7 ms·

There was a renaissance of grassroots psychedelia in the overlapping hacker and rave culture of the 1990s. I miss that stuff. Today's culture is disturbingly v

by api 10y ago

There was a renaissance of grassroots psychedelia in the overlapping hacker and rave culture of the 1990s. I miss that stuff. Today's culture is disturbingly vapid. There is little in the way of either genuinely creative counterculture or mainstream high culture. The pop culture is five chord pop that all sounds the same and endless remakes of the same film, and geek and fringe culture seems full of low effort meme trash and mean spirited nihilism. It's not at all surprising that fascism has risen up in those festering swamps. It reminds me of the eerie artistic anticlimax that served as a prelude to collapse in one of Lovecraft's stories about the history of a vanished elder race. "The Cursed City" I think. Like the old ones our art and culture reached a peak from the 60s to the 90s and then gave way to blobs scrawled in MS Paint.

cobbzilla 10y ago
are you lamenting today's mainstream culture in contrast to previous decades' counterculture? seems like apples and oranges. i'll posit that today's counterculture is more vibrant than ever, and 60's-90's pop culture was as vapid as today's.
- losteric 10y ago
  This era of digital media and unprecedented discoverability amplifies our differences and similarities. Counter-culture and subcultures find, share, fork, and reinforce ideas faster than ever before. The blandness of mainstream media is a red herring, that content was always designed for mass appeal and it's now appealing to a far wider audience than ever before...
- coldtea 10y ago
  >i'll posit that today's counterculture is more vibrant than ever Not even close.
  - cobbzilla 10y ago
    Then i'd posit that you need to get out more often :) you don't know what you're missing out on.
mythrwy 10y ago
"The pop culture is five chord pop that all sounds the same and endless remakes of the same film" Hahaha. I remember lamenting about the same thing back in the early 90's. Most of everything is always dull and vapid and so are most people who at best are imitators. When you are there anyway. Looking back it always seems the past was so groundbreaking and exciting. In my late teens/early 20's I wished I could have lived through the 60's (this was in the late 80's- early 90's). Because that was such a truly great and groundbreaking time according to the books. Now I realize it was probably a general stifled societies with a bunch of copycat posers growing their hair out and saying silly things they thought were cool and taking LSD. I laugh my ass off whenever I see 90's idolizing millennials. Old man rant aside, there has been a pretty big cultural movement in the last 6 or 8 years. I guess a big part of it is the internet. In a way I'm glad I'm not 23 again, what a confusing age, but in some ways I'm a bit jealous. Ah well, I got the 90's. There were some cool times.
- Mediterraneo10 10y ago
  In the early 1990s, mainstream pop music was arguably a broader scene than it is now, inasmuch as hip-hop and R&B were both undergoing considerable evolution and present in several distinct forms in the charts, rock was still a strong force, and country music was briefly expanding to new markets. Compare that to today when rock is dead and hip-hop and R&B have increasingly merged into a single electronica style. That said, beneath the surface of that pop mainstream is an incredible diversity of music available to any listener who cares to seek it out, and we are living in a music golden age even if we might be living in a pop culture depression.
  - mythrwy 10y ago
    I don't even know what pop music/culture is anymore. Justin Beiber I guess? We'll we've always had crappy commercial imitations with little artistic value. The 80's were full of it so I listed to "real" music from the 70's (not realizing the 70's were likely full of the same thing but only the quality stuck around). This ignorance of current culture might because I'm older and don't have a TV. Or it might be that the internet has allowed me to isolate myself in my own little bubble of excellence. And there is some great music around now. The quantity of good stuff is mind boggling. You had like 10-15 choices when I was young. And the mechanisms for discovery. It truly is a dream time for people who love art and music.
anigbrowl 10y ago
Today's culture is always disturbingly vapid unless you know where to look. I am in favor of much more and more blatant use of psychedelics though.
- hammock 10y ago
  Where to look today?
  - rublev 10y ago
    Just ask around. You're never more than a person or two away from some acid.
    - benevol 10y ago
      I'd rather recommend you use TOR, buy online and benefit from ratings and other such quality signals. Online sellers have their reputation to lose, whereas some unknown person knows they will never see you again and have nothing to lose from selling you whatever they want. Also, but a testing kit.
      - im3w1l 10y ago
        Uh isnt it the opposite? If you are selling tainted stuff to a friend of a friend then you could have your friends turn on you. While if you sell bad stuff over the internets all you have to do is buy positive ratings to counterweight the bad ones.
    - api 10y ago
      There are arguably more and easier to get drugs today. If drugs automatically made culture interesting we wouldn't be having this conversation. 60s and 90s psychedelic drug use was just one of many ingredients in a larger thing, and probably nowhere near the most important.
    - hammock 10y ago
      I meant where to find non-vapid culture, not where to find drugs :)
nnfy 10y ago
Sounds like a case of survivorship bias. For every Floyd and Hendrix, there are probably dozens of then contemporary pop artists who never made it out of the 60s.
- coldtea 10y ago
  The issue is that there were Floyd and Hendrix then, but not now. So the survivorship bias is not applicable in this case as nobody said there wasn't junk then. (And actually what the parent talks about goes beyond Floyd and Hendrix, which are not counter-culturish or high culture themselves anyway(.
  - lifeformed 10y ago
    There exists equivalent artists today, but they are in new styles that may not suit the tastes of someone who grew up listening to 60's music and hasn't kept up with the evolution of music over the years. Just like in the 60's, there's a lot of mainstream music now that will be considered foundational to cultural trends 50 years from now. However, they will be unappealing to people idolizing the music of 50 years past. They may not think much of modern hip hop or electronic music, or things like Radiohead or Kanye West, but those things will be regarded the same way we regard legends of decades past.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >Just like in the 60's, there's a lot of mainstream music now that will be considered foundational to cultural trends 50 years from now. However, they will be unappealing to people idolizing the music of 50 years past. They may not think much of modern hip hop or electronic music, or things like Radiohead or Kanye West, but those things will be regarded the same way we regard legends of decades past. I don't think so, because the whole cultural role of music has changed. Not just sales, interest has plummeted, and young people have tons of over outlets besides music (tons of movies just for them, video games, the internet, social media, mobile apps, netflix soon vr and other stuff). Music had more power when it was something everybody was tuned in at the same time (through radio, top-40 etc which was inescapable), was seen as subversive (now tech founders might be even more admired than the latest rock star), was expensive and had to be listened to in small doses and from start to end, was opaque and all kinds of myths surrounded it (without 24/7 media coverage and 200+ direct artist-to-fan outlets available), and more especially was one of a limited number of entertainment options.

