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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?

#901

Post by Clubber »

bglazer wrote: post #750
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…

Being antisocial is not the same thing as being counterculture. There’s not really a flourishing of new ideas or material culture on 4chan, just a race to the bottom of taboo-breaking.

>just a race to the bottom of taboo-breaking

You've basically described cultural art and music since at least the 1950s. Elvis dared to play black music and gyrate his hips. Madonna rolled around in a wedding dress talking about virgins. RAP broke a whole bunch of them. Cardi B sang about WAP. If a band just sings about relationship troubles and drugs like everyone else, their music / art probably isn't very remarkable.

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

#902

Post by Clubber »

alphazard wrote: post #774
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…

There are a lot of sibling comments that seem to be upset that two counter cultures could be both different from one another and the dominant culture. I really don't understand the gate keeping of what is and isn't a counter culture. A culture is information collectively held across many minds. A counter culture is a culture with contradictory information to the dominant culture. It's clear both the hippies and 4chan…

>I really don't understand the gate keeping of what is and isn't a counter culture.

The people who brought in the mainstream culture are now older; they are now the fuddy-duddies. Time to move over for the next generation; it's either complimentary or contradictory and sometimes both.

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

#903

Post by [deleted] »

banannaise wrote: post #749
cleandreams wrote: post #553

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 --…

It's worth remembering that the hippies and related counterculture(s) became a threat to the status quo (most notably through their opposition to the Vietnam War), and that the War on Drugs was in part a way to criminalize that movement to limit its influence. The playbook of "criminalize any counterculture that threatens the status quo" is arguably in continuous use now, preventing any countercultural movement from…

[deleted]

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

#904

Post by bglazer »

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.

Yes, I agree that corporate businesses and the entertainment industry have broadly adopted acceptance of LGBTQ people. My point is that what counts as mainstream culture is still different in Florida and California. America is not a perfect homogenate.

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

#905

Post by Mouthfeel »

oneplane wrote: post #740
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…

> 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…

> It's not a counter-culture but just counter-productive and essentially a defect. If anything, it is devoid of culture.

This is literally what was said about the hippies.

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

#906

Post by Clubber »

Izkata wrote: post #473
no-dr-onboard wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO Incels tend to be people who would (if they could), at the first chance, jump at the opportunity to become sexually active. Additionally, incels tend to not value monogamy nor are strictly heterosexual. The inherent value of the individual they're pursuing is also different. This group tends to have a very low view of women (and men too, to some degree) as individuals with meaning, purpose, thoughts and emotions.…

> IMO Incels tend to be people who would, at the first chance, jump at the opportunity to become sexually active. It's literally in the name: involuntary celibate

>It's literally in the name: involuntary celibate

I've always taken issue with that term. Any guy who bathes, doesn't say mean things, tries to make himself more attractive, doesn't consider a woman unattractive because she isn't an 8+, and learns to strike up a conversation with the opposite sex will find someone sooner or later.

I don't know much about them, but people presented as incels generally seem unwilling to put much effort into any of that. If I had sat at home all day, played video games and really let myself go, does that make it involuntary or just lazy?

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

#907

Post by Natsu »

bglazer wrote: post #857
Natsu wrote: post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, that's what they said about prior counter-cultures, too.

That’s not an argument. If you think it’s not true you would need to provide a counterexample. What’s the 4chan equivalent of Jimi Hendrix or tie dye clothes?

Greentext, Pepe and quite a few other things that they seem to have popularized come to mind.

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

#908

Post by throwaway894345 »

leshow wrote: post #791
throwaway894345 wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society did not get abruptly and dramatically unequal between 2013 and 2015 nor between 2019 and 2020. Socioeconomics doesn’t predict these crime surges. Richard Rosenfeld speaking to The Guardian: “The only explanation that gets the timing right is a version of the Ferguson Effect” Vox reporting on Travis Campbell’s research: “Campbell’s research indicates that these protests correlate with a 10% increase in murders…

If you don't think there is any correlation between the material conditions of people and crime I don't know what to tell you. You're basically subscribing to essentialism. There are plenty of cranks with ivy league degrees in economics. edit: You are cherry picking your data points. I spent literally 30 seconds looking up your first quote it's not even congruent with what you're saying.

Obviously no one in this thread ever disputed the relationship between socioeconomics and crime. This is a flimsy, transparent attempt to move goal posts.

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

#909

Post by Mouthfeel »

soderfoo wrote: post #844
czx4f4bd wrote: post #767

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] LGBTQ was edgy, and so on. Every one of them were described by dismissive epithets just like the string you put together about how awful and contrary to decency they were. This is a vile take. It is sickening to compare liking a genre of music or wearing a certain style of dress or being queer to hating people because they're queer, not white, not male, or because they're a woman who won't have sex with you.

I always figured absurdist made up half of 4chan. People who say provocative stuff to go against the mainstream. The other half is a mix of the hateful or unstable. But who knows, it's the internet, and it's completely anonymous over there.

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

#910

Post by gd1 »

barneygale wrote: post #97
n0tth3dro1ds wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>BLM >LGBT >counter culture Endlessly supported by literally every news outlet, major tech company, big 5 sports league, F1000, university, and at least half of the political class. You’re not counter to any major institution, lmao. You’re not the resistance

> BLM > Endlessly supported Black people are still being murdered by police every day in America.

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