Do we live in a society without a counterculture? • Hacker News Board

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

#731

Post by Loughla » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 9:30 PM UTC

uoaei wrote: post #588

godshatter wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to remark that people like myself that avoid (most) social media and avoid tracking via vpns and so forth are counter cultural right now. I'm still having to explain to people why I'm not on Facebook all the time.

I routinely get eyerolls for asking people to ask me first before putting pictures of me up on the internet.

I just had that conversation yesterday. The only pictures of me that exist are in relation to my current employer, and only because they post headshots of all new execs in the local paper (small towns are weird like that).

Otherwise, I flat do not exist online.

People are ASTOUNDED when I ask them to crop me out, or to ask my permission before posting with me in it. I'm always polite, but people act like I asked them to lick the bottom of my foot.

It's very strange.

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

#732

Post by saiya-jin » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 9:32 PM UTC

tonfreed wrote: post #673

koprulusector wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 discov…

Spoken like a true 1960s establishment thinker. Put yourself in the shoes of a WW2 veteran in the 60s. He sees his children get sucked into drug culture and protesting against the military that just 20 years ago saved the Pacific from tyranny. You turn on the news and see them making a nuisance of themselves in the streets. They're ungroomed, ugly, and do weird sex stuff. You ask yourself where you went wrong raising…

Yes, but it was not the same military, not the same purpose, not the same high moral ground. WW II for US started with attack on US by Japan, so it was clear defense. Vietnam on the other hand had beyond pathetic Tonkin gulf and otherwise absolutely 0 threat to anything American, as proven after war ended.

You could argue that it was attack on US values, but that was about it. Half around the effin world. In society where US was not welcomed in any way even in South Vietnam by almost nobody local (and for good reasons). Some continuous and serious mental gymnastics were required to keep feeling righteous in that war.

I know after-perspective is easy, but this is how history judges actions long term. Emotions of given heated moment are irrelevant and ignored.

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

#733

Post by banannaise » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 9:32 PM UTC

Perceval wrote: post #677

koprulusector wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 discov…

> homophobic, racist, sexist, emotionally and mentally stunted incels This is the counter-culture. The dominant culture opposes all of these things and makes obligatory the celebration of the opposite values. 4chan being one of the few lightly-restricted free speech zones allows for culture generation that would be censored anywhere else. Counter-culture is supposed to be edgy, just like jazz and rock were edgy, grea…

> LGBTQ was edgy

Aside from monogamous gay people, queerness is very much still edgy and not particularly accepted by the dominant/mainstream culture.

(This is not a positive thing, but it is reality.)

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

#734

Post by skyyler » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 9:33 PM UTC

revolvingocelot wrote: post #699

Taywee wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a teenager, so it's possible to a degree, but the things you're listing in my memory were there in significantly smaller degrees, and have since completely taken over the site. Back in the day, there was a hell of a lot more "Yellow van", "epic for the win" and the like. Now it's 'america is a far left cultureless “nation” and its tranny enabling (((mutts))) will never be white no matter how much they inbreed w…

I wholeheartedly agree with this analysis, and submit that those users condescendingly suggesting that it's we who've changed and not 4chan may never have actually experienced the kind of 4chan to which the parent refers. Things were, are, and presumably always will be done for "the lulz", but what those things are, at whom those things are targeted, and why those targets are chosen have changed dramatically . A brig…

>much of the internet's "culture" is created on 4chan

And other lies 4chan users tell themselves to feel important.

It wasn't even true back in the day, a lot of stuff came from SomethingAwful and Newgrounds... Then came Twitter!

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

#735

Post by Eupraxias » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 9:33 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #694

Eupraxias wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any counter-culture requires there to be a culture. We have no counter-culture, because there is no longer a strong, central culture. 4chan is one of many siloed cultures, not a counter-culture.

I don’t wholly agree with you, but this is an interesting point. What does it mean to be “counterculture” in our increasingly fragmented culture? Perhaps the current debate here is so frenzied because each debater is speaking from their own island of culture, and some “other” mainstream always seems larger than their own?

Thank you, I don't entirely agree with myself, and feel that it is too reductive a statement. It is at least worth considering that countercultures contrast best against cohesive cultures.

We're now lacking both, mostly due to the transformations of the information age and how that has split many homogeneous cultures into numerous segregated identity clusters. For what it is worth (which is nothing) in 1992 I predicted what we see now; it has unfolded exactly as I expected.

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

#736

Post by rootusrootus » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 9:34 PM UTC

Perceval wrote: post #677

koprulusector wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 discov…

> homophobic, racist, sexist, emotionally and mentally stunted incels This is the counter-culture. The dominant culture opposes all of these things and makes obligatory the celebration of the opposite values. 4chan being one of the few lightly-restricted free speech zones allows for culture generation that would be censored anywhere else. Counter-culture is supposed to be edgy, just like jazz and rock were edgy, grea…

> jazz and rock were edgy, greasers/rockabilly were edgy, beatniks were edgy, hippies were edgy, disco was edgy, punks were edgy, LGBTQ was edgy

This list implies that "homophobic, racist, sexist, emotionally and mentally stunted incels" is destined to be normal and acceptable in the future. That sounds awful.