by api 10y ago

cobbzilla 10y ago

are you lamenting today's mainstream culture in contrast to previous decades' counterculture? seems like apples and oranges. i'll posit that today's counterculture is more vibrant than ever, and 60's-90's pop culture was as vapid as today's.

losteric 10y ago
This era of digital media and unprecedented discoverability amplifies our differences and similarities. Counter-culture and subcultures find, share, fork, and reinforce ideas faster than ever before. The blandness of mainstream media is a red herring, that content was always designed for mass appeal and it's now appealing to a far wider audience than ever before...
coldtea 10y ago
>i'll posit that today's counterculture is more vibrant than ever Not even close.
- cobbzilla 10y ago
  Then i'd posit that you need to get out more often :) you don't know what you're missing out on.

mythrwy 10y ago

"The pop culture is five chord pop that all sounds the same and endless remakes of the same film" Hahaha. I remember lamenting about the same thing back in the early 90's. Most of everything is always dull and vapid and so are most people who at best are imitators. When you are there anyway. Looking back it always seems the past was so groundbreaking and exciting. In my late teens/early 20's I wished I could have lived through the 60's (this was in the late 80's- early 90's). Because that was such a truly great and groundbreaking time according to the books. Now I realize it was probably a general stifled societies with a bunch of copycat posers growing their hair out and saying silly things they thought were cool and taking LSD. I laugh my ass off whenever I see 90's idolizing millennials. Old man rant aside, there has been a pretty big cultural movement in the last 6 or 8 years. I guess a big part of it is the internet. In a way I'm glad I'm not 23 again, what a confusing age, but in some ways I'm a bit jealous. Ah well, I got the 90's. There were some cool times.

