In the past, obscurity meant being unheard of. For anyone famous - talented or not - there might have been thousands of equivalents who were consigned to the long grass of history. Not much in the record would ever be kept about these people. Their lives were little documented beyond births, deaths, marriages and census. Any contributions they made would have been undetectable, barely any information about them carried into posterity.

This is changing. Obscurity has now been given a new potential, one that attaches scope for recognition however small. Like so much else currently it comes via the Internet. What would hitherto have been lost to the world can now be accessed via this vast global network of communication. If power distribution curves show that power gathers around a minority then the trend toward all the culture-stuff becoming universally accessible represents a redistribution of power. It benefits from a changing of the curve and as such is referred to as the long tail.

That there are many more unheard-ofs than heard-ofs means that the long tail is massive compared to the short head where all the big successes are. Its emergence is an important development because in years to come the long tail will eat into the high value of the short head. It already is. It is going to be increasingly difficult to have a big hit in any sphere because the culture platform will be more and more dominated by the long tail which will be so huge that everything will be reduced to niche. It will be difficult for anyone creative to become globally distinguished alongside the sheer masses of others who are vying for recognition and who are all on the platform. Any given entity will have its own place, its own set of followers from a handful to hundreds, thousands if it’s lucky. Millions? Not so sure. The huge artist who spans the globe is almost certainly an endangered species.

Despite the ubiquity of creative output these days and how the bar to participation has been lowered, the long tail is a fine thing indeed. It may now be possible to build a modest career by servicing a relatively small number of real fans. I'm sure some will be able to make that work for them. I think creative types - the artists, writers, musicians, film-makers, producers et al - who are able to make a success of it will do so from modest returns. They are the ones who previously would have been unable to make any kind of splash at all not having major league patronage. They will be able, at least in theory, to access their slim slice of appreciation, the few true enthusiasts who want what they've got. These relationships will be more direct and demand real loyalties. They may require more genuine connections be made than with the false idols of old who never cared much about their fans and probably tended to regard them as much a liability before anything else. Modern tech and the long tail may make better moral agents out of all those who would have themselves raised to recognition. I look forward to its evolution.