Matt Mason Interview

Our guest is Matt Mason author of The Pirate’s Dilemma: How Youth Culture is Reinventing Capitalism. Mason charts the rise of various youth movements - from pirate radio to remix culture, from punk and hip-hop to graffiti and gaming - and tracks their ripple effect throughout larger society. He shows how subversive ideas, fringe movements, street and youth culture have combined with technology to subvert old hierarchies and empower the individual. And it shows why the rest of us had better catch up. Extending this argument to the world of pirate radio, graffiti, hip-hop, and advertising in subsequent chapters, Mason shows how, by thinking like pirates, people grow niche audiences to a critical mass and change the mainstream from the bottom up. It considers what the world will look like when people begin virtually annotating real space - where the nature of privacy, the public domain, and the role of graffiti suddenly change. In this world, boundaries might just be a thing of the past. Mason began his career as a pirate radio and club DJ in London, going on to found the seminal magazine RWD (the largest urban music title in the UK). In 2004, he was presented the Prince's Trust London Business of the Year Award by HRH Prince Charles. He has written and produced TV series, comic strips, and records, and his stories have appeared in VICE, Complex, and other publications in more than 12 countries around the world. Recorded January 22, 2008