[HN Gopher] The internet didn't kill counterculture - you just w... ___________________________________________________________________ The internet didn't kill counterculture - you just won't find it on Instagram Author : isanengineer Score : 266 points Date : 2021-03-12 15:06 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.documentjournal.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.documentjournal.com) | Nothereearlit wrote: | Won't find it on Hacker News either | | All just SaAS and exits and praising Katie Haun and A16Z as Ross | serves life in prison | | Uggh hate fake hackers and SV | everdrive wrote: | I was originally going to write a more thoughtful response, but | then I got to this section: | | "The names of these e-deologies tend to be both fantastical and | literal." | | "post-civilizationist" | | "voluntarist post-agrarianist" | | "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism" | | I've really never heard of categories like these. It makes me | think the author has delved into subcultures I really have no | experience in. In that sense her descriptions may or may not be | valid. But, she makes no attempt to bring specificity to a lot of | her claims. Who are these people in these subcultures? How many | people are in them, and how many people are out of them? | | In this sense, it reads a lot like a "cultural studies" piece; | there is some great individual insight, but the overall essay | makes claims it hasn't supported. | chordalkeyboard wrote: | > post-civilizationist | | http://www.johnzerzan.net/articles/why-primitivism.html | | > voluntarist | | https://voluntaryism.info/ | | > post-agrarianist | | https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300182910/against-grain | | > Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism | | I can't help you there, sorry :) | KineticLensman wrote: | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_Automated_Luxury_Commu. | .. | NotChina wrote: | Nothing validates ones views more than a circle of like minded | curmudgeons judging everybody else. | markandrewj wrote: | It's sort of ironic that the photographer for this article is on | instagram. | jasonv wrote: | 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. | ArtWomb wrote: | https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Aesthetics | pjc50 wrote: | Kpop stans are a live example of a subculture, if not a | counterculture, that teenagers may be familiar with. | bena wrote: | I wouldn't call them a counterculture by any stretch of the | imagination. | | Kpop is deliberately manufactured culture. The personalities | and music are meticulously curated by corporations. | "Underground Kpop" is practically an oxymoron like a "married | bachelor" would be. | | And that's not to insult or knock it. | Mediterraneo10 wrote: | Listening to KPop in a country where it is not a major | genre, might still be counterculture. Think back to the | 1960s and 1970s: a lot of the American rock 'n' roll even | then was curated, but those young people in the Soviet | Union, say, or Morocco who started listening to it where | definitely seen as a counterculture within their own | country. | pessimizer wrote: | > Listening to KPop in a country where it is not a major | genre, might still be counterculture. | | Abstractly maybe, but in actuality an enormous amount of | money and effort is spent to market K-Pop in the US by | some of the largest media companies in the world. | [deleted] | redisman wrote: | 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. | juststeve wrote: | > DOOM | | Now we're talking. Doom was a massive deal because of the | violence (as you mentioned), but also because it moved | entertainment revenue away from MSM and onto PC's and the | internet. | giantrobot wrote: | It didn't though. By the time of Doom's release video games | (console and PC) were a multi-billion dollar industry. Only | a quarter of households had PCs and none had Internet | access. Even by 2000 only half of all households had a | computer and only about 40% had Internet access. | | Doom was _not_ some watershed moment in entertainment. It | was a trend setter, or at least a meme, in the industry but | it didn 't somehow change the trajectory of the game | industry. | | The PlayStation was vastly more influential on the industry | on the whole than Doom. It was less expensive than PCs yet | had a good selection of the sort of "mature" titles (or | even ports) typically found on the PC. The PlayStation was | not a platform that moved money from the "MSM" since it | Sony which was the very definition of mainstream. | | Doom was cool but it didn't even come close to doing what | you suggest. It didn't even _have_ Internet multiplayer | until Kali (originally iDOOM) came up with their IPX /SPX | bridging years after its release. | Kelamir wrote: | > I remember how Mortal Kombat and DOOM were going to cause | the fall of civilization. | | redisman, could you tell more about this? | bcrosby95 wrote: | Probably referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_co | ngressional_hearings_on... | | Keep in mind when these games were released there was no | rating system for video games. The ESRB came about because | of these hearings. | rchaud wrote: | And yet by 1995 Bill Gates was appearing in a video promo | for Doom on Windows, wearing a trenchcoat and carrying a | shotgun. For obvious reasons, this kind of nerdy | frivolity wouldn't really be palatable after 1999. | monocasa wrote: | You might be able to explain through an exploration of genz | subcultures. | | E-Boys/Girls, VSCO Girls, and cottagecore are some examples. | imaginationra wrote: | I run an independent film/animation/music/interactive studio- I | have never owned any mobile phone and don't use any social media | except for youtube. Our studio is not on any social media | platforms. We are the counterculture. | | Our studio has released torrents of media over the past 15 years | that I would classify as counterculture but you would never know | because we aren't hustling on Zuckerbergian platforms or playing | the "please look at me" game on Youtube etc. | | Trailerjacked trailer for counterculture game that makes | animations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrMEQPtMO4c | | Scene from a counterculture animated feature film in progress | made in a game engine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgMeIaqjRvY | | Counterculture is not dead, its just not playing in the sandboxes | everyone else is playing in, because those sandboxes are lame as | fuck. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _its just not playing in the sandboxes everyone else is | playing in_ | | Where is it playing? | greenonions wrote: | Youtube apparently. | | (This was sarcasm) | wussboy wrote: | And it was good sarcasm. The enemy isn't you tube. The | enemy is the algorithm. | SuoDuanDao wrote: | I too would like to know this. I realize there's a rule one | of the internet issue, but it's worth asking all the same. | yowlingcat wrote: | Not the OP but I'll bite -- I've seen some incredible | counterculture emerging out of what I like to term the IRC | revival, or Discord communities. Discord and Roblox have | fueled the communities creating a ton of the more interesting | music I've discovered over the past year. | lozaning wrote: | Not OP, but I feel like I come across more and more art house | style stuff thats only on Vimeo. Which to be fair is still | pretty mainstream. | airhead969 wrote: | Special sandboxes with purple sand surrounded in velvet ropes | only the cool kids know about. And with unlimited fresh | lemonade, chocolate milk, and warm chocolate-chip cookies. | You can almost see one during the winter solstice. | keiferski wrote: | YouTube is filled with so many interesting little channels. I | wish the algorithms highlighted them more. | | I remember one channel of an old guy just smoking a cigar for | an hour. Said nothing, just sat there. There were thousands of | videos of him doing this, going back years. I don't remember | the name of it, unfortunately. | the_duke wrote: | Can you share a few? | | YouTube always seems to stick me in a bubble and never | recommends any worthwhile new channels. | keiferski wrote: | I think you just have search for something, then go to the | later pages of results. | | Not sure I'd call it obscure, as Nick Knight is pretty well | known as a photographer, but I really love the ShowStudio | channel. They experiment with film and