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Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

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Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#551

Post by burkaman »

jhbadger wrote: post #515
burkaman wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the word counterculture was literally invented to describe hippies in the 60s.

Close. It was invented in 1960, prior to the hippie movement and referring to their predecessors, the beatniks of the 1950s.

I wasn't alive so I'm just going off casual web searches, but most people seem to credit this 1969 book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Making_of_a_Counter_Cultur.... It was not the literal first usage, but the word was definitely not widely known before the 60s: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=counterculture.... But I said literally and it wasn't literally true, so my bad.

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#552

Post by weedking »

tomdell wrote: post #542
narrator wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you know 4chan is the counterculture is every time someone releases a new generative art tool, 4chan figures out a way to do stuff with it that makes the creators have to restrict and/or shut it down. Like in the 1960s how the mainstream culture would whisper under their breath and point in shock and horror at hippies and try to get them banned from various public venues, and send mobs to beat them up, we hav…

"narrator" is a fitting username since you're narrating your own subjective reality. I don't think making disturbing sexual content with AI image generators is going to be viewed the same way as free love.

You're also creating your own subjective reality. The poster made the claim that the dominant views on 4chan regarding Ukraine and vaccines may be viewed positively in the future, not the disturbing imagery.

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#553

Post by cleandreams »

I am old enough to remember the hippies and related counterculture(s). (I was very young.) This is something to keep in mind: the counterculture then was a place where people made a living. And the cost of living was cheap. You could raise kids on an organic farm, sell in the local alternative stores, have a live show on pirate radio. And pay your modest bills. Health insurance and college tuition was cheap. Jeez -- in California even the UC system was free! The hippies were the pot growers back then and all of Humboldt was one big counter culture. There were lots of niche markets and vendors who could sell to them and pay their rent.

A big part of what has happened is a huge rise in basic bills (rent, health insurance, tuition) and that has forced the counterculture people to make more money. It's an economic transformation and it has narrowed our culture in many ways. Smell the desperation.

Part of that, in turn, is the slow death of the American working class. This is a much harsher society economically. That is why you step over bodies in San Francisco's Tenderloin. It wasn't like that when I moved here (early 80's).

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#554

Post by fragmede »

BobbyJo wrote: post #546
Dig1t wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with the sibling you would have a much higher chance of being discriminated against. Particularly in an interview. If you were wearing a cross necklace or some other visible indicator of your membership in Christianity, you would be way more likely to be turned down for a job in the Bay Area. Same as you would have been discriminated against for being trans, gay, or black 30 years ago.

And this is based on? Having worked in the Bay for ~9 years I never met anyone that cared what religion a fellow employee was. So if we're just running off anecdotes and impressions, there's mine.

This is such a known situation that HBO's Silicon Valley did a whole bit on it in the show. Be thankful you've managed to avoid it in your 9 years in the valley!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/silicon-valley-episode-christ...

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#555

Post by jstarfish »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #415
jstarfish wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the majority of youth who are homeless are homeless because their families kicked them out for being gay/trans. People lie about anything they can get away with. When only one side of the story is being heard, people claiming victimhood because of a singular external issue are almost always grossly misrepresenting the situation. See also: "I got fired because my boss / my car / my dog / etc."

IDK, I don't think the majority of children who are homeless have much incentives to lie about being gay or trans. It's still legal in some states to claim panic when killing a gay or trans person, just because they're gay/trans and it shocked you into killing them. Homeless people are rarely looked for if they're murdered, so there's less incentive for you to claim to be gay/trans because it literally targets you fo…

In my experience, more often than not the "homeless" kids waving the gay flag are glossing over unrelated behavioral issues on their own part.

> It's still legal in some states to claim panic when killing a gay or trans person, just because they're gay/trans and it shocked you into killing them.

The idea that deceiving someone into having sex with you is considered "shocking" and not "rape" astounds me. You can't induce arousal in someone, lure them into a position of vulnerability and spring surprises on them in the dark-- unless you're trying to become a martyr and add to the body count.

We already had to outlaw "pozzing" since the gays couldn't be bothered to disclose minor things like positive HIV status to unsuspecting partners. Now we're supposed to be cool with "stealthing"/"surprise sex" from the trans? It seems there is a pathological dishonesty at play here.

The laws should be changed-- LGBTs should be held more accountable for deceiving others. Murder has never been an acceptable response to fraud, so that needs to change too. This is not an example of sympathetic behavior on either side. I don't understand why you even brought it up.

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#556

Post by miamibre »

So maybe this is because I wasn't raised in the US or in what would be described as the suburbs but why isn't Rap / Urban culture considered counterculture?

Just because a lot of acts have been turned mainstream and whitewashed doesn't mean they don't represent a radical departure from the status quo. And this isn't just in the US, in latin america you have reggaeton, in UK you have Grime and the rest of EU also have their own underground street culture marked by Violence, Crime, Drugs, Sex, and social issues which is very similar to Rock and Punk from back in the day.

