TimmyHSub-culture in the Digital Age
June 4th 2008 01:44
Will the internet's all-encompassing information network spell the end of sub-culture?
With everyone logged on and accessing each other constantly, can a sub-culture even still be cultivated? Famed Fight Club author says "There will always be an underground," he has predicted "a backlash of veiled, hidden societies" in response to the overload of information provided by social networking and mobile advertising.
The technological infrastructure of how culture is distributed has changed dramatically in the past 15 years, but the psychology of subculture remains stable. Although the internet has the amazing ability of bringing together like-minded people, sub-culture exists outside of this realm. It can only be considered "sub" if people don't have regular access to it. So, while creating a facebook group about an issue that concerns a small minority, the fact that any facebook user can access it on demand makes it culture, not sub-culture.
While it is difficult to argue for physical restrictions on cultural distribution, there is something to be said for the pre-binary era of culture. The community that is created as a result of love for a cultural product, especially a short lived one is disrupted by instantaneous availability.
Yet, few people advocate a a return to the age of the VHS and Casette players. Instead, we seem content to use the filesharing products available to us.
New York Times Columnist Rob Walker believes that a non-mainstream sensibility, combined with a file-sharing and internet infrastructure, has led to the "mass underground."
Using DJ Danger Mouse as an test case, Walker argues that the Grey Album he produced, (a stunning illegal "mash-up" of Jay-Z's The Black Album and The Beatles' "white album") was able to stay below the mainstream while still being avilable to anyone with internet access.
The mass underground is filled with thousands of poorly kept secrets, a new cultural category that New York's Parsons New School for Design has termed "IInternet Famous" and has even started offering a course on the topic.
For participants in the mass underground, the possibility of becoming a sensation can eventually be the catalyst for the creation of the movement itself. The cultural output of the mass underground has hit-counts, total-views and user votes built into it. Evading surveillance and popularity is neither possible nor desirable in the massunderground. Once sub-cultural expression is converted into binary format not only can everyone have access to it, but everyone should.
To simply blame these new technologies for eroding sub-culture would be erroneus. Ego and the desire for fame and fortune are hardly recent inventions. The desire for fame and fortune is also a constant motivator for anyone producing sub-cultural products. Such goods are affected by this circumstance in every detail of their production. Many people now aspire to command prominent placement in the top few links on search engines or social networking sites.
Google can't force you to name your baby Blastfurnace Bubblecake. But the prominence and importance we place on Google search rankings means that if you do name your child as such people might not think it's a bad idea.
The exception to the rule are artists that remain anonymous deliberately. We reward this ability to avoid surveillance by paying thousands of dollars for works produced by people like Graffiti artist Banksy, who's identity is unknown and who's output therefore becoms much more valuable.
Hiding in plain sight is the idea behind TrackMeNot, a Firefox plug-in that automatically creates random search strings for Google. The resulting information-garbling is meant to scramble attempts at surveillance bots and data-profiling attempts. Specialized barcodes called Quick Response codes, meanwhile, are being used by marketers and subcultures alike to scramble information.
The next subculture or underground movement might not be discovered behind a secret door with limited access, but instead, hiding in plain sight, everywhere and nowhere simultaneously.
With everyone logged on and accessing each other constantly, can a sub-culture even still be cultivated? Famed Fight Club author says "There will always be an underground," he has predicted "a backlash of veiled, hidden societies" in response to the overload of information provided by social networking and mobile advertising.
The technological infrastructure of how culture is distributed has changed dramatically in the past 15 years, but the psychology of subculture remains stable. Although the internet has the amazing ability of bringing together like-minded people, sub-culture exists outside of this realm. It can only be considered "sub" if people don't have regular access to it. So, while creating a facebook group about an issue that concerns a small minority, the fact that any facebook user can access it on demand makes it culture, not sub-culture.
While it is difficult to argue for physical restrictions on cultural distribution, there is something to be said for the pre-binary era of culture. The community that is created as a result of love for a cultural product, especially a short lived one is disrupted by instantaneous availability.
Yet, few people advocate a a return to the age of the VHS and Casette players. Instead, we seem content to use the filesharing products available to us.
New York Times Columnist Rob Walker believes that a non-mainstream sensibility, combined with a file-sharing and internet infrastructure, has led to the "mass underground."
Using DJ Danger Mouse as an test case, Walker argues that the Grey Album he produced, (a stunning illegal "mash-up" of Jay-Z's The Black Album and The Beatles' "white album") was able to stay below the mainstream while still being avilable to anyone with internet access.
The mass underground is filled with thousands of poorly kept secrets, a new cultural category that New York's Parsons New School for Design has termed "IInternet Famous" and has even started offering a course on the topic.
For participants in the mass underground, the possibility of becoming a sensation can eventually be the catalyst for the creation of the movement itself. The cultural output of the mass underground has hit-counts, total-views and user votes built into it. Evading surveillance and popularity is neither possible nor desirable in the massunderground. Once sub-cultural expression is converted into binary format not only can everyone have access to it, but everyone should.
To simply blame these new technologies for eroding sub-culture would be erroneus. Ego and the desire for fame and fortune are hardly recent inventions. The desire for fame and fortune is also a constant motivator for anyone producing sub-cultural products. Such goods are affected by this circumstance in every detail of their production. Many people now aspire to command prominent placement in the top few links on search engines or social networking sites.
Google can't force you to name your baby Blastfurnace Bubblecake. But the prominence and importance we place on Google search rankings means that if you do name your child as such people might not think it's a bad idea.
The exception to the rule are artists that remain anonymous deliberately. We reward this ability to avoid surveillance by paying thousands of dollars for works produced by people like Graffiti artist Banksy, who's identity is unknown and who's output therefore becoms much more valuable.
Hiding in plain sight is the idea behind TrackMeNot, a Firefox plug-in that automatically creates random search strings for Google. The resulting information-garbling is meant to scramble attempts at surveillance bots and data-profiling attempts. Specialized barcodes called Quick Response codes, meanwhile, are being used by marketers and subcultures alike to scramble information.
The next subculture or underground movement might not be discovered behind a secret door with limited access, but instead, hiding in plain sight, everywhere and nowhere simultaneously.
| 76 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
