Sarah, I've been thinking about this for some
years. This is a trend that isn't only happening on the internet. We
are filtering our social networks, our activities, hobbies, schools,
where we live. Anyway we are in the United States. In some way, simply
living in Canada is one giant filter unless you are in Vacover or
Toronto.
I am a devoted contra dancer. This is an outgrowth of square dancing from New England with French-Canadian celtic roots. In the old days (before TV) every town had it's resident fiddler and dance (that's all it was . . . "The Dance" . . . with swing and ragtime and so forth mixed right in with squares, quadrilles, triplets, reels and all the old forms. TV killed most of that and the remnent has morphed into this scene that is based heavily on burning gas to travel much longer distances to leave neighbors behind to go to dances with a regional draw. The dances are much much better, in terms of caliber of dancers and music, but it's the star system at work now. The dance community is a community of interest and passion, now, less of geography and all the other ties that come with.
Technology drives this trend in many ways. Automobiles and the landscape they create are fundementally alienating. Americans (in the US) have been happy to leave behind public transit, in large part because they didn't really LIKE the experience (I do). Thus advertising themes promoting the "freedom" of drivinng. TV is an individual (and passive) experience, even when you are sitting next to someone. Randomly I stumbled upon a little article on Wired News reacting to a study that said that couples who had TV's in their bedroom have 50% less sex. Now that's something to think about.
And then you have "BRANDING", which in a sense is it's own kind of "technology" in the manner that folks giving empowerment workships like to speak of. Our identity (in the US) is less geography AND less about our own ethnic group. A hundred years ago, it was much harder to belong to the vast amorphus plain of white folk - you were Irish or Italian or Polish or WASP (otherwise known as "native" before "Native American" was acknowleged to exist) or French-Canadian, etc . . . So we've created identities of choice to replace that.
Sometimes I think modern fundementalist Christianity (which is indeed a very post-modern creation, theologically and culturally having major differences with dominant Christianity from before TV, autos, etc) - sometimes I think that's just a manufactured identity ("born again") that one can choose in order to put to rest various fears and insecurities of our age. I know I'd offend a lot of people by saying that, and I'm well aware that evanglical Christians are inheriters of the same spiritual tradition that has norished . . . all of us really, even if we aren't Christian, because we have (in the US, anyway), a culture that comes out of Christianity (like it or not). Well, that's a grand sweep of the last fifty years! Look what you provoked!
I am a devoted contra dancer. This is an outgrowth of square dancing from New England with French-Canadian celtic roots. In the old days (before TV) every town had it's resident fiddler and dance (that's all it was . . . "The Dance" . . . with swing and ragtime and so forth mixed right in with squares, quadrilles, triplets, reels and all the old forms. TV killed most of that and the remnent has morphed into this scene that is based heavily on burning gas to travel much longer distances to leave neighbors behind to go to dances with a regional draw. The dances are much much better, in terms of caliber of dancers and music, but it's the star system at work now. The dance community is a community of interest and passion, now, less of geography and all the other ties that come with.
Technology drives this trend in many ways. Automobiles and the landscape they create are fundementally alienating. Americans (in the US) have been happy to leave behind public transit, in large part because they didn't really LIKE the experience (I do). Thus advertising themes promoting the "freedom" of drivinng. TV is an individual (and passive) experience, even when you are sitting next to someone. Randomly I stumbled upon a little article on Wired News reacting to a study that said that couples who had TV's in their bedroom have 50% less sex. Now that's something to think about.
And then you have "BRANDING", which in a sense is it's own kind of "technology" in the manner that folks giving empowerment workships like to speak of. Our identity (in the US) is less geography AND less about our own ethnic group. A hundred years ago, it was much harder to belong to the vast amorphus plain of white folk - you were Irish or Italian or Polish or WASP (otherwise known as "native" before "Native American" was acknowleged to exist) or French-Canadian, etc . . . So we've created identities of choice to replace that.
Sometimes I think modern fundementalist Christianity (which is indeed a very post-modern creation, theologically and culturally having major differences with dominant Christianity from before TV, autos, etc) - sometimes I think that's just a manufactured identity ("born again") that one can choose in order to put to rest various fears and insecurities of our age. I know I'd offend a lot of people by saying that, and I'm well aware that evanglical Christians are inheriters of the same spiritual tradition that has norished . . . all of us really, even if we aren't Christian, because we have (in the US, anyway), a culture that comes out of Christianity (like it or not). Well, that's a grand sweep of the last fifty years! Look what you provoked!