Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The internet didn’t kill counterculture – you just won’t find it on Instagram

documentjournal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 471 posts

Re: The internet didn’t kill counterculture – you just won’t find it on Instagram

#381

Post by SyzygistSix »

JakeTheAndroid wrote: post #39
retrac wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While there may be no "algorithm" controlling the narrative you see on 4chan (or a straightforward and ostensibly fair one on a site like reddit), the content you see (and by extension, the narrative) is shaped by profit motive: From well-compensated marketing teams, to hordes of self-interested proselytizers (see: bitcoin), to propaganda teams looking to influence public opinion I've realized I have exactly one ou…

I find plenty of these types of communities through Discord, and I think that is part of the equation that's left out here. I don't really like discord much, but the reason I get when I do is to go check in on those friends. Usually these communities are just people that I've met playing games. I don't know that these would qualify as counter-culture or subculture, but they are free of marketing and advertising, and…

But unlike IRC, Discord is about personal identity, which is no longer counter-cultural.

Re: The internet didn’t kill counterculture – you just won’t find it on Instagram

#382

Post by SyzygistSix »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #37
helen___keller wrote: post #18

I think this is the biggest takeaway for me: > We saw this dynamic metastasize in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, when well-intentioned claims of “silence is violence” (recalling the powerful 1987 ACT-UP “Silence = Death” campaign) spiraled into calling out individuals with even a small following who hadn’t come forward with a timely public statement of solidarity or remorse. Yet public posts were subject to popul…

> From well-compensated marketing teams, to hordes of self-interested proselytizers (see: bitcoin), to propaganda teams looking to influence public opinion, mainstream dark forest sites simply shift the balance of power from the platform itself to the most motivated and well-funded members of the platform This is making the perfect the enemy of the good. Also, voting systems take care of a lot of this, because naked…

Social media sites with voting systems have a lot of bots. And they almost always are about expressing individual identity in the context of a unique combination of consumer choices, which is no longer countercultural, if it ever even was.

Re: The internet didn’t kill counterculture – you just won’t find it on Instagram

#383

Post by SyzygistSix »

everdrive wrote: post #6

Still reading the article, but this is an interesting blurb if nothing else: "To be truly countercultural today, in a time of tech hegemony, one has to, above all, betray the platform, which may come in the form of betraying or divesting from your public online self." I hadn't thought of boycotting much of popular online space as being counter-cultural. It's an interesting thought.

I don't think the article gets to the heart of the matter of why online platforms are not countercultural. The main reason, in my understanding, is that they still are selling the vision of the individual as rebel, and individual expression as our unique combination of consumer choices; Instagram is the perfect example and the logical conclusion of Individual Choice being our highest expression. Nothing about that dynamic is countercultural any more.

There are still online interactions though. Communities trading tracks and collaborating musically online. Torrenting. Open source software projects.

Re: The internet didn’t kill counterculture – you just won’t find it on Instagram

#384

Post by SyzygistSix »

krapp wrote: post #238
bluefirebrand wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hadn't thought of boycotting much of popular online space as being counter-cultural. It's an interesting thought I think the interesting part is that it's kind of counter-culture but it itself is not really a culture at all. There are no groups (as far as I know) for people who eschew social media. They don't meet up at the pub and talk about it, they don't have any kind of organization, even a loose one. People…

>There are no groups (as far as I know) for people who eschew social media. They don't meet up at the pub and talk about it, they don't have any kind of organization, even a loose one. Hacker News is basically that culture. A lot of people here spend their time complaining about how much they hate every aspect of social media, the web and modern culture ( except for HN, of course) and make a point of virtue-signaling…

Hacker News is that culture but it is a subculture, not a counterculture.

Re: The internet didn’t kill counterculture – you just won’t find it on Instagram

#385

Post by din-9 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #311
agumonkey wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the whole thing is bogus from the start, the 'social media' idea I mean. These are companies.. they're not here to make culture or societies.. they're parasite leeching on your human needs. When a new trends starts organically, it's all impulsive and genuine, then people start to profit on it and the game is over.

> When a new trends starts organically, it's all impulsive and genuine, then people start to profit on it and the game is over. I think I have seen the same argument about anime conventions. The idea is that a trend starts with a small group of passionate people, as things get bigger and more popular, followers arrive. Followers are not really passionate, they just jump on the bandwagon, but will leave and jump on an…

I found https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths an interesting take on this.

