This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Is Dinergoth a real thing? (soft-paywalled; use reader mode to get the whole article)
Before we get carried away with narrative, let's do a reality check. Is "Dinergoth" pointing to a real cultural phenomenon? Can anyone provide anecdotal evidence?
I can probably think of one or two people I know who meet this description, but that's not enough to validate the claim, which is that:
The problem is, this archetypal Dinergoth is, by construction, invisible to anyone who's not one of them. They can't afford to live in big cities, so you'll never encounter them there. Even in a small town, the Dinergoths are shut-ins who never leave their (parents') homes and never venture out into the community to meet people. Instead they (supposedly) spend all their time chatting with each other on Discord (hence, so the article claims, the flattening of regional accents among the youth - although I think that trend is older than gaming chats).
And now that I've read this article, the next time I run across one of those obese 20-something piercing-having pink-hairs I occasionally spy at CVS or Walmart, I'll update my stereotype of them from "Antifa" to "Dinergoth"; but really I'll have no evidence either way unless I talk to them and get to know them, which I won't.
Perhaps some of you reading this are Dinergoths yourselves, although I rather doubt it.
In the olden days, subcultures had real functions, a chief one of which was that they allowed one to explore genres of music efficiently. If you were dissatisfied with mainstream pop and happened to hear, say, gothic rock and liked it, it's not like you had hundreds of curated Spotify playlists (or, earlier, music blogs) to find more stuff quickly; you'd get handmade zines, sections in obscure record shops, small clubs (or club nights) and, especially in non-Anglo countries, the necessity for mail-ordering stuff. To find all that you'd need to get into the local goth scene, and of course there would be other benefits like other media, interesting conversations, drugs, strange ideas and belief systems you wouldn't get elsewhere and so on that would keep you there.
Since all that is not particularly necessary now - due to the said Spotify playlists and music blogs and such - all the subcultures have since started to bleed together to create some sort of a general lowest-common-denominator simulcra of a subcultural look which, for some odd reason, is now being called "goth" despite not particularly resembling the goths of old, expect perhaps for the derided "Hot Topic goths". Earlier the same look was often called "emo" with only marginally more of a connection to the claimed musical genre.
I think the bigger one was the sense of community itself. Maybe you were a loner in your class, but you could put on your "uniform" and mingle with people like you. You could even identify each other from a distance, just one glance to see that the person across the street was one of yours.
The sense of community probably dominated once you were in the community, but the exploration of niche interests, chiefly music, was what got people in the first place and the communities formed.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link