fashion in really | interesting ways. | | https://youtube.com/user/SHOWstudio | Y_Y wrote: | Kaztalek Eastory William Maranci 2SICH Syrmor | dylanblanchard wrote: | might you be thinking of Adolfo Mateo? | https://www.youtube.com/user/SMOKERSOFCIGARSPIPES/videos | keiferski wrote: | Yeah I think that was it! Thanks. | birdyrooster wrote: | What the hell is he saying? Every video he mutters | similar phrases as he exhales. Maybe he was speaking in | code. | keiferski wrote: | Sending messages to the youtubers of 2500 AD, most | likely. | wussboy wrote: | Good God I'd be puking if I ever smoked that heavily | pope_meat wrote: | That's a sex thing. People are jerking off to videos of | people smoking. The more you know. | keiferski wrote: | Man, why did you have to ruin it. Oh well... | airhead969 wrote: | > We are the counterculture. | | Isn't that a tad bit arrogant to stick a flag in all of it? See | also: https://youtu.be/uEx5G-GOS1k | | Youtube is "lame as fuck." Release everywhere to not be | arbitrarily silenced because anything good is controversial, by | definition. | | Why abuse the word "counterculture" so many times? It comes | across like you're trying too hard. | | Good luck and I hope you find an audience rather than make at | obscurity for the point of staying in obscurity. | bobthechef wrote: | "anything good is controversial, by definition." | | No, it isn't. | Mediterraneo10 wrote: | > I have never owned any mobile phone | | Eschewing a mobile phone has been pretty counterculture these | recent years, but I think we are close to a point where it will | no longer be sustainable, at least for anyone wanting to cross | borders - or depending on the country, even enter a restaurant | or concert. Several governments have announced that their | vaccine passports will exist as mobile phone apps, because | paper certificates are too easily forged. | JasonFruit wrote: | At that point, countercultural starts looking like the only | game in town, at least that is worth playing. | dmitrygr wrote: | Wait till they see how easy it is to make a lookalike app :) | Mediterraneo10 wrote: | The apps are expected to generate limited-time QR codes | with the respective country's digital signature (just like | the biometric data in your passport), so no, your | suggestion won't work. | Nasrudith wrote: | Unless they somehow figured out a flaw in thr crypto that | allowed for spoofing countries in which case holy shit | why are you using it to fake vaccine certificates? | mdoms wrote: | 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. | [deleted] | astrea wrote: | Ah yes, the playground bully martyr defense: "Anyone who | disagrees with me is just proving my point." | heavyset_go wrote: | The bog standard opinions of CPAC, a recent President, nearly | every straight-laced conservative, and the majority of | Republicans aren't counterculture, they're just grievance | culture. There are some grievances they like to complain about, | but it is still part of mainstream, popular culture to do so, | and plenty of people have ridden to fame and fortune repeating | those grievances to mainstream audiences. | klyrs wrote: | 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 course, there's a difference between "unpopular" and | "intentionally or callously offensive". All of my examples are | of the former kind (so long as the kink happens in private | spaces, I guess). Church of Satan is borderline in my mind, but | I suppose that some Christians might put it in the latter | category. | Noos wrote: | It's hard to say things like kink or spaghetti monster are | counter culture when they were routinely held by people in | high positions of power in the culture and used to destroy or | attack the impediments to capitalism. Atheism is capitalism's | best friend, because it completely defangs any spiritual | argument against consumerism and productivity; kink is | capitalism's best friend because it opens up many lucrative | and well paying methods to commodify sex itself. | | Ironically, both are disliked some because of that. The nofap | rose as a real counterculture to commodified kink and porn; | and the "i love fucking science" type of reddit atheist the | FSM people were at heart are mocked. | ALittleLight wrote: | 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 <bad things>, 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. | klyrs wrote: | I think that FSM does satisfy your stricter definition of | counterculture. Like the Church of Satan, one of the stated | goals is to force legal examination of whether or not | "freedom of religion" actually means "freedom to practice | Christianity". | | LARPing and kink also have some opposition by fairly | mainstream religious-types. They're seen as counterculture, | even if they don't define themselves that way. Sorry. | Changing my mind on kink -- that's a really big umbrella. | Some people get off on being shamed for whatever it is | they're into. Those folk are only satisfied when seen as | counterculture. | pointer_pointer wrote: | This comment is exactly on point. | | Hippies were counter-culture against their 'square' parents. | Now 4channers are (extreme) right-wing against liberal boomers | and reddit millenials. | | They really are the new punks and as punks did, will litter | their posts with nazi references and imagery to scare-off | 'normies'. | codezero wrote: | That's a fun and interesting way to look at it, thanks! | | TBH I think you got downvoted just for mentioning it, I don't | think what you said is actually that controversial unless | you're making a lot of assumptions about _your_ intent in | sharing this, which doesn't seem fair. | mdoms wrote: | I'm not surprised by the downvotes haha. I never said I | agreed with the things I mentioned - I am by no means one of | those right wing people - but it's clear which way the | cultural winds are blowing today. | fumar wrote: | What side of the counter culture position would you have | been while MLK was pushing for reform? Would your line "its | clear which way the cultural winds are blowing today" align | with the prejudice side? I think so. Do you look back and | see that movement as an evolution and betterment for all of | mankind or do you see it as "winds were blowing the wrong | way"? Change is hard and change requires you to acknowledge | your line of thinking, beliefs, ethics, all of it may be | out dated or no longer the form. Imagine how folks born at | the turn of 1900's felt when MLK was popular. | mdoms wrote: | I'm not really sure what you're trying to get at here, | but I will always side with human rights. I am not | American BTW so this little piece of cultural trivia is | not especially relevant to me. | | > Would your line "its clear which way the cultural winds | are blowing today" align with the prejudice side? | | ?? | fumar wrote: | I was trying to make a point, not well, that cultural | trends are hard to understand while you are living them. | quercus wrote: | My finger was hovering over the upvote button but I think the | downvotes were required to validate the comment. | andrepd wrote: | That's precisely the irritating image people like that have of | themselves, which does not correspond to reality. What does it | mean "beholden to trigger warnings"? I'm not sure in which | sense you are beholden to something which you likely haven't | even encountered outside of internet posts making fun of | trigger warnings. What magic words are those? Not saying n*gger | in polite company isn't censorship, it's just good manners. And | who exactly has been fired for "believing male and female are | real concepts"? This is some borderline delusional shit. | | The "I know I'll be downvoted for this brave opinion" bit is | the icing on the cake. | high_derivative wrote: | You are conjuring up a lot of straw men here, really proving | op's point. Getting fired for not directing a swear word but | literally just saying a word in quotation is happening. The | 'magical powers' is very much on point. Or do you deny this | happened? | | https://donaldgmcneiljr1954.medium.com/nytimes-peru-n- | word-p... | naringas wrote: | well, he was downvoted. but not overwhelmining so; let's call | it controversial. | | > And who exactly has been fired for "believing male and | female are real concepts"? | | I recall some kind of minor debacle about a Stack Overflow | moderator (or employee? details are vague) who got in trouble | for something related to individual choice of pronouns. It | seems