Re: The internet didn’t kill counterculture – you just won’t find it on Instagram

#386

Post by mrweasel »

msla wrote: post #293
airhead969 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Antisocial media" would a truthful title. I don't even like texting. Email is a letter replacement. Call me and pickup when I call, or GTFO. Faceblock, Twatter, Instaglam, Discard, Snapper, TikTak, LinkedOut can all listen to the flushing sound of me deleting their advertising monetization. "Buh buh all of your Ivy and Pac12 associations that made you look important on a résumé." Too bad, I haven't talked to most of…

> Call me and pickup when I call, or GTFO. I don't exist at your beck and call. Text me and respect that I have a life beyond hanging on the telephone, or I don't care to distinguish you from the billions of autodialers who are the only ones still rude enough to make such demands on my time. BTW, cute misspellings. Little jugs got big ears, I suppose.

> I don't exist at your beck and call

Well, no... but depending on context you might have to deal with it. Privately people can do whatever they want, in business, the customer gets to decide. I work as a consultant, if a customer prefer a phone call, then I pick up the phone. If I'm busy a co-worker answers.

In a previous job I was the customer, and I refused to do Skype meeting, because I didn't want to spend 10 minutes figuring out why audio wasn't working. If you didn't want to call me, then I just took my business else where.

Re: The internet didn’t kill counterculture – you just won’t find it on Instagram

#387

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

bawolff wrote: post #318
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The apps being discussed will generate QR codes that the verifier will scan. But these codes are meant to be limited-time codes, so that if a new COVID strain appears and the old vaccines don’t protect against it (or it turns out that annual boosters are necessary), the person will no longer be able to report as vaccinated but will go back to the unvaccinated category.

Does limited time codes really get you anything that putting a date or which vaccine you got wouldn't? Besides, seems a bit overengineered for something that might happen in theory but hasn't yet.

Officers at passport control aren't trained health officials. It can be hard for them to make sense of certificates and understand what vaccinations are valid and which aren't, or which no longer are. That is why governments want to present an app where trained officials at the health ministry have already decided if the person is safe for travel or not, and just show border control officers a green check mark or no.

Re: The internet didn’t kill counterculture – you just won’t find it on Instagram

#388

Post by SyzygistSix »

imaginationra wrote: post #314
airhead969 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are the counterculture. Isn't that a tad bit arrogant to stick a flag in all of it? See also: https://youtu.be/uEx5G-GOS1k Youtube is "lame as fuck." Release everywhere to not be arbitrarily silenced because anything good is controversial, by definition. Why abuse the word "counterculture" so many times? It comes across like you're trying too hard. Good luck and I hope you find an audience rather than make at ob…

Its not arrogance- it is confidence. We've been doings like this for twenty years. We made Potato Phones in 2002 before a potato phone was a thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo3StA3INws Youtube is lame- our work is also archived on Internet Archive and other places- this is a 172 gb master of one of our films https://archive.org/details/heartstringmarionette Flag? I don't see a flag. I see text. The "try too har…

What you are describing is a subculture, not a counterculture.

Re: The internet didn’t kill counterculture – you just won’t find it on Instagram

#389

Post by SyzygistSix »

lozaning wrote: post #177
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> its just not playing in the sandboxes everyone else is playing in Where is it playing?

Not OP, but I feel like I come across more and more art house style stuff thats only on Vimeo. Which to be fair is still pretty mainstream.

There are lots of unique, fun subcultures in out of the way places an even on Youtube. But that isn't the same as counterculture.

Re: The internet didn’t kill counterculture – you just won’t find it on Instagram

#390

Post by SyzygistSix »

twobitshifter wrote: post #48
TimedToasts wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is the least countercultural site I can imagine. It's still Top 10 in sites visited, is it not? It's the very zeitgeist of the times. Those examples weaken an otherwise good article.

Maybe Reddit as a whole, but what are your thoughts on WallStreetBets? It seems that WSB has all of the elements of a counterculture, although maybe diluted after the wide spread GME interest.

I think the thing that is/was countercultural were the actions taken by WallStreetBets, not the site itself.
Post reply on HN