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[Internet Subculture] Big Ideas, Little Education
Jokers Gamble
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So I was having a discussion with a friend about how we had met and why we got along and have come to a conclusion that there is a very distinct Geek subculture that permeates site like this one and that subculture allows us to recognize and group with each other. I've written(poorly) up a sort of explanation as far as I see it. Spoilered for long winded psuedo-intellectual ramblings.
The Internet is one of the world’s most valuable emerging natural resources. It provides a constant connection to a shared culture that is in a constant state of expansion. This growing culture centers around what are traditionally considered “Geek” activities such as, Video Games, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Comic Books, Anime, and Tabletop Games. Through these activities a sub culture has emerged, creating a separation of society. A sort of secret culture that helps it's members survive in an growing culture of ignorance.
These activities all started as individual sections, independent and Isolated to a single web site or discussion board dedicated to that subject. The people that frequent these boards tended to have similar interests, someone who plays tabletop games tends to be more likely to enjoy fantasy and science fiction as well as branching into Video Games. The people on these sites began mixing on a number of common ground areas, sites like TV Tropes, Penny Arcade and The Escapist, areas of open discussion on multiple subjects of common interest to the modern geek. The sites in turn began to produce a common culture of their own, a cultural melting pot where the distinction in interests began to disappear and instead create its own culture. They produced Memes and common cultural icons that became identifiers of a shared cultural bond.
A modern Internet geek will recognize a number of different common items from a number of sources. Using these sources and references they can begin to draw a map of your cultural interests and lay it over their own, extrapolating your level of interest in common subjects through their knowledge if the same subjects and attempting to expand your interests in the subjects they know best. A Gamer may learn to enjoy anime and in turn spread that joy to other Gamers. He may, in turn, spread his knowledge of games to a Comic Book geek and through him into a completely different interest group of people. This cultural cross pollination of interests creates an interesting and distinguishing network of lingo and references that help distinguish net denizens to one another amid the sea of casual internet users. They learn to recognize each other through a use of subtle references and terms. This allows to them to group together without exposing their interests to the uninformed around them.
Interestingly this grouping exists not just on the internet but in real life as well. Through usage of references such as memes, phrases, shirts and posters and other things easily ignored by the people around them. In this way we learn to sound out the others around us and discern who else shares the common net culture. This allows the subculture to exist within a larger environment without exposing ourselves to those we feel uncomfortable with. These pockets of subculture act as a shelter from the boredom of the day and the restrictions of conversation with outsiders. Inside these group members are open to discuss openly about their interests and hobbies and hence continue to spread their particular knowledge through more groups. This continues the cross pollination and ensures a sort of common level of knowledge in each subject throughout the subculture.
Further observations to follow with future study.
So that's my idea as a completely uneducated 20 year old slacker with no formal training in anthropology.
discuss.
The Internet is one of the world’s most valuable emerging natural resources. It provides a constant connection to a shared culture that is in a constant state of expansion. This growing culture centers around what are traditionally considered “Geek” activities such as, Video Games, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Comic Books, Anime, and Tabletop Games. Through these activities a sub culture has emerged, creating a separation of society. A sort of secret culture that helps it's members survive in an growing culture of ignorance.
These activities all started as individual sections, independent and Isolated to a single web site or discussion board dedicated to that subject. The people that frequent these boards tended to have similar interests, someone who plays tabletop games tends to be more likely to enjoy fantasy and science fiction as well as branching into Video Games. The people on these sites began mixing on a number of common ground areas, sites like TV Tropes, Penny Arcade and The Escapist, areas of open discussion on multiple subjects of common interest to the modern geek. The sites in turn began to produce a common culture of their own, a cultural melting pot where the distinction in interests began to disappear and instead create its own culture. They produced Memes and common cultural icons that became identifiers of a shared cultural bond.
A modern Internet geek will recognize a number of different common items from a number of sources. Using these sources and references they can begin to draw a map of your cultural interests and lay it over their own, extrapolating your level of interest in common subjects through their knowledge if the same subjects and attempting to expand your interests in the subjects they know best. A Gamer may learn to enjoy anime and in turn spread that joy to other Gamers. He may, in turn, spread his knowledge of games to a Comic Book geek and through him into a completely different interest group of people. This cultural cross pollination of interests creates an interesting and distinguishing network of lingo and references that help distinguish net denizens to one another amid the sea of casual internet users. They learn to recognize each other through a use of subtle references and terms. This allows to them to group together without exposing their interests to the uninformed around them.