to be what they're refering to. | tw26436552 wrote: | Recently, I applied for a position at a well-known tech | company, one where the requirements and my experience were | a very good fit (imo). For the first time in my career, I | soon received a rejection email without any interaction | with a human. | | The application form included a not-required field for | "pronouns", which I left blank. Perhaps this was the test I | failed. | darepublic wrote: | I've worked at at least one place where if I stated "male and | female are real concepts" I would have raised eyebrows at min | and received some official reprimand at max | pessimizer wrote: | > Not saying n*gger in polite company isn't censorship, it's | just good manners. | | Is this not polite company? Do you think adding an asterisk | makes a significant difference? | | I'm black myself, do I get to say it? Could the question be | more complicated than you're making it out to be? | | edit: I mean - MCNeil at the NYT was quite literally doing | what you just did: discussing whether certain language was | acceptable or should be punished. Imagine being fired for | this post two years from now. I don't care about McNeil in | particular (the US is an "At-Will" country, workers have no | real rights, he's a privileged guy), but the state of free | expression right now is bizarre. The fact that it comes when | old (and most of new media) media is more consolidated than | it's ever been is not coincidental. | aidenn0 wrote: | While I don't think the GP post is correct, counter-culture | necessarily has bad manners, because manners are all about | cultural norms. | echlebek wrote: | This self-indulgent rhetoric is so tiresome, and its aims are | so blatantly transparent. | thepasswordis wrote: | 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 children)? | | The people who you instinctively dislike, and who society | counts as something that needs to be corrected are _by | definition_ the counter culture. | | That doesn't necessarily need to be seen as a bad thing, btw. | It just means that the hippies basically won and have all of | the power now. | rurp wrote: | > Consider: your HR department is left leaning, your boss is | probably left leaning, your teachers are left leaning, the | government is left leaning. | | You are doing an awful lot of generalizing from your own | experiences. I have met a LOT of conservative managers and | business owners, including more than a couple openly sexist | and racist ones, who are doing just fine for themselves in | life. The idea that conservatives are some sort of tiny | suppressed minority is bonkers. | heavyset_go wrote: | > _your boss is probably left leaning_ | | Where did you work where your boss thought worker-ownership | and workplace democracy were the best ways to get work done? | pjc50 wrote: | > 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. | throwawayboise wrote: | It entirely depends on where you work. If you work for a | municipality or university, it's probably very accurate. | SpicyLemonZest wrote: | 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". | ttyprintk wrote: | I don't know about that specific legislation. The effect | you describe makes me think that business and government | are, in fact, right leaning. When left-wing groups agree | with right-leaning govt and business, perhaps the general | public is a bit wary of bipartisan policies. An argument | like: If it's popular among partisans of both parties, | then it must be particularly exploitative of the general | public. | bena wrote: | Prop 16 was a repeal of a previous amendment to the state | constitution that effectively banned Affirmative Action | in the state for public positions. | | Basically, if Prop 16 passed, various public sector jobs | would be able to consider race/sex/whatever when looking | to hire. | | That's technically a double-edged sword. As while it | allows for things like Affirmative Action, it also allows | for discrimination based on those attributes as well. | | So I can see a perfectly reasonable reason while | progressives would also be wary about passing Prop 16. | SpicyLemonZest wrote: | Prop 16 was certainly not a _bipartisan_ policy - the | Republican party strongly opposed it, and all their | legislators voted against it. | thepasswordis wrote: | Please explain how a democratic (political left) controlled | Senate, House of Representatives, and Executive branch are | not "left leaning", or how HR departments which have pseudo | mandatory diversity training for their employees are also | not "left leaning". | minikites wrote: | Please explain how our entire culture flipped so | thoroughly in the last 51 days to make it the dominant | culture for 350+ million people. | redisman wrote: | Sounds like they mean `culturally "left"` ie. NYTimes- | morality. | twobitshifter wrote: | The left can lean much further. Someone advocating for | socialist and welfare policies or even communism or anarchy | would run afoul of HR departments and the powerful | billionaires. | | Corporations pay lip service to the left but they don't | really follow through. There's no divestment from China, | fossil fuels, or even Diversity and Inclusion that reaches | the board level. | bitwize wrote: | No, that's not the counterculture. Those are just bigots | butthurt by the fact that society is starting to enforce norms | of human decency which the counterculture has promoted through | example for decades. | | Meanwhile a child who stands up for trans people is being | censored. As in, actual censorship, by the government: | https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/canc... | throwitaway1235 wrote: | LGBTQ+ are establishment identities. Being straight with a | nuclear family is counter culture. | | In 2021 Rolling Stone magazine is the epitome of | establishment culture media. | NotChina wrote: | Same words were said in the 70s and 80s of non- | christian/conservatives. They were absolutely adamant about | their "norms" as the standard. | dariosalvi78 wrote: | funny to see how the term "counter culture" went from being | associated to communists/anarchists to being associated to | conservatives or even fascists. | jandrese wrote: | I mean if you can't openly express your dominance and | superiority over some other group of people is life even worth | living? | mdoms wrote: | 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. | helen___keller wrote: | > By the way, a lot of people here seem to think that the | term "counter culture" has positive connotations. It | doesn't, necessarily. | | I would expand on this to say: | | If society and culture are unjust, then to be moral and | just necessitates dipping into counterculture. Example: | Participating in the underground railroad would be counter- | culture in a society built on slavery. | | If society and culture are truly just, then the counter- | culture is perhaps necessarily unjust. | | Of course, real life is never so clear-cut (we will never | live in a truly just society), but I would argue that | society now is substantially more just than it was for most | of human history, and consequently this reflects back on | the sort of counter-culture that exists. | clairity wrote: | this was an interesting point until, | | > "I would argue that society now is substantially more | just than it was for most of human history, and | consequently this reflects back on the sort of counter- | culture that exists." | | that's a pretty broad claim, implying that the current | counterculture is necessarily unjust because our current | society is so relatively just. it's really difficult, | likely impossible, to show how the justice delta is | irrefutably positive now (not to mention the cutural-to- | countercultural delta is negative). this instead likely | merits an examination of perceptions and biases, | especially of dichotomous reasoning, leading to that | belief. | klyrs wrote: | 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. | helen___keller wrote: | Comparing to my comment[0], I think we're seeing a | divergence in the meaning of "counter-culture" as either: | | a. Counter or opposing the dominant culture | | b. An uncommon or rare culture | | I argue in [0] that (a) is increasingly likely to be | negative as society grows more just. However, as you | mention, (b) can include all manner of neutral cultures, | which are of course not necessarily negative. | | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26440512 | uniqueid wrote: | Is there anything _but_ counterculture on the internet anymore? | How I miss the occasional measured, adult point of view! The | internet has destroyed most of my interest in eccentric artists | or alternative viewpoints. | swayvil wrote: | One way to rebel without rebelling is to pursue the exact same | ideals as those pushed by your culture, except better. | | (Greg Egan proposed this technique in his novel, Quarantine) | | Snarking off about the ubiquitous hypocrisy would be one level of | that, of course. (Seen in much popular comedy.) But there are | higher. | kodah wrote: | There's definitely an old internet culture that eschews social | media and it has seemed to grow (again) over the years. One | example is Freenode: | | - The network has some moderation, but bans are last resorts | where on social media bans and temporary bans are part of the | process. | | - Much of the moderation is left to channel operators and guides | are given by the network on how to moderate. | | - Much of the network is apolitical and you can even be banned | for talking about politics in many channels. This runs counter to | pop-culture with encourages not only discussing politics but | airing _your_ politics with _known_ dissidents. | | - Nearly every channel is topic focused, where pop-culture and | social media encourage broad, boundaryless discussion. | | - Pseudoanonymity is still an option; in contrast to real | identity policies in social media. | | You can't tell me that's _not_ culture, but maybe it 's not a | _whole_ culture just yet. That said, keep poking the bear cub and | see if it doesn 't grow up. | simonh wrote: | You just described the internet I've been using for almost 30 | years, split across various online forums, including this one. | Couldn't agree more. I've managed to find a good handful of | very high signal to noise Reddit topics too. G+ was good while | it lasted. | | The trick is to have specific interests you care about and | track down that community. They're out there. The encouraging | thing is my kinds have found their own communities online and | among friends without my help. They use Discord, Twitch, a bit | of instagram and such. They're tech savvy geeks though, if | somewhat differently geeky to myself. They know what they're | interested in and look for that because most of mass culture is | just occasionally amusing background noise to them. I'm very | encouraged. | | I often see people bemoaning the passing of the old internet, | but for me it's all still out there and thriving. Several new | layers of it have developed too. It's just not the only, or | 'biggest' internet anymore. | kodah wrote: | It is still out there, you just have to work to attain it. | | I'm happy to listen to the bemoaning, mainly because the | newest and largest groups on the internet are the most | problematic and most of them have no self-awareness to that | end. Better that they hear the bemoaning and get a chance to | change and choose not to. | mensetmanusman wrote: | Counterculture completely aligns with corporate America now, it's | fascinating. | | The punk manifesto could be written by McDonalds. | Animats wrote: | Yet his examples are people who did stuff to get clicks. | | Arguably, the most effective counterculture in recent times was | QAnon. That didn't end well. | galangalalgol wrote: | It didn't end at all, I still see people adding Q stickers to | cars. | [deleted] | spaetzleesser wrote: | A lot of qanon came from flat earth and now have moved on to | vaccines and other conspiracies. I wonder what they'll be doing | next year but I am sure they will find something. There is a | significant part of the population who are deeply uncomfortable | with the state of the world and look for an explanation that | comforts them. This used to be mainly religion but it's | spreading out into things like qanon. Extreme partisanship | probably has the same origin because it explains that the world | is bad because of "others". | Animats wrote: | _There is a significant part of the population who are deeply | uncomfortable with the state of the world and look for an | explanation that comforts them._ | | Yes. A real problem is that the US has no consensus on how | society should work. It did, in, say, the 1950s. People were | expected to get jobs, and work, and the spectrum of available | jobs was matched, roughly, to the range of human | capabilities. That was a generally stable situation. That's | the US from 1945 to 1975 or so. | | That's changed, leaving behind a huge number of unemployed | and under-employed people. More education doesn't help; about | half of US college graduates are doing jobs that don't need a | college education. | | Nobody really has a good answer to this. Which is why | conservative populism looks to the past. | shakezula wrote: | It's been very interesting to see counter culture swing to the | (arguably far but that part is up for interpretation) right. | Terrifying, but nonetheless interesting. | edrxty wrote: | In a way this makes sense, the mega platforms have become a | highly uniform slightly left leaning milquetoast walled city. | That leaves being either a raging socialist (guilty) or a | raging....bigot. | | The far right isn't tolerated as they're dangerous to | advertisers sensitivities. Meanwhile the far left individuals | are mostly tolerated but they're also all very aware that if | the far right were to disappear overnight, they'd be the next | target. | shakezula wrote: | I'm hesitant to even admit that far-left politics are more | accepted; I've seen harsher rejection of socialist ideals | than legitimate, objective fascism. But I agree with your | general point - if the far right was gone overnight, the | far left would be next up on the chopping block. | | > highly uniform slightly left leaning milquetoast walled | city. | | This is absolutely true, though. It's become their | immediate point of mockery for any right leaning people. | They get to call us robots, NPCs, brittle snowflakes, | etc... and the left doesn't have a good retort. :shrug: | | It's frustrating, because I think that the left should | chill out with the identity politics and at least start | trying to focus on larger issues and really drive those | points home - healthcare, income inequality, etc... those | are issues that have overwhelming public support but are | constantly able to be derailed by republican talking points | because of the identity politics. | edrxty wrote: | > I'm hesitant to even admit that far-left politics are | more accepted | | Yea, I should have been more specific, it depends heavily | on the circles you run in. | | > It's frustrating, because I think that the left should | chill out with the identity politics | | It seems to me like this is not uncommon. There's a lot | of oneupmanship in politics where whoever is the most | rigid and unyielding to complexity in their belief system | is the most worshiped because people can't distinguish a | rigid ideology from an internally consistent one. On the | left this results in constant twitter mobs and on the | right it results in capitol mobs. | | That said, while it makes an easy target for the right to | rally around, if that were to go away, the reality | distortion field would just target the next-lowest | hanging fruit. | andrewclunn wrote: | I know I'm counterculture when I'm shadow banned. Suck it boot- | licking conformists! | JasonFruit wrote: | I'm going to have to read this again to see if it's brilliant or | just pretentious. But I'm going to print it and read it again | more carefully, which suggests to me that it may lean toward the | former. | camjohnson26 wrote: | Got about halfway through and feels like it's taking a lot of | words to say very little, the author seems to think it's hard | to be an anarchist today and that's sad. | cblconfederate wrote: | I think platforms like onlyfans will end up bringing back | counterculture, especially if more platforms emerge outside the | uber-censorious US and esp, if they can embrace new forms of | payments. porn is showing the way once again | reilly3000 wrote: | From what I see on TikTok, GenZ are coming out as low-key | marxists in droves. As a millennial I grew up through a process | that started with believing in free-market ideals and slowly | seeing them shattered with each passing atrocity of monopolists. | I'd mark Enron/Worldcom times as a coming-of-age for my economic | cynicism, and its been exponentiating ever since, especially | through