Mediterraneo10 10y ago
In the early 1990s, mainstream pop music was arguably a broader scene than it is now, inasmuch as hip-hop and R&B were both undergoing considerable evolution and present in several distinct forms in the charts, rock was still a strong force, and country music was briefly expanding to new markets. Compare that to today when rock is dead and hip-hop and R&B have increasingly merged into a single electronica style. That said, beneath the surface of that pop mainstream is an incredible diversity of music available to any listener who cares to seek it out, and we are living in a music golden age even if we might be living in a pop culture depression.
- mythrwy 10y ago
  I don't even know what pop music/culture is anymore. Justin Beiber I guess? We'll we've always had crappy commercial imitations with little artistic value. The 80's were full of it so I listed to "real" music from the 70's (not realizing the 70's were likely full of the same thing but only the quality stuck around). This ignorance of current culture might because I'm older and don't have a TV. Or it might be that the internet has allowed me to isolate myself in my own little bubble of excellence. And there is some great music around now. The quantity of good stuff is mind boggling. You had like 10-15 choices when I was young. And the mechanisms for discovery. It truly is a dream time for people who love art and music.

anigbrowl 10y ago

Today's culture is always disturbingly vapid unless you know where to look. I am in favor of much more and more blatant use of psychedelics though.

hammock 10y ago
Where to look today?
- rublev 10y ago
  Just ask around. You're never more than a person or two away from some acid.
  - benevol 10y ago
    I'd rather recommend you use TOR, buy online and benefit from ratings and other such quality signals. Online sellers have their reputation to lose, whereas some unknown person knows they will never see you again and have nothing to lose from selling you whatever they want. Also, but a testing kit.
    - im3w1l 10y ago
      Uh isnt it the opposite? If you are selling tainted stuff to a friend of a friend then you could have your friends turn on you. While if you sell bad stuff over the internets all you have to do is buy positive ratings to counterweight the bad ones.
  - api 10y ago
    There are arguably more and easier to get drugs today. If drugs automatically made culture interesting we wouldn't be having this conversation. 60s and 90s psychedelic drug use was just one of many ingredients in a larger thing, and probably nowhere near the most important.
  - hammock 10y ago
    I meant where to find non-vapid culture, not where to find drugs :)

nnfy 10y ago

Sounds like a case of survivorship bias. For every Floyd and Hendrix, there are probably dozens of then contemporary pop artists who never made it out of the 60s.

coldtea 10y ago
The issue is that there were Floyd and Hendrix then, but not now. So the survivorship bias is not applicable in this case as nobody said there wasn't junk then. (And actually what the parent talks about goes beyond Floyd and Hendrix, which are not counter-culturish or high culture themselves anyway(.
- lifeformed 10y ago
  There exists equivalent artists today, but they are in new styles that may not suit the tastes of someone who grew up listening to 60's music and hasn't kept up with the evolution of music over the years. Just like in the 60's, there's a lot of mainstream music now that will be considered foundational to cultural trends 50 years from now. However, they will be unappealing to people idolizing the music of 50 years past. They may not think much of modern hip hop or electronic music, or things like Radiohead or Kanye West, but those things will be regarded the same way we regard legends of decades past.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Just like in the 60's, there's a lot of mainstream music now that will be considered foundational to cultural trends 50 years from now. However, they will be unappealing to people idolizing the music of 50 years past. They may not think much of modern hip hop or electronic music, or things like Radiohead or Kanye West, but those things will be regarded the same way we regard legends of decades past. I don't think so, because the whole cultural role of music has changed. Not just sales, interest has plummeted, and young people have tons of over outlets besides music (tons of movies just for them, video games, the internet, social media, mobile apps, netflix soon vr and other stuff). Music had more power when it was something everybody was tuned in at the same time (through radio, top-40 etc which was inescapable), was seen as subversive (now tech founders might be even more admired than the latest rock star), was expensive and had to be listened to in small doses and from start to end, was opaque and all kinds of myths surrounded it (without 24/7 media coverage and 200+ direct artist-to-fan outlets available), and more especially was one of a limited number of entertainment options.