Interestingly this grouping exists not just on the internet but in real life as well. Through usage of references such as memes, phrases, shirts and posters and other things easily ignored by the people around them. In this way we learn to sound out the others around us and discern who else shares the common net culture. This allows the subculture to exist within a larger environment without exposing ourselves to those we feel uncomfortable with. These pockets of subculture act as a shelter from the boredom of the day and the restrictions of conversation with outsiders. Inside these group members are open to discuss openly about their interests and hobbies and hence continue to spread their particular knowledge through more groups. This continues the cross pollination and ensures a sort of common level of knowledge in each subject throughout the subculture.
Further observations to follow with future study.
So that's my idea as a completely uneducated 20 year old slacker with no formal training in anthropology.
discuss.
Jokers Gamble on
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How the hell is the internet a "natural resource"?
also, rules 1 and 2, and /b/ was never good.
but seriously, my point is that the secret language isn't so secret. Especially with places like the hundreds of failblogs, twitter, facebook, shit my dad says, and fuck autocorrect, that secret language is exposed to everyone who uses a computer for anything.
Case in point.
Pretty much.
No offense, OP. Your idea isn't wrong, but it's not novel either.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
If you don't mind, please attempt to define "special" in the sense of "special learning" and also define "scientific level."
I either agree or passionately disagree with your thesis depending on what level of formal education you consider necessary to attain a given level of understanding.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I think each group on the internet : be it mid sixties women connecting over knitting and face book or white supremist : embrace the internet as their own private kingdom complete with unwritten rules and lingo etc. It's more of a "if you don't bother to look for it you won't know it exist" type thing.
Good blog, PZ Myers has many years as a scientist and has well formed, although sometimes militant opinions.
The 400 blogs that misinterpret the laws of thermodynamics and then associate them with weight-loss plans are bad blogs.
The other day, my friend ran over to me to show me that on her tumblr, people were posting about a new "Drug" for "Cancer", that was being erased by big pharma. I calmly explained to her that DCA (Dichloroacetic Acid), showed some preliminary promise, but was largely toxic to a human host and that all the papers on DCA came from the same two professors at a very terrible university. I then explained to her that the people dosing themselves with DCA they ordered from chemical companies were making themselves very very sick, because DCA isn't exactly the friendliest thing to put in your body.
Whoever decided to tumbleate that specific nugget of misinformation didn't have the expertise to recognize molecular bullshit. Then every other layperson who was mildly interested in it passed it on without knowing it was false.
Somebody accepted as truth a piece of information from an unreliable source without doing a cursory search for more reliable sources.
A lack of expertise isn't really the problem there. A lack of basic skepticism is. Possibly a lack of basic scientific literacy.
I feel like I can evaluate claims on AGW, for instance, despite not having any expertise in climatology, as far as a Penny Arcade or reddit or Facebook conversation is concerned, through a combination of moderate skepticism towards sources plus basic understanding of the scientific method.
And we all have to learn how to evaluate claims outside of our given areas of expertise.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
1. I didn't really think it was I just find it an interesting subject for discussion. I like that I can easily recognize someone with similar interests through subtle visual and vocal cues. It makes socializing easier for those of us with limiting social anxiety.
2. I don't think that the internet is my own special kingdom. I'm more trying to discuss how it lets people express their interest in a manner that shields them from negative societal stereotyping and in turn how it lets them bring that in to the real world. Maybe your Grandma doesn't join just talk about knitting on Facebook. Maybe she has a membership on a Gun forum but she doesn't want to explain to you and the family that she knows how to disassemble and maintain an AR-15 because she finds it interesting.
3. You're welcome to discuss armchair internet amateurism all you want. I'm of a mindset that being an amateur isn't necessarily a bad thing. A college degree is a great thing to have and it opens your mind extensively but I don't believe that it makes you more capable of having good ideas, just better at expressing them. Kind of like being big doesn't make you a good fighter, just makes it a little easier.
I realize I seem kind of like a self righteous clown here but I'm really just interested in the discussion.
also the internet as a natural resource thing was dumb. I will readily admit that.
Huh?
All that I did is provide the actual name for the social phenomenon you've described. It's a real thing and sociologists have studied it for years. In fact, a big area of study right now is memes, microcultures, and ad-hoc cultures. It's pretty much right up your alley.
You also might want to read Goffman. His work on identity as performance (drawn from face to face interactions but very applicable to identity formation on the internet) would be of interest.