my journey as an entrepreneur and employer. These kids | have had cynical humor and class struggle as mother's milk, and | have little interest in repeating history. That isn't to say that | conservativism doesn't have a place among today's youth, but its | largely promoted with billions of dollars being poured into | targeted influence campaigns. Bullshit has a tiny half-life these | days as fact-checking anything is a matter of moving one's thumbs | in a small incantation. | helen___keller wrote: | I think this is the biggest takeaway for me: | | > We saw this dynamic metastasize in the wake of George Floyd's | murder, when well-intentioned claims of "silence is violence" | (recalling the powerful 1987 ACT-UP "Silence = Death" campaign) | spiraled into calling out individuals with even a small following | who hadn't come forward with a timely public statement of | solidarity or remorse. Yet public posts were subject to popular | scrutiny and judged based on sincerity, originality, and tone. | Not surprisingly, many people defaulted to posting a somber plain | black square. But this generated criticism of its own by clogging | the feed with an informational blackout during a moment when | community resource sharing was critically important. Amid a | chaotic time, the platform functioned exactly as designed: | amplification of emotions, uptick in user interaction, growth in | platform engagement and data cultivation. Cha-ching, the platform | cashes in. | | In other words, any large movement or discussion on "clearnet" | spaces gets subverted by the algorithms and profit motive of the | platform they live on. | | However, where I disagree with the author is considering | mainstream "dark forest" platforms like reddit or 4chan to be | countercultural. In fact, I'd argue that mainstream social media | can _never_ be countercultural. While there may be no | "algorithm" controlling the narrative you see on 4chan (or a | straightforward and ostensibly fair one on a site like reddit), | the content you see (and by extension, the narrative) is shaped | by profit motive: From well-compensated marketing teams, to | hordes of self-interested proselytizers (see: bitcoin), to | propaganda teams looking to influence public opinion, mainstream | dark forest sites simply shift the balance of power from the | platform itself to the most motivated and well-funded members of | the platform | TameAntelope wrote: | What you're saying is and isn't true. One example of a | countercultural movement that's been in the news recently is | the DDoSecrets leaks/hacks (they get upset if you aren't clear | that they're hackers). They've got a strong Twitter presence | that helps them get their message out, but they conduct no | "real" business on Twitter. | | So a counterculture can use the mainstream platforms, but they | choose to do so only as a microphone, not as a gathering place. | | Edit: That said, one of the members of a related group just (as | in, after I wrote this but before editing was made unavailable) | got banned from Twitter, so maybe they can't actually use the | platform as a microphone for very long. It looks like the law | is getting involved, specifically related to the Verkada hack. | satellite2 wrote: | It seems like a very strong stance to say that the publicly | advertised leaks and hacks are not financially motivated. | TameAntelope wrote: | I've thought a lot about what you're saying here, and I see | no indication that's the case (corrupt/ulterior financial | motivations related to their leaks/hacks). I am very | curious how the members of DDoSecrets make their money, | though (not that it's any of my business), mostly because | the Twitter accounts I've been following seem to have a | pretty strong disgust response to the idea of making money | off of hacking in general. | satellite2 wrote: | My bad, I tought you were talking in general. I'm not | familiar with DDoSecrets so I cannot say much about their | case specifically. | | What I can say though is that generally the threat model | for attackers slightly more sophisticated than script | kiddies suggests that the preparations involve a non | negligible amount of time from highly specialized | engineers and that somehow, someone has to pay for it. | throwitaway1235 wrote: | DDoSecrets targeted the most vulnerable voices in society, | people banished to Gab for their political beliefs. They | literally work for the liberal ruling system. | giantrobot wrote: | > most vulnerable voices | | It's really sad you apparently posted this seriously. | [deleted] | retrac wrote: | > While there may be no "algorithm" controlling the narrative | you see on 4chan (or a straightforward and ostensibly fair one | on a site like reddit), the content you see (and by extension, | the narrative) is shaped by profit motive: From well- | compensated marketing teams, to hordes of self-interested | proselytizers (see: bitcoin), to propaganda teams looking to | influence public opinion | | I've realized I have exactly one outlet free of this left. It's | an IRC channel I've been in since the 90s. I thought about it | and none of us are there for any reason other than that we have | a common interest and like each other. No money involved, no | names involved, and it's one of the more supportive and | insightful communities I've ever found online. We've sometimes | wondered why it's such a different community from the other | places, and this article articulates why quite well, I think. | We're old-timers holding out in a little pocket of what has | been almost fully absorbed by corporate social media. I'm sure | there are others. And I'm sure they won't tell you where to | find them, either. | JakeTheAndroid wrote: | I find plenty of these types of communities through Discord, | and I think that is part of the equation that's left out | here. I don't really like discord much, but the reason I get | when I do is to go check in on those friends. Usually these | communities are just people that I've met playing games. | | I don't know that these would qualify as counter-culture or | subculture, but they are free of marketing and advertising, | and people are there because we have shared interests. The | conversations are organic and not curated for us and we are | isolated from anyone else we don't want to be part of that | group. | | So, my gut tells me that the younger generations are using | Discord like people used IRC. | YinglingLight wrote: | Old farts still had irl friends. The amount of teens who | have no tangible friendships outside of Discord is | sobering. | AnthonyMouse wrote: | > From well-compensated marketing teams, to hordes of self- | interested proselytizers (see: bitcoin), to propaganda teams | looking to influence public opinion, mainstream dark forest | sites simply shift the balance of power from the platform | itself to the most motivated and well-funded members of the | platform | | This is making the perfect the enemy of the good. | | Also, voting systems take care of a lot of this, because naked | propaganda spam gets downvoted by the users. | tablespoon wrote: | >> From well-compensated marketing teams, to hordes of self- | interested proselytizers (see: bitcoin), to propaganda teams | looking to influence public opinion, mainstream dark forest | sites simply shift the balance of power from the platform | itself to the most motivated and well-funded members of the | platform | | > Also, voting systems take care of a lot of this, because | naked propaganda spam gets downvoted by the users. | | I disagree: crowdsourced moderation can only really take care | of the most obvious crap, so it doesn't really take care of | this problem. | michaelpb wrote: | Right, crowdsourced moderation works for badly done spam, | poorly coded bots, etc. It does nothing for pseudo-science, | "self-interested proselytizers" or PR teams. I think | there's a mentality that if we just "crowdsource" | something, somehow the work just goes away. It's a little | like hand-waiving "the cloud" or "serverless" -- just | because it's not your problem doesn't mean it disappears. | It's still work that still needs to be done by _somebody_ | | On top of that, moderation of anything sufficiently popular | isn't easy -- e.g., dealing with trolls or PR teams | targeting a forum can get extremely complicated sussing out | who is who and figuring out where to draw the line -- and | like many things is inherently subjective, which means it's | the last thing you'll want to hand-waive, but is