Cultural emulsification & the internet?

[thujone]

I was watching an interview with Shane Meadows where he discussed how subcultures seem to have disappeared lately. He made a point about them being tied specifically to the music that was representative of an era, e.g. glam rock and punk and grunge, etc. and how the whole vibe has disappeared since the 90s when grunge and hip-hop were sort of the last holdouts of distinct subcultures.

It stood out to me how the dying out of grunge and hip-hop scenes really coincided with the rise of the internet. In the early-90s internet was still largely useless for the common man but by the late 90s there was a dotcom bubble and the internet was suddenly hugely relevant to everyone's life.

So that correlation really makes me wonder: is the rise of the internet as a social medium responsible for the marginalization of distinct subcultures? Do distinct subcultures still exist in the developed world? Are subcultures just undergoing a period of dormancy adjusting to the information revolution or are they destined to die out?

I qualified the second question with "in the developed world" because it seems like subcultures do still have a strong presence in the developing world where repressive laws create solidarity around ideas that are legitimately rebellious. Are we destined to just become a peaceful, homogenized global society where subcultures are spawned and destroyed from one minute to the next while the pervasive mass culture that dominates continues to amalgamate?

 

[-=SS=-]

One only need look at Camden Town in London (UK) and how it has changed over the past 15 years to see a parallel. It used to be filled with all sorts of kool and different people, fucking mohawks everywhere, goths, metal people, rockers, grunge, and many more sub-cultures. Now you'd be lucky to see just one mohawk. Bloody hipsters all over the place and this pervasive mass culture you referred too, where everyone has different clothes but still essentially look all the same somehow. All the kool wacky shops are disappearing and lame corporate shops are popping up. I have no doubts this all coincided with the rise of the internet and the rise of this pervasive mass culture.

I think it sucks. Whilst I personally think all sub-cultures are kind of lame in their own way, at least they did something.. now everyone is just on the internet doing nothing, going nowhere and jerking themselves into eternity.

 

[Ninae]

Definitely. Not just the internet, but also cell phones, video games, and the sheer number of TV channels we now have. There's just so much to do for entertainment and company.

People can now be in touch with their close ones through technology and most will rather spend their time on that than being involved in artsy or political scenes. In some ways this is good but our culture has suffered. Ans there's been a kind of death of musical artists as gods now that anyone can publish music and there's so much of it, people don't need it so much for company and entertainment, and there's such unlimited access to material from all decades.

So the magic has kind of gone, it was dependent on a degree of exclusivity and limited access, and also on people being bored out of their brains much of the time. Now there's so much to occupy your mind with that doesn't really happen. But it must be strange for those who are kids today to grow up and see the almost religious way we used to worship rock stars, etc.

 

[Foreigner]

The internet has turned people into spectators instead of participants. It's a knowledge/information culture that doesn't have visibility, aside from the tech they carry. Cultural expression is online a lot more now.

I was recently talking to a friend about how the gay scene has changed. In the 80's and 90's there was the AIDS crisis which brought the community together in really relevant and potent ways, but beyond that, there were always meeting hubs where people would go to hangout. You would make plans and meetup at agreed times. If you wanted to find a friend, you'd checkout their haunts and hangouts, since everyone had landlines instead of cell phones. Dating and hooking up was about the kinds of bars and clubs you were into, and the meetup sites you would checkout.

Now everything is online. The distinctiveness of the gay scene is gone. It's dissolved into some kind of generic form where everyone looks more or less the same, and there is less community. There are no hotbutton issues which bring people together. In the city I live in, there are now maybe 1 or 2 major gay only clubs. In the 90's there were 10.

With the internet has come decentralization of culture, in addition to mass monoculture. Even though subcultures can now translate to the internet, I feel that in general there has been a dumbing down. Meeting cosmpolitan, highly intelligent people with nuanced personalities is more challenging these days, because everyone is consuming the same content more or less. Back before everyone had access to everything, subculture made it more discrete. You had special interest clubs where people would come to exchange knowledge. They still happen, but they're more scarce.

What disturbs me the most is that people think the internet can be a succinct substitute for subculture and special interest groups, just because they have Google to search things. The depth of the experience simply isn't there. Putting aside the fact that you're not actually interacting in humanly normal ways (it's really just each person talking to a screen, really), there's no comparing the surface-level knowledge of the net to in depth world experience. Yet people think they are comparable.

 

[sigmond]

Do distinct subcultures still exist in the developed world?

Not sure if this qualifies but there seemed to be a post-rock subculture centered around Austin Texas.

I think you're correct about the internet playing a significant role in why distinct subcultures are not spreading as they did in the pre-web era. Regarding music it seems the main reason for this would be that before the web MTV had a monopoly on what bands were given an adequate platform to spread beyond the region in which they originated. Furthermore, the post grunge era was permeated with exceptionally shitty music. (Boy-bands- even worse pop stars then the 80's produced which must have been difficult. Spears lady comes to mind...etcetera

The only somewhat distinctive subculture I am seeing in my region is some odd mixture of hackerish, hippieish, electro-music listening peoples, riding mini bicycles- perhaps a segway if they can afford it- of course they love to pay for yoga class, not sure why. I would prefer the beach, it is possible to take your special rug there and you will save money.

