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DEVIL_CHEATED

                                             March    28, 2008
                                             November 08, 2022


A conversation with Jennie Kermode on alt.gothic:

                                          https://groups.google.com/g/alt.gothic/c/Tjlnlu7Tkvw/m/605Bp-hLCQAJ

I had said:

   "But... what about web 2.0 mashups (Not to be
    confused with mere b2b partnerships) that
    characterize the latest New Era of The Internet?"

Jennie Kermode responded:

    "I think what most notably characterises it is a
    different form of tribalism. Early online tribes
    centered around shared interests and personality
    types, through newsgroups, bulletin boards et
    al. These days they centre on a more superficial
    sense of shared culture, such that it can be
    advantageous to hide personality in order to
    merge successfully."

Presuming that there's anything there to hide.

If you never develop a soul, the devil is cheated.


    "The building blocks of status have changed (or, it
    might be fairer to say, the internet has absorbed a
    great mass of people who always constructed their
    lives that way), and commerical pressures have
    supported this because it provides a more malleable
    potential clientele."

Well, okay: but it can't be the *only* problem. The
bandwidth is wide, the gates really are open: nothing
prevents us from crawling off into a corner (becoming a
"niche market"), or for that matter climbing up our
virtual hierarchies (you too can become a secret master
of wikipedia).

Part of the trouble is a lack of any kind of group
identity, any sense of who "we" are. What flag would we
follow, into what new territory?

Instead, the explosion of choices dilutes the scene,
dilutes *every* scene: alt.gothic vs. alt.gothic.fashion;
usenet vs. livejournal; livejournal vs. tribe.net vs. --

                                   THE_FUTURE_IS_NOW


  "Briefly, creativity, individuality and
   intelligence flourished, as in the early days of
   the printing press. It's over now, and they'll
   return to their regular place on the sidelines."

I think something like this occurs with the invention of
any new media: there's a brief period where no one knows
what the formula is going to be, and there's no choice but
to take chances.

                                                              BLACK_MASKS

   "They've fulfilled their function, as outliers, in
   succumbing to the pressure to cross boundaries and thus
   lead the masses into new territory-- they were idiots,
   failing to understand the lessons of history and of
   evolution, if they thought they could hold onto an
   exclusive piece of it for themselves."


Ah, but we'll always have usenet.

For some definition of "we".



                              (Jan 29, 2023)

         So:

         A new media can bring with it an
         explosion of new work, as many people
         explore what can be done with it.

         A new meta-media, a new technology
         enabling many new media can create an
         explosion of different "scenes",
         diluting the available human energy
         among them...

            If so, the much lamented (certainly
            by me) tendency toward consolidation,
            toward diving into one, centralized        When the authors of
            silo can have a hidden advantage...        "System Error"
                                                       propose ways of
            When everyone who is anyone is at          improving
            that one site, at least you know           competition, they
            where to go to find people.                envision a new
                                                       explosion of
                                                       different channels
                                                       of information.  The
                                                       obvious question,
                                                       though, is do people
                                                       really *want* that?
    Exploring the fragments of an 
    art explosion can be exciting,
    and it's easy to romanticize 
    such periods, but consider the
    human costs of trying to navigate
    that chaos...

    You might celebrate "Black Mask" 
    for giving Dashiel Hammet a voice, 
    but for every Hammet, there was  
    a hundred unknowns trying to connect
    with people, struggling to make 
    ends meet with the ridiculously low
    word rates of the pulp era--
                                                        
    Such periods aren't necessarily *healthy* times in       
    any way-- they're times of overreach, he diversity       
    may be exciting but the crash is inevitable, a           
    necessary correction-- and then what?                    
                                                             
                                                            
                                                          


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