Just like previous movements they are born from a sense of resentment and ostracism from "normal" society and a lot of the music tell tales that are often ignored had they not been made into a catchy tune that kids around the world listen to.

The highest grossing tour of 2022 was Bad Bunny's world tour [1] beating out well established acts and pretty much all his songs are in Spanish which is very surprising considering you see a lot of bilingual artists on the list.

[1]https://news.pollstar.com/2022/12/12/2022-year-end-biz-analy...

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#557

Post by PuppyTailWags »

User23 wrote: post #525
PuppyTailWags wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not catholic so please help me out here. If you cannot use requested pronouns, does your religion also ban you from using nicknames? Is it okay for you to be called User23? Is it okay to say someone's cat is cute even if you don't really care for cats? What do you do if your partner asks if they look good or bad in something?

> I'm not catholic so please help me out here. These are all reasonable questions. I'll answer as best as I can, but please understand that I'm not any kind of formal authority. > If you cannot use requested pronouns, does your religion also ban you from using nicknames? Is it okay for you to be called User23? I don't know of any Catholic doctrine that says people can't use pseudonyms, nicknames, or even change their…

Is it possible to say nothing about a trans co-workers transition then? If Jessica is now Kevin, what's the difference between that and Jacob going "nah call me Jake"? Is it just that you can't call Kevin he/him pronouns? Can you call Kevin as Kevin?

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#558

Post by JKCalhoun »

jjk166 wrote: post #484

If you only consume mainstream media then you may personally live in a society which lacks a counterculture. You strike up a conversation with the girl picking mushrooms in the middle of nowhere or you go to an underground death metal concert or spend a bit of time on 4chan and you'll find countercultures alive and well that you're just not part of. If you think a sense of sameness pervades the creative world then yo…

> If you think a sense of sameness pervades the creative world then you must be looking at a woefully tiny portion of the creative world. It has never been easier to be weird nor easier to find weirdness.

Covered in the 14:

"Alternative voices exist-in fact, they are everywhere--but are rarely heard, and their cultural impact is negligible."

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#559

Post by leshow »

Dig1t wrote: post #390
undersuit wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is ridiculous, LGBTQ is a minority. Trads are part of a waning majority. All evidence points towards LGBTQ always existing but just becoming more open. Trads being Counter Culture? That's the same double speak that gets us Citizens United and Right to Work. Where did these trads get their radically traditional values? From the majority.

>LGBTQ is a minority I mean yes, physically they are a minority. Culturally, they are incredibly mainstream. There are examples everywhere. There are tons of big movies and TV shows featuring gay people coming out. _Every_ company changes their logo during pride month. Look at the Apple Watch or iPhone, they come preloaded with Pride wallpapers and watch faces, they produce pride bands for the watch, which sell very…

You're confusing the fact that the existence of LGBTQ people is being acknowledged finally in the mainstream with some sort of shift of what the 'dominant culture' is.

All of these things you listed merely acknowledge that non-cis gendered people exist, that's it. There is no massive shift in the mainstream culture. In fact, there are legions of reactionaries incredibly aggrieved by having this existence "shoved in their faces" such that they will push for laws banning discussion of sexuality in schools, call bomb threats in to hospitals, or lose their shit when gay people kiss in a movie.

Re: Do we live in a society without a counterculture?

#560

Post by koprulusector »

narrator wrote: post #509
jjk166 wrote: post #484

If you only consume mainstream media then you may personally live in a society which lacks a counterculture. You strike up a conversation with the girl picking mushrooms in the middle of nowhere or you go to an underground death metal concert or spend a bit of time on 4chan and you'll find countercultures alive and well that you're just not part of. If you think a sense of sameness pervades the creative world then yo…

The way you know 4chan is the counterculture is every time someone releases a new generative art tool, 4chan figures out a way to do stuff with it that makes the creators have to restrict and/or shut it down. Like in the 1960s how the mainstream culture would whisper under their breath and point in shock and horror at hippies and try to get them banned from various public venues, and send mobs to beat them up, we hav…

The hippies were shit on during the sixties because of politics and the Vietnam war. The hippies were a big part of the anti war movement. The simplest and quickest way to shutting the movement down was to criminalize its constituents, like hippies, or civil rights activists, through tactics like draconian drug laws and a drug war.

The hippies were rooted in things that were objectively good: peace, love, self discovery, acceptance, mutual aid, egalitarianism, free thought.

That contrasts sharply with 4chan’s demographics and motivations. I don’t think that anyone will look back with fondness or positivity toward a bunch of closeted homophobic, racist, sexist, emotionally and mentally stunted incels circle jerking themselves into a froth over who’s the edgiest edge lord.

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