Oh and new age feminists...make sure you do not make eye contact with them. You will be immediately accused of reckless eyeballing.

have a nice day

 

[Ninae]

And misguided "meninists".

 

[sigmond]

These feministas are out there. They seem to have the idea that if you're looking at them you must want to (snip)

might be a small population, but they're the individuals who are misguided.

I'm pro equal rights though!

 

[herbavore]

In the Bay area there is a thriving psychedelic subculture that has roots back to the 60's. I think that music has ceased to be a identifiable unifying aspect of the subculture but the subculture itself survives.

I think that the rise of the internet and all of our personal devices is changing us so rapidly and so smoothly that it is frightening. For someone my age that has been teaching young children for over 30 years, it is shocking (not in a bad or good way--just a remarkably different baseline altogether--evolution in action.). Sometimes I feel like an older person must have felt living through the industrial revolution--like some sort of bridge to a past that is no longer even perceivable to those born into such a radically changed present with its altogether new starting points.

As an old hippie--street protesting, commune-living, culture-of-origin bashing--the music of that era was the blood that ran in our veins. We revered the artists that created it because indeed they brought us together and solidified the subculture. You had to wait to buy the LP and that was the only way to hear it other than radio. When you got the record, you shared it , not as some remote digital file but in a room full of people or with your best friend--actual bodies, actual faces. And when the damn thing got scratched or warped you had to replace it.

I love the way that I can get music now. I love that I can explore without buying, buy one song without having it come with 5 more that I don't want. But what an interesting correlation you've made, thujone. (I once had the thought that our wasteful modern culture may have had its roots in the refrigerator. With refrigeration you could safely store food whereas prior to that invention you were forced to have only what you could consume in a few days or weeks in the case of cellar-food. What a shift in thinking it must have been once you could start to amass food for the future.)

One last thought: jazz remains an intact subculture, though obscure to many people. No one has ever been able to define a jazz lover by his or her appearance.

 

[Noodle]

When I think about music based subcultures, I think of hold-outs like R&B in Philladelphia, Techno in Berlin, and the ever evolving electronic music cultures of the United Kingdom.

I can't comment on any other distinct subcultures, but I know they exist. I imagine they are more scattered in suburban areas.

 

[sigmond]

One last thought: jazz remains an intact subculture, though obscure to many people. No one has ever been able to define a jazz lover by his or her appearance

An obscure under appreciated subculture that has been in a steady decline since the 60's imo. Americans never seemed to care all that much for many of their best musicians/composers until after they are dead. Many jazz players received more respect and felt more comfortable in France than they did in America.

Curious if you use free educational tools in the classroom? (khan academy, moocs, Vocabulary com) openculture is a great resource. Seemingly you would enjoy the site Brainpickings as well.

(side note: any use of stereotypes is mainly to save space/time. I do not support or condone stereotyping in real life.)

 

[herbavore]

Well, as the very under-funded art teacher in an elementary school, not so much. I don't have either a computer or a decent projector in my "new" room. I love khan academy for myself though. I've never heard of the others so thanks--I will look into them!

 

[RedRum OG]

Maybe. Maybe "they" just got more controlling over music to control the masses. I mean, look what happened to rap post 2000... Went from "I'm on the street shooting bitches and selling rock" to "money money money in da club with money and bitches in da club with bitches love money bitches"
/tinfoil


If you make "rock" a huge umbrella (metal, punk, alternative, etc) went from "fuck you fuck the system" to "my life is sadder than yyyyooouurrrrssss"

Either way, explains why 99% of music I listen to is made before 2005

 

[One Thousand Words]

I would say that the Internet has actually increased the subgenres due to its ability to connect different people around the world. No longer are we tied to what record companies and advertising executives create, rather people have instant connections to other fans in communities online.

What you see as generic "hipster" genre is actually more diverse and subtle than the old hip hop/ wigger vs grunge / Rock. Living in a multicultural city I see vast variety of fashion and music subcultures. Once upon a time you saw someone dressed in black and categorised them as Goth, yet today I know pagans/white witches and wicker who co exist along side hippy/doof crowd who are distinctly different to cyber raver subgroups that may look similar. Communities created online exist in far greater variety and allow for subtle variations to exist, that to the untrained eye appear very generic.

 

[sigmond]

now everyone is just on the internet doing nothing, going nowhere and jerking themselves into eternity.

Hey speak for yourself man, I am trying to improve my English language skills here.

 

[swilow]

What about furries?

 

[One Thousand Words]

Steam punks?

 

[swilow]

Cyber goth is going strong.

 

[One Thousand Words]

I fucking love those chicks.

 

[swilow]

^Its their penchant for exposed thighs IMO.

 

[spacejunk]

Globalisation has a lot to do with this also - regionally focussed subcultures are far less unique than in previous eras.

But this could be equally attributable to information technology.
As for the decline of music-based subcultures, i think this has a lot to do with the stagnation of many artistic fields that has coincided with file-sharing and the impact this has had on the industries based on these artforms.
The recording industry has become more and more 'safe' in terms of what sort of music gets widely promoted, and few genuinely innovative contemporary musicians are able to make a living from their music or performance.

"Retro" rehashing subculture is everywhere; from music to film to fashion and most things in between.
Not to say that the internet has been entirely bad culturally - to say so on a forum such as this would be pretty ironic - but so much of what passes for subculture these days is a mere imitation of days gone by imho.