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Qualifying myself on this topic to say I've written websites with `<blink></blink>` in them. Half of this reads like a reactionary grasping at straws, throwing

by dluan 1y ago

Qualifying myself on this topic to say I've written websites with `<blink></blink>` in them. Half of this reads like a reactionary grasping at straws, throwing together a bunch of unrelated things to try and bemoan a "return to weird, but my version of weird". When in reality, the explanation is more straight forward: you're old man. The culture is a live and well. I've lived through ircs and Discord groups. It's out there, it's just better gatekept to match the existing community now. Berghain doesn't just let in any sex pest. Furthermore, this is incredibly English speaking limited view of culture. Chinese and Japanese web culture is alive and well, you just don't know the language and so you can't participate. The other reason for a lot of these shallow complaints - architecture being samey, websites being samey, branding being samey - is capitalism, which always as a rule tends towards consolidation. Things become same and boring because they figured out how to make money with it. And using mass shootings as some sort of logical counter factual is some of the wildest, most insane strawmanning I've seen on the internet. What a garbage article, I feel dumber for having read it. How in the world this guy manages to command a veneer of intellectualism is hilarious.

a-hill 1y ago
Do you have any recommendations of where to look for Japanese web culture as I have really struggled to find anything. Japanese tech blog websites like Qiita and zenn seem to just post bland tech articles
hattmall 1y ago
I definitely think you are missing quite a bit of the overall idea. The author is foremost creating imagery with the statistics. The mass shooting thing tracks with what the point is. IMO it doesn't seem to be simply, "you're old man". Yes culture is still going on many things are still happening, that's not being denied. The thesis is that deviance from societal norms is decreasing. The deviance that finds it's way into societal norms is what we look back at and consider new culture. Therefore the less the pot is stirring with deviance the less culture is evolving. Which I really think IS a valid point and reasoning. I don't think the author is wrong, at least not about what he is talking about. BUT, I think the author is looking for deviance in some of the wrong places. I don't think it's age, but more of position, both societal, and geographic. Not unlike the accumulation of wealth, where the top percent has been increasing their share over time I think that deviance driven culture is accumulating in much the same fashion. My guess is that the author lives somewhere in typical city-surrounded-by-suburbs-urban type area, where most people spend the bulk of their time in some sort of gainful employment that mostly benefits the wealthy. Typical weekends are spent paying attention to sports or music events and going out to eat at restaurants. Most people probably take a couple vacations to another area for a few days a year or maybe go on a cruise or something. Having a passport is common. The examples and ideas he evaluates are deviance WITHIN that framework, but not deviance FROM that framework. In the past much of culture was spawned by that deviance, the deviance that exists within the idea of the typical urban/suburban worker. Where deviance is abundantly evident today, that you could miss if you aren't in position is to be completely outside of that framework. That's the deviance today. Some examples: The percentage of homeschooling children is rising rapidly. The number of SxS deaths annually is increasing at a huge rate. The adoption of eBikes, solar panels, off grid living, tiny homes, non-standard pets, lake culture, trail rides, guerilla playgrounds, CPNS, take-overs, pull up concerts, unlicnensed popups, dump truck beaches, etc. There's a TON Of deviance but it's concentrated around the same groups and it's coordinate but at the same time it ends up shutting people out that aren't in those groups, so it really is this sort of cultural accumulation that's not spread as evenly as it once was. And ultimately those situations ARE spawning new culture, trends, music, styles and products etc.
- chubot 11mo ago
  BUT, I think the author is looking for deviance in some of the wrong places In the section at the end, he does admit that possibility: The internet ethnographer Katherine Dee argues that the most interesting art is happening in domains we don’t yet consider “art”, like social media personalities, TikTok sketch comedy, and Pinterest mood boards. https://culture.ghost.io/why-its-hard-to-argue-about-cultural-stasis/ https://culture.ghost.io/why-its-hard-to-argue-about-cultura... I think that is true But I also think he's right about movies, music, architecture, corporate logos, etc. --- off grid living, tiny homes, non-standard pets, lake culture, trail rides, guerilla playgrounds, CPNS, take-overs, pull up concerts, unlicnensed popups, dump truck beaches, etc Hm interesting. It feels like the Internet has made off-grid living more feasible. Well I only know from YouTube :-/ But from watching those videos, it does seem like there is a ton of information that can be a matter of life and death ... which you can either find out (1) the hard way (2) from a book or a neighbor (the old ways), or (3) through the Internet ! So the Internet can make new(-ish) things more possible, but I also think it has a dampening/homogenizing effect, as many others said in this thread

