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

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

#71

Post by ontekhunhsentuh »

kart23 wrote: post #20

I agree that you have to be essentially anonymous to take part in counterculture these days. But the author claims that Discord and Reddit are examples of counterculture. I wholeheartedly disagree, these platforms are overly sanitized, moderated by the company, not the community. On Discord, people get banned for empty mass reports, and they can delete servers as they please. Reddit is valuable for driving communitie…

I'll add that Discord does not support right-to-read. They will occasionally remove a server and ban everyone who had access to that server, regardless of whether or not they had posted or participated in that server or contacted any members of that server. They view the act of reading the server posts as a bannable offense.

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

#72

Post by klyrs »

mdoms wrote: post #30
jandrese wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean if you can't openly express your dominance and superiority over some other group of people is life even worth living?

Counter culture should make you uncomfortable. Otherwise what's it counter to? By the way, a lot of people here seem to think that the term "counter culture" has positive connotations. It doesn't, necessarily.

In your original comment, and to a lesser extent here, you seem to be saying that counterculture necessarily has negative connotations.

I listed some counterexamples in another comment, but take "bronies" for another. Does the notion (grown men obsessing over a kids show) make people uncomfortable? Yeah, kinda... but is that because dominant culture says only girls should like ponies? Or is it because we assume men who like stuff meant for kids are pedophiles? I find both of those viewpoints to be intolerant of diverse expressions of masculinity.

Many countercultures are pretty much neutral (LARPing, for example -- which offends only the most religious and closed-minded). But, like the bronies, they make space for folks who fall outside social norms in harmless ways. They make space for diversity of thought and expression -- that is generally seen as a positive thing.

Contrast to the rally in Charlottesville, where self-described nazis showed in force. Sure, folks who desire a white ethnostate tick the "diversity of thought and expression" box at a surface level (it certainly is different), but their stated desire is to eradicate (or evict) all other such diversity. So I don't see that particular counterculture as a positive thing.

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

#73

Post by itronitron »

lamp_book wrote: post #58
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…

Yes, I think that's an important distinction - you need a critical mass of people sharing in countercultural behavior/practices in some way to get an actual counterculture. Many people have eschewed social media for one reason or another but not in some unified way that I know of.

A culture doesn't require that people meet up and agree on some way of doing things. Hence a counterculture does not need to be organized or even acknowledged while in process. It just happens and then gets written about a decade later.

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

#74

Post by potta_coffee »

rsj_hn wrote: post #68
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…

Eschewing social media is not a culture in and of itself, anymore than eschewing the telephone or TV is a culture. But it is an attribute that some cultures have. Cultures have to be based around the actual ways they do interact, whether in person meetings via church groups, in person hiking groups, bike riding, falconry, camping, whatever. Similarly many people prefer to use person-to-person communication such as te…

It seems somewhat counter-cultural to not have social media and tv, though rejecting those things doesn't define a culture. I've had visitors to my house that realize I don't have a TV and they assume I'm some kind of judgemental weirdo.

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

#75

Post by ALittleLight »

klyrs wrote: post #32
mdoms wrote: post #10

The truth is that today the counter-culture is the right wing dudes (and ladies) who won't be beholden to trigger warnings, won't treat particular words as if they have magical powers and won't try to get you fired if you openly believe that male and female are real concepts. If your cursor is hovering over the downvote button right now then that's natural - counter culture isn't popular. By definition.

LARPing with boffer swords is counterculture. Kink is counterculture. Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is counterculture. You don't need to brandish a tiki torch to be sufficiently different -- but that's the loudest counterculture, and they're getting all the attention. I know of an ancient forum related to a counterculture intentionally not listed here, and it's ticking along just fine, thankyouverymuch. Of c…

I agree those things you mentioned aren't very popular, and possibly where you are the mainstream culture is different than where I am, but I don't see any of those things as counter-culture in the sense that none of them are opposed by the dominant culture. e.g. If it came out at work that you were a member of a group that fought with foam swords, had unusual sexual preferences, or were funny atheists, you wouldn't be fired. People might say "oh, that's weird" but they aren't going to hate you.

I'm not saying any of those things are bad (in fact, I like fighting with fake swords) but there's not hostility to them from the culture and they, in turn, are not hostile to the mainstream culture, so I just don't think they're countercultural at all.

By definition I think countercultural groups will strike you as weird and bad unless you belong to them specifically. Q-Anon, for example, which speculates that the leaders of society are , is a countercultural group because they both hate and oppose elements of the main culture and are hated and opposed by it. The kind of antifa or anarchists who are attempting to burn down courthouses or police stations in Portland are another clear example.

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

#76

Post by nsxwolf »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #29
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 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…

We're on Signal. You don't see us unless invited.

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

#77

Post by tablespoon »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #49
1propionyl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The analogy to Cixin Liu's "dark forest" concept also seems apt and enlightening. (Basically: it's a game theoretic response to the Fermi Paradox that suggests that any sensible galactic civilization would avoid making contact with any other civilization and attempt to stay hidden.) More and more over the past few years, I've seen my own social circles migrate away from public forums like Facebook and Twitter and int…

The thing that I hate about what social media has done is that it is resistant to persistance of knowledge. I grew up in the heyday of forums (late 90s to mid-late 00s). It seems like a lot of these groups have moved to facebook (or discord, or whatsapp), and now a lot of that knowledge for specialty stuff is unsearchable and behind a wall. One of my hobbies is boatbuilding, and there is a LOT of good material that i…

> But a lot of the new stuff is now done on FB, and it means that knowledge gets pushed to the bottom of the feed, and it is impossible to archive.

Are there any maintained Facebook scrapers, akin to youtube-dl? I think there's definitely a need for /r/datahoarder style archiving of certain parts of social media.

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

#78

Post by redisman »

browningstreet wrote: post #34

My teenage son asked me the other day what "grunge" and "goth" were. I was then trying to explain "subculture" and "counterculture", and it was surprisingly difficult to explain.. or convey, especially in the context of what he's seen so far in his life. I tried using examples of my own youthful adventures and communities -- still not easy.

Try explaining next that computing and gaming used to be subcultures/countercultures. I remember how Mortal Kombat and DOOM were going to cause the fall of civilization.

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

#79

Post by NotChina »

Easy enough to identify that which the powers that be, deny a platform. The unaffiliated are generalized, and grouped together despite not being real bed fellows. What modern labels did not exist for the entirety of human discourse? Yet our modern generation is the first to recognize some condition that eluded all those previous generations. Persecution unifies, and becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. (e.g. the alienation of moderate Islam post 911)

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

#80

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

pjc50 wrote: post #40
thepasswordis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely correct. Consider: your HR department is left leaning, your boss is probably left leaning, your teachers are left leaning, the government is left leaning. How on earth could the "counter culture" be the hegemonic culture of the most powerful billionaires on earth, and the people who have the most power over the most people in their daily lives (HR departments for adults, school administrators for ch…

> your HR department is left leaning, your boss is probably left leaning, the government is left leaning .. if you think this, your definition of left leaning is completely broken and your Overton window is in a very strange place.

Look at California Prop 16 for a concrete example. It was universally supported by left-wing groups, endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce broadly and by many of the state's biggest companies individually, passed the legislature with 75%, but failed at the ballot box with only a touch above 40% in favor. When policies left-wing groups favor are that much more popular among business and government leaders than among the general public, I dunno what to call that other than "left leaning".
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