Monday, April 30, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
An IHop Conversation about Everything
We were at IHop and started talking about counter-cultures and two questions came up. Has there been a counter-culture since the 1990's, furthermore, has there been a counter-culture since the advent of the Internet? Sure theres things going on, but are they radical reactions and true rejections of a status quo?
I was born in the late 1970's and grew up a teenager in the mid-90's. As most folk tend to situate an identity around a particular decade, mine was then. At the time it was the decade of no identity. We had nothing, no war, no economic anxiety, etc. We were Generation X.
Consider though everything that was going on then. There was multitude of expressions happening all at once. Sure, many stemmed from previously established counter cultures, but the things going on in the 90's seemed to be more tangential, defined, and objectively separated. Enter me grasping for anything beyond suburbian idles. Skateboarding seemed to welcome and encompass, Hip Hop, Industrial, New School Punk, Techno, Gothic, Emo, and the list goes on. I am a culmination of many things at once.
More important than any musically based genera of counter-culture, was the occurrence of the Internet as it was made public also in the 1990's. Only now, approximately twenty years later, are we understanding how influentially changed our lifestyles and culture have become due to this pervasive invention. What was called Generation X would be more apt to be called Generation Cross-Over /Transition.
The conversation from there lead into the continually astounding and interesting circumstances of the Internet itself. I have spent a fair amount of time in the past two years or so being somewhat stunned by this medium. As if I had not been accustomed to it since 1994, my last year of high school, my first year of college, as well as the first time I had seen, used, or experienced this thing, I apparently have finally woke up from its numbingly technological and magnificent effects on the human condition.
I have been stuck in a state of awe by this ominous power of media, networking, and communication. Frozen in possibility and equally frustrated with not knowing how to comprehend it, how to use it, and what its doing to me. I had written the Internet off as a complete opposite to my previously tangible existence, and concluded that the world was now insanely confusing and at the very least the beginning of the end of the world.
Possibly it was the soothing pancakes that up until this point had caused the utmost fear in my primitive psyche to freak out at the very mention of this digital divide, but for the first time the idea of confusion was set to ease. For the first time in history, we have the answers to everything whenever and whenever we want them. Whats to be confused about?
If the internet is nullifying any human outward expressions, it is therefor doing something internal. From a creative persons survey of things going on in the physical world, I see a return to quality in things made. Craft and design are ever more considered these days. TV is better, writing is more predominate, music is more composed, human connections are felt to be more important.
The Interent has set a mirror of self of which to reflect our intentions. We are moving from quantity of expressions to quality of expressions. We are refining our selves, albiet quietly and slowly at the moment. This is a stage of self-consciousness, self-awareness, a maturity in growth. When we see a person go through this stage in their life it is a powerful moment, one that inevitably changes that person forever.
I would like to believe that is what is happening now. The Interent pushes us to ask better questions.
I was born in the late 1970's and grew up a teenager in the mid-90's. As most folk tend to situate an identity around a particular decade, mine was then. At the time it was the decade of no identity. We had nothing, no war, no economic anxiety, etc. We were Generation X.
Consider though everything that was going on then. There was multitude of expressions happening all at once. Sure, many stemmed from previously established counter cultures, but the things going on in the 90's seemed to be more tangential, defined, and objectively separated. Enter me grasping for anything beyond suburbian idles. Skateboarding seemed to welcome and encompass, Hip Hop, Industrial, New School Punk, Techno, Gothic, Emo, and the list goes on. I am a culmination of many things at once.
More important than any musically based genera of counter-culture, was the occurrence of the Internet as it was made public also in the 1990's. Only now, approximately twenty years later, are we understanding how influentially changed our lifestyles and culture have become due to this pervasive invention. What was called Generation X would be more apt to be called Generation Cross-Over /Transition.
The conversation from there lead into the continually astounding and interesting circumstances of the Internet itself. I have spent a fair amount of time in the past two years or so being somewhat stunned by this medium. As if I had not been accustomed to it since 1994, my last year of high school, my first year of college, as well as the first time I had seen, used, or experienced this thing, I apparently have finally woke up from its numbingly technological and magnificent effects on the human condition.
I have been stuck in a state of awe by this ominous power of media, networking, and communication. Frozen in possibility and equally frustrated with not knowing how to comprehend it, how to use it, and what its doing to me. I had written the Internet off as a complete opposite to my previously tangible existence, and concluded that the world was now insanely confusing and at the very least the beginning of the end of the world.
Possibly it was the soothing pancakes that up until this point had caused the utmost fear in my primitive psyche to freak out at the very mention of this digital divide, but for the first time the idea of confusion was set to ease. For the first time in history, we have the answers to everything whenever and whenever we want them. Whats to be confused about?
If the internet is nullifying any human outward expressions, it is therefor doing something internal. From a creative persons survey of things going on in the physical world, I see a return to quality in things made. Craft and design are ever more considered these days. TV is better, writing is more predominate, music is more composed, human connections are felt to be more important.
The Interent has set a mirror of self of which to reflect our intentions. We are moving from quantity of expressions to quality of expressions. We are refining our selves, albiet quietly and slowly at the moment. This is a stage of self-consciousness, self-awareness, a maturity in growth. When we see a person go through this stage in their life it is a powerful moment, one that inevitably changes that person forever.
I would like to believe that is what is happening now. The Interent pushes us to ask better questions.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)