Also, you're wrong about formal education. It lets you know what has already been examined, and through the exploration of others' ideas, one's own ideas are refined. In some cases, entirely new areas open for excavation. Reading Goffman made me critically analyze identity and community formation on the internet, and I did research on the uses of aliases in professional online gaming communities. Without reading Goffman (and I likely would not have read him if I had not gone to college), I never would have had the thought at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erving_Goffman
Which of his works should one read first?
Yup, that's him. "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life" is his most important work and is pretty accessible imho. It has lots of practical implications as well.
And it's still awesome
Similarly you could get a degree and fail to have learned much of anything over the course of those 4 years. Formal education is great in that you can be exposed to thoughts, avenues, and ideas that might have otherwise never crossed your mind, and having a better understanding of what they all mean thanks to having a good mentor help guide you along the way; but you get out of it what you put in. Circling back to the thread topic, you can become as knowledgeable on some subjects as people with actual degrees thanks to the internet and a library card thanks to the as yet still constantly expanding amount of new/old source material being put up online every day. Such an exciting time to be alive.
I agree with the first bit; you get what you put in.
As for the end, not quite. Solo study isn't enough. You need to be around people who are similarly immersed in learning and can challenge you. This does not require being in a formal academic environment, but it's difficult to find in the real world. The collaborative aspect of learning is often underrated but is still very important.
I largely agree. An individual learning in isolation needs to be reality-checked regularly. Otherwise you may build on an incorrect understanding of the fundamentals, or latch on to a discredited theory without knowing that it's been discredited, or you may latch on to a correct theory without understanding the exceptions to that theory (like the guy who learns basic econ and thinks everything follows a perfect supply/demand curve).
I'm all for self-education. Most of what I know about history and philosophy I learned long after college.
It helps that I have a highly knowledgeable peer group. I can bounce ideas off of Evil Multifarious or MrMister or other notable D&D'ers as well as some of my college buddies over Facebook.
In an age where you have MIT Open Courseware and iTunes U and other free learning materials, the collaboration aspect of higher education becomes even more important. College becomes a way of networking; it also becomes a way of vetting your knowledge. I could probably write a book right now on one or two academic topics, but I know that publishing it would be a lot easier if I had an institutional affiliation.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Which isn't to say that self-education isn't good and doesn't have it's place, but let's not kid ourselves here about how much better having an actual teacher is.
So you agree that the collaborative nature of learning, which studying online can lack, is important and difficult to find outside of traditional academic settings...then list people you met online as the primary mensches with whom you typically collaborate. I'm not meaning to suggest that mentors, colleagues, and well informed peers to act as sounding boards aren't important. Hell, half of my photoshop skills come directly from working in studio where people who discovered a 'new' shortcut would share. Studies have shown that some of the most incredible things to come out of Bell Labs were invented practically by accident just thanks to having that many smart people hanging around the water cooler talking about their work rather than secluded in tiny labs throughout the country.
I don't want to downplay that, but similarly I don't want to understate the incredible wealth of knowledge and wisdom that anyone can acquire now that was once nearly inaccessible to 99% of everyone. Let alone the peers you can discover online that you would never have met any other way. (For instance, I'm meeting Tarranon in a couple days, and the impact that this board and other places have had on my thinking and knowledge of the world is pretty damn spectacular.) Nor the fact that plenty of people with degrees are fools and innumerable people without a formal education are brilliant. The cool old guy you always see at the library probably doesn't know enough about economics to warrant a Nobel prize, but he may well know more than the slacker who got C's throughout his MBA.
What I'm trying to say, and I don't think I'm communicating it well, is that formal education is not an exceptional path to knowledge, but it is an exceptional path to being able to apply that knowledge. Ultimately, the knowledge I've gained from informal study and conversation just makes me an interesting cocktail party guest. It's not really worth a whole lot.
(Sorry, I'm a little frustrated at academia right now.)
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I'd very much disagree. Formal Education is one of the best paths to knowledge.
In my experience, for most people self-learning just doesn't extend far enough into the nitty-gritty minutia that you really need to understand a topic. You need some sort of push and/or a helping hand.
Self-education (in general obviously) is much more about, well, cocktail party knowledge. Enough to understand the subject so you can talk about it and know what's going on when experts talk about it, but not enough to really get it on a deep deep level. For that I think you need a more directed education with more help and, frankly, more being forced to learn.
To me, I guess, it's like when you are learning another language. It's all fun at first, but at some point you hit the "drill drill drill bitch" wall of having to put your skull to the grindstone and I think self-education rarely possesses the focus for powering through that.