3 ms·

I believe this is the origin of the '90s kids' meme. Not too long ago there was one culture. Then the internet came along and there was a gathering place for fa

I believe this is the origin of the '90s kids' meme. Not too long ago there was one culture. Then the internet came along and there was a gathering place for fans of every obscure anime and political system. I don't miss the restrictiveness of a single culture and the expectation to fit into it, but with the benefit of hindsight I can't say it was a terrible culture, given all it had to do.

cthalupa 2y ago
There have always been multiple cultures. This is such a weird statement I don't even really know how to argue against it since to me it seems so self evident, but I suppose I'll try. Since the subject is music, I suppose we can start there. The sort of people you found at, say, a metal show in the 80s and the sort of people you found at a dance club playing the early era of house music were wildly different. Even if you keep it within rock, the overlap of the audience seeing The Cure would be wildly different from those seeing Judas Priest. Anime? Even before the internet became what it is today, you could go to a comic book store and hang out. There was significant overlap between the comic book/dungeons & dragons/anime crowds. There have been social spaces and places to meet people within specific cultures for forever.
- aidenn0 2y ago
  There was never one culture, but the fragmentation was far more coarse. I was into D&D, so I was exposed to anime, comics, Monty Python, Mel Brooks, and Tom Lehrer, because those were a certain subculture. I was never a comic-book nerd, but I could probably name a dozen different series from image comics in the 90s because I was surrounded by people who read them. I flat out dislike watching Mel Brooks movies, but I can quote about 90% of Spaceballs or Blazing Saddles because that was a part of the vocabulary of that group.
lawgimenez 2y ago
Before the internet, there has always been a gathering place already for each culture. In my teens, it was the weekend punk hardcore matinees. Before internet, kids passed out fliers to their upcoming shows. Kids invite fellow kids because there isn’t much going on during weekends.

cthalupa 2y ago

There have always been multiple cultures. This is such a weird statement I don't even really know how to argue against it since to me it seems so self evident, but I suppose I'll try. Since the subject is music, I suppose we can start there. The sort of people you found at, say, a metal show in the 80s and the sort of people you found at a dance club playing the early era of house music were wildly different. Even if you keep it within rock, the overlap of the audience seeing The Cure would be wildly different from those seeing Judas Priest. Anime? Even before the internet became what it is today, you could go to a comic book store and hang out. There was significant overlap between the comic book/dungeons & dragons/anime crowds. There have been social spaces and places to meet people within specific cultures for forever.

aidenn0 2y ago
There was never one culture, but the fragmentation was far more coarse. I was into D&D, so I was exposed to anime, comics, Monty Python, Mel Brooks, and Tom Lehrer, because those were a certain subculture. I was never a comic-book nerd, but I could probably name a dozen different series from image comics in the 90s because I was surrounded by people who read them. I flat out dislike watching Mel Brooks movies, but I can quote about 90% of Spaceballs or Blazing Saddles because that was a part of the vocabulary of that group.

lawgimenez 2y ago

Before the internet, there has always been a gathering place already for each culture. In my teens, it was the weekend punk hardcore matinees. Before internet, kids passed out fliers to their upcoming shows. Kids invite fellow kids because there isn’t much going on during weekends.