstruct it.

User: One who uses. Like, you know, a junkie.

Generated: Like a generator, engine. Like, you know, a robot.

Content: Something that fills a box. Like, you know, packing peanuts.”

Derek is totally right. “User-generated content” is something that a marketing ‘droid would say in a report to upper management or the accounting department, about all that stuff that someone produces somewhere that gets ads wrapped around it. It has no soul, it has no life, it has no meaning. Jeremy Zawodny has joined the fight, and so has Umair Haque of Bubblegeneration, and Jeremiah Owyang. Derek says:

“Think about the rest of the world. Writers produce stories or articles. Authors write fiction or memoir. These are words infused with meaning and romance. Can you imagine a writer saying “I am a content provider” when asked what they do?”

If you feel okay with saying you’re a “content provider,” then I hope you are writing stuff for the back of packages, or user manuals for enterprise-class printers or something like that. Why not just call it writing? Derek wants to call it “authentic media,” which is a nice try but has (ironically) a kind of fake ring to it. I’m going to continue to search for a good term – and it will be as far away from the term “user-generated content” as possible.