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

#737

Post by undersuit » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

Dig1t wrote: post #429

Shared404 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context: Am LGBTQ person who also has traditional religious views. Big disagree. You carry a pride flag in the wrong parts of town where I am, you'll get beat up. Walk around preaching hellfire and damnation and at most you'll get a lot of annoyed looks and at best you'll get people cheering you on. > In schools these days it's trendy to be anything but straight. In high schools in my town people get beat up for comi…

Yeah it seems you can have wildly different experiences depending on where you live in the US. Probably why we are so politically divided, at this point we're living in different societies. Anywhere in California you would not experience any of that. In fact it really is as OP describes. Look at polls of kids in elementary schools where 50%+ of young kids are identifying as non-binary because it is trendy.

>Anywhere in California you would not experience any of that.

https://www.fox19.com/2022/04/19/gay-couple-says-man-screame...

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/peoples-park-uc-be...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/13/proud-boy-d...

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

#738

Post by deanCommie » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 9:35 PM UTC

Perceval wrote: post #677

koprulusector wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 discov…

> homophobic, racist, sexist, emotionally and mentally stunted incels This is the counter-culture. The dominant culture opposes all of these things and makes obligatory the celebration of the opposite values. 4chan being one of the few lightly-restricted free speech zones allows for culture generation that would be censored anywhere else. Counter-culture is supposed to be edgy, just like jazz and rock were edgy, grea…

The motivation matters.

Jazz and Rock was the music of african americans that became mainstream in white america just like rap did later. Punk was a reaction to rock becoming boring and stale. Disco came out from the african-american AND LGBTQ community, and the eventual "disco sucks" mainstream backlash was at least somewhat motivated by racism/homophobia, not anything inherent with disco.

None of these creative outlets were a result of anyone overtly TRYING to offend anyone. That they offended was a side effect of them changing the world, and the mainstream reaction to it, not the core motivation.

Now, I don't want to paint 4chan with one brush. I actually think a significant amount of internet creativity and beautiful creation occurs on it, and they never get enough credit for it. Most legendary memes - offensive or not - originate on 4chan. Internet memes are some of the most unique artistic creations of our generation.

But the parts that people get mad at 4chan for (the homophobic/racist/misogynistic parts) are not that. Those are creations intentionally made to get a reaction: "You tell me I can't say ? Watch me!!"

There is a charitable interpretation of this that they are bucking against censorship and fighting for self-expression on principle. And some may draw comparisons to what they're doing to times in history when "blasphemers" criticized religious dogma. That making a homophobic or racist meme is the modern equivalent of proclaiming "There is no God" 200 years ago.

The difference comes down to the Paradox of Intolerance. Religion and the dominant culture associated with it, actively repressed everyone who didn't match their worldview. People were told you have to believe this in faith and act as if you do, or you will be punished. The modern "dogma" of LGBTQ/race acceptance is instead saying "You CANNOT tell others how to believe and act, and punish them accordingly. You cannot discriminate against those different from you by birth race/gender/sexuality."

It is highly childish to associate all "you cannot do " guidances as repressive and similar. And I meant that literally. Children can't tell the difference between "No, we can't have desert because i told you so" and "You can't touch the hot stove because it will hurt you".

So, no, THAT side of 4chan is not counterculture. It's at best children trolling on the internet (I know, I was one), and at worst hateful bigots angry that their acceptance is diminishing in the world and lashing out.

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

#739

Post by selimthegrim » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 9:36 PM UTC

teachrdan wrote: post #687

ticviking wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you think of a major network show where the focus was on Christian themes in a way like queer eye is about LGBT+ themes? The last one I can think of was "Touched By an Angel" and that is over 20 years old now. (edited to add an omitted word)

Even this is wrong. The Hallmark channel makes 40 Christmas movies a year, all of them with Christian families, obviously. (Some allow for a character who is Jewish.) These movies attract millions of viewers. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonifitzgerald/2021/12/24/the-e... https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanberr/2019/01/11/widely-...

Wait until they find out who wrote most of those Christmas tin pan alley songs

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

#740

Post by oneplane » Wed, Feb 01, 2023, 9:36 PM UTC

Perceval wrote: post #677

koprulusector wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 discov…

> homophobic, racist, sexist, emotionally and mentally stunted incels This is the counter-culture. The dominant culture opposes all of these things and makes obligatory the celebration of the opposite values. 4chan being one of the few lightly-restricted free speech zones allows for culture generation that would be censored anywhere else. Counter-culture is supposed to be edgy, just like jazz and rock were edgy, grea…

> Counter-culture is supposed to be [... list of stuff...]

No, it's not. The words explain themselves perfectly fine: an opposing culture.

What you describe boils down to being irrationally angry, stunted in various ways, and generally destructive... It's not a counter-culture but just counter-productive and essentially a defect. If anything, it is devoid of culture.

And just in case someone takes "counter-productive" and tries to argue that being against trying to make everything productive is counter-culture: that's not what I mean and you know it. If you were to find yourself not aligning with anything out in the world and you wish to alter that, there are a whole lot of things you could be doing to get there, but what people do on 4chan gets nobody anywhere, unless the digital version of sniffing glue is considered an alteration of the status-quo.