by dluan 1y ago

a-hill 1y ago

Do you have any recommendations of where to look for Japanese web culture as I have really struggled to find anything. Japanese tech blog websites like Qiita and zenn seem to just post bland tech articles

hattmall 1y ago

I definitely think you are missing quite a bit of the overall idea. The author is foremost creating imagery with the statistics. The mass shooting thing tracks with what the point is. IMO it doesn't seem to be simply, "you're old man". Yes culture is still going on many things are still happening, that's not being denied. The thesis is that deviance from societal norms is decreasing. The deviance that finds it's way into societal norms is what we look back at and consider new culture. Therefore the less the pot is stirring with deviance the less culture is evolving. Which I really think IS a valid point and reasoning. I don't think the author is wrong, at least not about what he is talking about. BUT, I think the author is looking for deviance in some of the wrong places. I don't think it's age, but more of position, both societal, and geographic. Not unlike the accumulation of wealth, where the top percent has been increasing their share over time I think that deviance driven culture is accumulating in much the same fashion. My guess is that the author lives somewhere in typical city-surrounded-by-suburbs-urban type area, where most people spend the bulk of their time in some sort of gainful employment that mostly benefits the wealthy. Typical weekends are spent paying attention to sports or music events and going out to eat at restaurants. Most people probably take a couple vacations to another area for a few days a year or maybe go on a cruise or something. Having a passport is common. The examples and ideas he evaluates are deviance WITHIN that framework, but not deviance FROM that framework. In the past much of culture was spawned by that deviance, the deviance that exists within the idea of the typical urban/suburban worker. Where deviance is abundantly evident today, that you could miss if you aren't in position is to be completely outside of that framework. That's the deviance today. Some examples: The percentage of homeschooling children is rising rapidly. The number of SxS deaths annually is increasing at a huge rate. The adoption of eBikes, solar panels, off grid living, tiny homes, non-standard pets, lake culture, trail rides, guerilla playgrounds, CPNS, take-overs, pull up concerts, unlicnensed popups, dump truck beaches, etc. There's a TON Of deviance but it's concentrated around the same groups and it's coordinate but at the same time it ends up shutting people out that aren't in those groups, so it really is this sort of cultural accumulation that's not spread as evenly as it once was. And ultimately those situations ARE spawning new culture, trends, music, styles and products etc.

chubot 11mo ago
BUT, I think the author is looking for deviance in some of the wrong places In the section at the end, he does admit that possibility: The internet ethnographer Katherine Dee argues that the most interesting art is happening in domains we don’t yet consider “art”, like social media personalities, TikTok sketch comedy, and Pinterest mood boards. https://culture.ghost.io/why-its-hard-to-argue-about-cultural-stasis/ https://culture.ghost.io/why-its-hard-to-argue-about-cultura... I think that is true But I also think he's right about movies, music, architecture, corporate logos, etc. --- off grid living, tiny homes, non-standard pets, lake culture, trail rides, guerilla playgrounds, CPNS, take-overs, pull up concerts, unlicnensed popups, dump truck beaches, etc Hm interesting. It feels like the Internet has made off-grid living more feasible. Well I only know from YouTube :-/ But from watching those videos, it does seem like there is a ton of information that can be a matter of life and death ... which you can either find out (1) the hard way (2) from a book or a neighbor (the old ways), or (3) through the Internet ! So the Internet can make new(-ish) things more possible, but I also think it has a dampening/homogenizing effect, as many others said in this thread