instead | integral to whatever is being built. | helen___keller wrote: | > This is making the perfect the enemy of the good. | | To be fair, I'm not saying that we should all ditch Reddit | and only congregate on obscure message boards with maximum | user limits; I'm simply saying that a place like a default | subreddit should never be considered counter-cultural. | | > Also, voting systems take care of a lot of this, because | naked propaganda spam gets downvoted by the users. | | Strong disagree. Naked propaganda is downvoted, sure, but | good propaganda is never naked. Add enough eyeballs and | increasingly sophisticated and coordinated actors will find a | way to get their message to the top. | drak0n1c wrote: | Voting systems often amplify propaganda spam. Every day | r/science has multiple posts upvoted to the top with titles | exaggerating findings, and/or linking to shoddy studies. | | Upvote/Downvote is very susceptible to headlines that exploit | confirmation bias, and bot activity. | partyboat1586 wrote: | >spiraled into calling out individuals with even a small | following who hadn't come forward with a timely public | statement of solidarity or remorse. | | >timely public statement | | Being a public figure sounds exhausting. | notsureaboutpg wrote: | This happened to random 18 year old college kids who were | just not active on social media. I saw it first hand. I | actually saw an entire group of girls let go of one of their | friends who didn't post in support of BLM along with them. | She had like 60 followers on Instagram (mostly family). | echoradio wrote: | I signed on to the internet when everything was handled through | terminals, so I've always viewed cyberspace -- and the culture | which developed there -- as completely separate from IRL. People | can take on different personas, customs, etc. So it's no surprise | to me the customs within this "new" world are mirroring how a | physical world society spreads across a spectrum of ideology. | (Granted, the ideas don't always blend with what exists in the | real world.) | | I've often thought of the counterculture to online space as those | who are breaking free of centralization and the digital | "monopolies." They're the people who are homesteading on tildes, | Mastodon, or their own self-hosted instance, for example. In | cyberspace, FAANG are the new industrialists (the new | informationalists?), so to me it makes sense that a portion of | online society wants to separate or rebel from this establishment | which controls a good portion of this cyberspace. | | As IoT becomes more prevalent, I can see those who seek a break | from connectivity in general as countercultural, too. Some of the | ideas in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," or Ted Kaczynski's* | "Industrial Society and Its Future" reflect this. | | * I do not condone Kaczynski's actions. I'm merely stating the | concern about technology's negative impact on society has long | been thought about. It makes sense that there would be those who | seek to shun it entirely. | NotChina wrote: | 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) | kart23 wrote: | 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 communities to self-hosted, private forums, | where I believe that counterculture has and will be born from. | TimedToasts wrote: | Reddit is the least countercultural site I can imagine. It's | still Top 10 in sites visited, is it not? It's the very | zeitgeist of the times. | | Those examples weaken an otherwise good article. | redisman wrote: | It used to be fairly "counter-culture"ish back in the day | before it was run like a corporation. | monocasa wrote: | Reddit is a meta site. The default subs are of course the | default consensus, but you can find subs of nearly every | other position under the sun. | cambalache wrote: | No. Most "radical" subs will be suppressed or otherwise | banned by selectively enforcing the rules. For every rule | broken in r/thedonald or r/chapotraphouse you could find | dozens of similar examples in r/news and r/politics. | [deleted] | twobitshifter wrote: | Maybe Reddit as a whole, but what are your thoughts on | WallStreetBets? It seems that WSB has all of the elements of | a counterculture, although maybe diluted after the wide | spread GME interest. | deliveryboyman wrote: | WSB is a shade of its former self now due to the onslaught | of new members | ZephyrBlu wrote: | Check out /r/wallstreetbetsogs. It's an attempt to bring | back the old school WSB. | monocasa wrote: | Has a "what was WSB before the eternal September" escape | hatch subreddit popped up yet? | ZephyrBlu wrote: | Yes, /r/wallstreetbetsogs. | satellite2 wrote: | WSB seems like the definition of a smart hedge fund that | managed to manipulate the market transparently. Everything | there reeks of fake, manufactured and engineered "counter" | culture | juststeve wrote: | Yeah because WSB uses another language that many do not | know, or care to know. | SV_BubbleTime wrote: | I'm really not sure "diamond hands" and "retard" count so | much as another language. I think the big gap between | there and other places on the same subject is on | "gambling logic", not right or wrong, I've seen more | people there admit that than "Wallstreet Types" who would | be trillionaires if they actually knew how to win. | edrxty wrote: | Further, reddit is built from the ground up to force consensus. | Counterculture cannot exist on the site by definition, as | anything prevalent on the site is there by consensus. | monocasa wrote: | I'd argue that the way reddit is currently designed is to | hold on to it's user base without them having consensus. The | way that subreddits allow separation of their user base (but | they're all still users and seeing ads, buying gold, etc) | allows communities to exist in a way other social media sites | don't really allow (except maybe facebook groups). | juststeve wrote: | Agree - and People should also be aware who funds these | sites. Especially reddit. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | So is HN and any other platform with where upvote/downvote is | the primary factor in the algorithm. | juststeve wrote: | Yep, or self hosted sites | ontekhunhsentuh wrote: | 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. | 1123581321 wrote: | What incident are you referring to? Having trouble searching | for it. | edrxty wrote: | I think this ties in well with all the recent discussion around | advertising and its effect on internet discourse. To become | counter-cultural now inherently means foregoing ad revenue | supported platforms, which inherently means you lose audience. | keiferski wrote: | Charles Taylor, the philosopher, covered much of this about | twenty years ago with far less snark and buzzwords. I strongly | recommend reading _The Ethics of Authenticity._ It's all about | the trend of individualism and how it precedes social media | by...centuries. | | https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674987692 | | Social media is no longer _authentic_ so you're seeing a slowly | growing backlash against it. | | https://seoulphilosophy.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/charles-tay... | airhead969 wrote: | "Antisocial media" would a truthful title. | | I don't even like texting. Email is a letter replacement. Call | me and pickup when I call, or GTFO. | | Faceblock, Twatter, Instaglam, Discard, Snapper, TikTak, | LinkedOut can all listen to the flushing sound of me deleting | their advertising monetization. "Buh buh all of your Ivy and | Pac12 associations that made you look important on a resume." | Too bad, I haven't talked to most of those people in years | anyhow. | wussboy wrote: | I hadn't heard "antisocial media" before but I love it | airhead969 wrote: | The antisocial social club most def raises the Jolly Roger | flag against "social" media. ;-] | | At some point, I just want a private platform that is paid | for using microcredits, no ads/data harvesting, requires | verified named people with faces (improved communication | quality), connections only stay alive if you actually | interact with them IRL, doesn't automatically share | everything with everyone in a single context, and doesn't | promote dangerous behaviors for likes/shares. The only | purpose of hidden rating tags (in lieu of likes and shares) | should be that a viewer's own incoming content gets | slightly prioritized. Oh and no instant notifications, no | news link sharing/"retweeting", no