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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?

#891

Post by NovaPenguin »

neonnoodle wrote: post #71

The medium is the message dudes. At this point in history, what will qualify a true counterculture is NOT BEING ONLINE. Whatever the true counterculture will be, it won’t be subject to the Internet and its all-seeing eye. It won’t be made out of memes and flame wars. No matter what the political bent, we’re all very much a captive audience online. “Master’s house/master’s tools” and all that.

Bingo. I am not saying "Hey look at me, I am counter culture!" I am just being me. But usually, I am online only about once or twice a week nowadays and even then it is only for about 10-20 minutes at a time.

I suspect like folks going back to dumb phones, magazine subscriptions - the embrace of the analog world again to some degree. This is where the rejection of the mainstream will probably hit the road.

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

#892

Post by CyberWraith »

wolverine876 wrote: post #808
Perceval wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

That argument seems to rationalize 4chan behavior by simply saying 'it's counter-culture', as if that makes the behavior better or worse, more or less bad or justified. It changes nothing; it's posers imitating counter-culture (by that definition).

By opposing it, you further prove it IS counter-culture

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

#893

Post by lmm »

yamazakiwi wrote: post #550
alldayeveryday wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I just have the view that if I am turning on the radio, the TV, watching a movie, a tv show, celebrity voices, the state department, etc - and I am seeing the counterculture, then I am actually just seeing the culture.

Seeing a government body virtue-signal by putting up a flag is not the same as the actual lives that queer people live, which varies WILDLY from the norm thus making it counter cultural. In fact, many queer people force themselves out of the community by living within the norm to feel more acceptance from the majority (counter-counter culture). Your perception is also very obviously specific to where you live on this…

> Seeing a government body virtue-signal by putting up a flag is not the same as the actual lives that queer people live

The same thing goes for anything that could be described as "queer culture". Plenty of queer people have, and want, nothing to do with the groups and spaces that present themselves as "the community".

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

#894

Post by lmm »

autokad wrote: post #393
mrcrumb1 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

wtf does unapologetic white men mean? white men have to apologize for the color that they were born?

In practice, yes. Expressing pride in being white and male tends to be career-limiting.

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

#895

Post by bglazer »

mshake2 wrote: post #873
bglazer wrote: post #862

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being LGBTQ is one of the few identities or choices that will result in being disowned by a significant portion of American families. That attitude is edging out of the mainstream but it’s practically dogma among evangelicals and other socially conservative groups. So yes, those people do live in a different reality, where Biden admin policy and “Will and Grace” don’t matter at all.

You're making an emotional argument (LGBTQ people get disowned by families) against a logical argument (LGBTQ is supported at so many levels of culture that it no longer counts as "counterculture").

No I’m not. The culture of many, many Americans is so anti-LGBTQ that they’ll disown their family. Thats their culture! There is not one American culture, social conservatism is a very common culture in America, and being LGBTQ is counter to that culture. Ergo LGBTQ culture is counterculture.

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

#896

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#897

Post by mshake2 »

bglazer wrote: post #895
mshake2 wrote: post #873

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making an emotional argument (LGBTQ people get disowned by families) against a logical argument (LGBTQ is supported at so many levels of culture that it no longer counts as "counterculture").

No I’m not. The culture of many, many Americans is so anti-LGBTQ that they’ll disown their family. Thats their culture! There is not one American culture, social conservatism is a very common culture in America, and being LGBTQ is counter to that culture. Ergo LGBTQ culture is counterculture.

That's not what counterculture is. Counterculture is counter the mainstream culture. Which is more mainstream in the US, (ie, in media, art, products, government, businesses, etc): suppressing LGBTQ people or giving LGBTQ people a platform? It's pretty obvious if you're being honest. You appear to be suggesting that it counts for nothing because some LGBTQ people get disowned by some conservative or religious people.

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

#898

Post by NovaPenguin »

yamazakiwi wrote: post #496
nemo44x wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should read “Gravity's Rainbow” - or at least an analysis of it. A major point/theme is that no matter what you do, if it’s useful/profitable/empowering/etc then it will be co-opted by “the man” or whatever. There’s a never ending graveyard of counter culture artifacts that existed to spit on the mainstream that were nearly merged in, packaged, and sold back to the hordes of consumers that think they’re outsid…

I've read Gravity's Rainbow and it's very melodramatic but a good read. What is "winning" in this case? A feeling of liberation through avoiding the main path can be useful for some, even if life is deterministic. >It’s hard to listen to Rage Against the Machine without laughing. People like music for all kinds of reasons...and I see what you're getting at, but this example is a little cheesy. "I think you're all she…

Frank Zappa said that when he first heard Bob Dylans "The times they are a changin" on the radio, Frank believed that he didn't need to get into the music industry because the change in the world was already on its way. Frank quickly figured out that this was not how it was going to go down and that Dylan was very quickly absorbed into the main stream.

Credit to Frank, he managed to walk the fine line of being in pop culture but never fully embraced by it.

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

#899

Post by dmix »

mshake2 wrote: post #897
bglazer wrote: post #895

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I’m not. The culture of many, many Americans is so anti-LGBTQ that they’ll disown their family. Thats their culture! There is not one American culture, social conservatism is a very common culture in America, and being LGBTQ is counter to that culture. Ergo LGBTQ culture is counterculture.

That's not what counterculture is. Counterculture is counter the mainstream culture. Which is more mainstream in the US, (ie, in media, art, products, government, businesses, etc): suppressing LGBTQ people or giving LGBTQ people a platform? It's pretty obvious if you're being honest. You appear to be suggesting that it counts for nothing because some LGBTQ people get disowned by some conservative or religious people.

This thread keeps conflating a subset of culture which exists within families or small subsets of already small towns within America which is a subset of western culture... in order to dismiss the dominant mainstream culture from which counter cultures are sprung from on the wider internet.

Despite the fact these current cultural trends and related ideologies are very much dominant on every major western social media platform and even more so among dominant traditional media platforms (and their executives and journalists). Yet they still pretend it's not the default culture in the west.

The existence of pushback from significant/influential parts of the population != you're not the dominant mainstream culture.

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

#900

Post by snozolli »

uoaei wrote: post #830
snozolli wrote: post #762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Most people are happy to have photos with themselves in it. Like it or not, you're the strange one in this situation.

Most people are happy when their friends value their preferences and choices about when consent is given .

Yes, and it's still really, really weird to be upset that someone you know took a photo with you in it.
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