The worst thing a kid can say about homework is that it is too hard. The worst thing a kid can say about a game is it's too easy.

If old consumers were assumed to be passive, then new consumers are active. If old consumers were predictable and stayed where you told them, then new consumers are migratory, showing a declining loyalty to networks or media. If old consumers were isolated individuals, then new consumers are more socially connected. If the work of media consumers was once silent and invisible, then new consumers are now noisy and public.

From American Idol to The Matrix participatory media - where old and new media converge by involving fans - is influencing our culture by creating new forms of interactive storytelling. Yet by enabling people to participate in such various media they can converge as a crowd to alter the story to create new modes of engagement, some not necessarily endorsed by the creator - or the brands that back them.

Fandom, after all, is born of a balance between fascination and frustration: if media content didn't fascinate us, there would be no desire to engage with it; but if it didn't frustrate us on some level, there would be no drive to rewrite or remake it.

...Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk.

The key is to produce something that both pulls people together and gives them something to do.

Humans do not engage in activities that are meaningless. If you think you see people doing things you find meaningless, look again and try to understand what the activities mean for them.