messaging or chat | (there's email), and a user only gets to look at it twice a | day. Basically, solve many of the societal and social | problems FB exploits and creates. | alea_iacta_est wrote: | I just read the first few chapters, what a great reference, | thank you. | seniorgarcia wrote: | JSTOR and the Harvard press needs to just go away. As someone | who does IT for a university library in Germany JSTOR access is | just ridiculous, even ignoring their fees. | keiferski wrote: | https://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Authenticity-Charles- | Taylor/dp... | seniorgarcia wrote: | I can ship a 30 year old paperback of it for my personal | use to my home for 60$, that is true. I'm not sure what | else you are trying to tell me. | | Do you personally think that is a good offer? | kilroy123 wrote: | How ironic you need to click on a link to Harvard.edu. What | times we live in. | ret2plt wrote: | This is a minor nitpick, but I think claiming that anarcho- | primitivism is less fringe than it seems because the youtube | channel "Primitive Technology" is popular is seriously reaching. | everdrive wrote: | 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. | bluefirebrand wrote: | > 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 | just kind of decide to wash their hands of Facebook and | Instagram and Twitter and such, then go about their lives. I | don't think they generally feel a part of some larger culture | (or counter-culture) | | Maybe I'm wrong about that. To me though it almost seems like a | stand-alone complex. | briankelly wrote: | 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. | itronitron wrote: | 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. | greenonions wrote: | Imagine the Instagram posts profiling the weirdos like | myself who simply have not been using Instagram for the | past decade for the Instagram audience. | | "What do you do when you visit a scenic vista, if not | take pictures?" | | "I look at it for a time and leave." | psychomugs wrote: | Reminds me of the tyranny of the remembering self. | | How much would you pay for a vacation where you can't | take any pictures and your memory is erased afterwards? | throwawayboise wrote: | I stopped taking pictures on vacation (and other events) | quite a while ago because I realized I never look at them | later. So I spend the time being more focused on the | actual thing, and have better memories. I wouldn't like | the memory erased thing. | Nasrudith wrote: | I find that is a mortons fork sort of thing - you | basically can wind up with regrets for taking and not | taking pictures. | medicineman wrote: | About 20USD for a fifth. | oceanplexian wrote: | There's 40% of the population you're missing that doesn't | participate in social media because their ideas have been | banned. Sure, they might have a Facebook or a Twitter but | nothing substantive happens there. They believe in things | like gun rights, freedom of speech and religion, and they | often go to meeting places called a "church", which these | days could be considered "counter-culture". Their values | don't come from TV or Hollywood movies but instead have | been passed down from generation to generation. | | From my experience people from US costal states seem to | think these people are a small minority (5%) and tend to be | shocked every time an election comes around. | everdrive wrote: | >doesn't participate in social media because their ideas | have been banned. | | >Sure, they might have a Facebook or a Twitter | | I'm not sure what you mean by this. | MikeGale wrote: | I see something which may be referred to here. | | I'm acquainted with people on social media who find that | what they write on Facebook (say) is banned by the | algorithmic being that reads before you post. Sometimes | posts disappear. Sometimes they get sent to the naughty | corner for 7 days. | | The reason for a ban is sometimes a real head scratcher, | as far as I can tell, but not always. | | They've tried other places to have conversations. Some of | those have also been torn down. | | Some have gone away. I generally don't know where to, but | some are setting up their own discussion spaces. (I've | recommended that to those who've asked.) | | Maybe a return to a former age where you controlled your | own discussion spaces. A braai/BBQ in the back yard, a | table in the corner of the pub, a ten day tramp through | the mountains with four friends. | watwut wrote: | There is huge amount of Christians and gin rights | advocates on Twitter. The TV actually caters to them _a | lot_. | | Yet also, people from coastal states are like 75% od USA | population. | aaron-santos wrote: | > There are no groups (as far as I know) for people who | eschew social media. | | There is at least one group who (arguably in part) eschews | political social media: the grillpilled. | rsj_hn wrote: | 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 | text messages, email, telephone calls, rather than | broadcasting an edited version of their own thoughts to the | world all the time. To assume that if you are not constantly | engaging in this type of one-to-many communication, then you | must be absolutely alone is to have serious tunnel vision. | potta_coffee wrote: | 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. | greenonions wrote: | I don't own a TV and most people here don't seem to know | how to react to this information. Often they don't seem | to have considered the possibility that someone wouldn't | own one. I haven't watched television for entertainment | in a decade or so, so I only get references which I | absorb through YouTube, Twitch. I wouldn't think of | myself countercultural, but it shows just how conforming | many people are without realizing. | | Edit: by here, I'm referring to the Midwestern United | States Edit 2: would > wouldn't | matwood wrote: | What is television now? You're watching YouTube and | Twitch, so what you're really avoiding is broadcast TV. | The large and growing cord cutting movement is exactly | that with people using their TV as a large screen | for...YouTube and Twitch. | drdrey wrote: | > most people here | | Can you define "here"? I live in a country that is not | your country of origin? | randycupertino wrote: | > I don't own a TV and most people here don't seem to | know how to react to this information. | | Really? We don't own a TV and it's very common within my | friends group. I do watch occasional shows on my laptop | and we streamed the superbowl on my husband's large | computer monitor screen. | | But I would say not having a TV is becoming more and more | common. | rsj_hn wrote: | I own a computer monitor I can use for gaming, streaming | TV shows or movies, or just a bigger screen for my | laptop. | | That's the only standalone powered screen I own, but | honestly I don't see any difference between that and a | regular TV. TV is about watching television shows | regardless of whether they are downloaded from the | internet, piped through a cable channel, or received with | an antenna. | | Similarly people that don't own stand-alone monitors but | have laptop screens or iMac screens they use to stream TV | shows have TVs in my opinion. To insist that they don't | because they are using wifi instead of an antenna to | receive the data seems a bit pedantic. | chordalkeyboard wrote: | There is a big difference between selecting content and | watching it; and having a selection of curated streams. | Autoplay on youtube definitely hacks away at this | difference, which is probably why youtube keeps turning | autoplay on for me after I turn it off. | jdefelice wrote: | I think there will be such a group but you won't know about | them because they won't be on social media telling people | about it. I don't think their identity will be anti-social | media, but an identity to strive for a slower way of life. | Kelamir wrote: | > I think the interesting part is that it's kind of counter- | culture but it itself is not really a culture at all. | | It reminds me of a chapter from Kino's adventures, where she | finds a city, which has a culture of cat lovers. When she | leaves them, she meets their king, who tells the story of the | land: people had decided they don't need the king and any | culture, so they've decided to appear to every traveller with | a different culture. | | However, the king says, they are not aware that that is their | new culture. | nsxwolf wrote: | We're on Signal. You don't see us unless invited. | medicineman wrote: | Yeah, they organize, and yeah there are groups. You just wont | hear about them on social media. It's better this way. | planet-and-halo wrote: | As one of these people, totally agree. I don't really have | people I sympathize with over this stuff (except a few | friends with whom its a minor topic of conversation) or | anything I'd consider a culture. Mostly I just deleted my | accounts and moved on. On the other hand, despite the lack of | other people to commiserate with, it does feel a little | countercultural insofar as I'm doing something different from | most people, and it sticks out on occasion. | iYNGcKqrdNPPmcA wrote: | I've similarly ghosted social networks and other | "platforms" some years back. A culture is usually formed | around shared experience. In the case of social media | escapists there are two sets of shared experiences: | | The escapists themselves are simply living their lives as | usual. This sort of baseline human experience is a rare | thing these days, but it doesn't get much exposure because | escapists aren't likely to go out of their way to broadcast | their experiences - that would be antithetical to the idea | of disconnecting from social media. | | Other people are wondering where the escapists have gone. | Did they die? Move to Mars? Get convicted of a major crime | and sentenced to a long stint in state prison? This too | takes places quietly: it's not as if anyone's mounting a | nationwide search to locate the escapists. | | These experiences to me form a kind of bifurcated culture. | vageli wrote: | > These experiences to me form a kind of bifurcated | culture. | | I think what the GP was pointing at is that culture tends | to have community, and there is no community of people | who have fled the larger platforms (until you consider | groups on mastodon, secure scuttlebutt, etc). | ryandrake wrote: | To steal and modify a saying: "Non-use of social media" | is a community as much as "not collecting stamps" is a | hobby. | aeturnum wrote: | In an age of corporate sponsored wildly increasing visibility & | reach, it's a counter-cultural act to forgo visibilty & reach | for other goals. | franklampard wrote: | Really? Isn't it already trendy to bash big tech and diss tech | platforms? | akurzon wrote: | I think so, but for most people it doesn't stop them from | using the platforms. And then the criticism doesn't amount to | much. | lukebuehler wrote: | I think there is something similar at work with decentralized | platforms: they might never be as slick as their centralized | counterparts, but it's a kind of ascetic choice that opens new | doors. | edrxty wrote: | I find this is a good way to learn. Comfortable mega- | platforms don't really foster anything productive | (generalizing, obviously) but when you start to play with the | bleeding edge decentralized options it allows you see "what | could be". | | Trying to rid my life of google has opened all sorts of | doors. If you're a tinkerer there are a plethora of options | available for you to customize your experience and discover | new capabilities. | AshleighBasil wrote: | Do people perceive popular platform UI's as 'slick'? To me | they always seemed like a mess that is insane to navigate | because the company's massive org chart digests into a | massive turd that gets smeared over the landing page. | Facebook is the worst, but they all seem to have this | problem. | achairapart wrote: | One big problem with decentralized platforms is that, while | technologically and conceptually fascinating, they offer a | complex and not average-user-friendly UX. | | Users are so inured by the down-to-earth, nanny-ready, | repetitive and instant-gratification driven UIs of | mainstream platforms that many of them have a hard time | just understanding where to start with the decentralized | ones. | mordechai9000 wrote: | I think there is something slick about them, if you just go | with what they put in front of you. Don't try to navigate | beyond a very high level, just take what it brings and hope | for that momentary reward that comes from the likes and the | comments. | 1propionyl wrote: | 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 into private WhatsApp group chats, Discord groups, | and so on. | | In some cases these are groups of people I know in real life, | and in some cases everyone is anonymous or pseudonymous. | | And there is definitely an unspoken rule of "don't unilaterally | invite anyone, don't advertise that this group exists, stay | hidden, we like what we have going on here." | | It's in some ways a reversion to the style of older private | Usenet/BBS/IRC channels, but in other respects it's a lateral | move. For one, it's still mostly happening on centralized | platforms. | | What I think is interesting is how our media ecology (in the | sense of media as means we communicate and express ourselves, | not "mass media") is an interplay between these big public | spaces and a proliferation of smaller private spaces. It's not | _just_ a dark forest, there's also a bright canopy into which | people emerge, forage, and carry back down into the forest. | jaspax wrote: | The Dark Forest analogy strikes me as apt as well. All of the | best (most interesting, most active, most insightful) groups | that I belong to are off of the public internet these days. | Some of them are just small Discord servers, some are even | more heavily encrypted groups on Signal, Mattermost, or | Mastadon. But what they have in common is that not everyone | is welcome, and we don't even advertise our presence. | dghlsakjg wrote: | 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 is still available on forums since they just | happily sit there seemingly forever, and are easy to archive. | 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. | | My feeling is that the switch to algorithmic feed-based | discussion is a serious regression for a lot of interest | groups. | | An excellent illustration of this is Stack Overflow. They | take after the forum model of preserving knowledge to the | degree that they shut down discussions that have happened | before. Stack Overflow's database of solutions brings | literally billions in value to the world, and it simply would | not work without persistance of information. | datavirtue wrote: | That was the beginning of the end for me. Trying to search | for a post I saw a few hours ago resulted in nothing but | frustration. What a joke. | tablespoon wrote: | > 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. | Der_Einzige wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_jamming | ghgdynb1 wrote: | How about exit from the platforms while continuing to build on | the Internet? | | balajis.com vs twitter.com/balajis | lmarcos wrote: | I've been thinking exactly that. The problem is that the | average internet user would have to: - buy a domain name (and | pay for it every year) - rent hosting (cheapest provider is | probably DO at 5$/month) - setup your machine so that it's | secure enough it doesn't end up hacked - setup whatever is | needed to publish content in your machine (could be as simple | as HTML, but then the average internet user doesn't know | HTML. It could be wordpress... But then you have to install | it by yourself) | | It's a lot of hassle for the average internet user. The worst | case scenario: you end up paying ~70$/year for something you | have no idea how to setup property. Beast case scenario: some | startup takes over the hassle for you for "only" 50$/year... | But that's not that different from Facebook (except that you | would "own" a domain name and a host you have no idea how to | "own"). | pochamago wrote: | "To be truly countercultural in a time of literate hegemony, | you must become illiterate" | TacticalCoder wrote: | What's posted on social networks makes you feel like we live | in a time of literate hegemony? | Nasrudith wrote: | The fact the contents are text and many prefer texting to | voice calls for one? It may not be high art or even proper | grammar but it is still literate. | | Plus it demonstrates how vacuous defining something by what | it is not really is - you can put anything in that hole. | | To give a deliberately stupid as possible version - have | you ever eaten toxic ocean snails? No? Then you are part of | the not eating ocean cone snails hedgemony oppressing us | all by their force of the not eating ocean snail ways. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-03-12 23:00 UTC)