The Subculture of the Internet

With the introduction of the internet came sounding changes that I don't think anyone could see coming. This world wide web of information enabled people to have access to a seemingly unlimited amount of information. For instance, my dad and I attempted to replace a headlight on his Chevy Tahoe over the Christmas break. After spending roughly 30 minutes trying to open the casing which locked the headlight in place we decided to check youtube for a demonstration. In a matter of three minutes a young man we had never met before showed us what we were doing wrong and how to fix our mistake.

Numerous times I have scoured the internet searching for help on school or recreational projects. Even last night I was on youtube looking for help in my engineering class. The internet has become a well of information that we are constantly connected to, whether in our homes, on our phones, or nowadays even in our cars. However, along with that plethora of information comes another side effect: interaction.

Through the use of the internet people from all sorts of societies are able to talk to one another and exchange ideas. People from completely different continents are able to work on projects together. I occasionally browse the website reddit.com simply because I love seeing the interaction between people of totally different cultures come together. It's a chance for strangers to show the world what exactly they are like and what they like to do, and the internet is a fun place because no matter what it is that you like to do, you can find a website with people who love doing the same thing. Through the exposure of every society on the planet and absorbing bits of each of them, the internet has become a culture all in itself. Words, such as "troll", "meme" and "pwned", all have meanings originating from the internet. The language of leet (1337) speak, which uses numbers, letters, and other ASCII characters to create words, began on the internet. A more recent example of how the internet culture has entered our own cultures is the rapid exposure of the Harlem Shake. Personally, I had never heard the song before but now I can recognize it instantaneously.

While certain sections of the internet is are very scary places, much of it is incredibly interesting. What do you think? Is there a predominant culture residing in the internet? Is it a conglomeration of others or is it unique and separate? I am interested on hearing other's views.

The Grunge Movement of the 90's: How It Affected our Culture Today

On February 1st, Sound City hit public theaters and video-on-demand. Directed by Foo Fighter's frontman Dave Grohl, this documentary of the Los Angeles studio of the same name elaborates on what my friend can only call "...dirty, greasy, old time rock and roll stories." Of all the musicians today, Grohl is certainly no stranger to these kind of stories. Grohl hit mainstream success with a little help from a band called Nirvana. During the 1990's, Nirvana was one of the leading bands in the grunge movement, a phase of heavy music which originated in Seattle. Alongside such notable bands such as Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana pushed grunge out into the rest of the country, radically changing our culture of music.

While looking for blogs concerning the grunge movement, I found a blog which seemed to be equally as angry as grunge itself (click here). Looking at the rhetorical devices used in this post, the first thing that sticks out to me is the diction. Ryan uses such loaded words to denounce the new bands that are taking the reigns. Overall, the tone of the post seems very, very angry. This technique, however, does a great job in mimicking the type of music is talks about. If Ryan were to be commenting on Katy Perry with this same type of tone, it would feel greatly out of place. Grunge was a type of music new to our culture; it was one that was intended to be judged, to be rejected by the majority, and to stand out. The author knows this and writes his post the same way a grunge artist was to write a song.

On the other end of the spectrum stands a more professional and less furious (click here) blog post about grunge. In this post, the author relies heavily on ethos and spends much more time telling why the grunge movement became what it was. It is much more calm and a lot more coherent. It is, in a way, much like Sound City. It is a documentary. The diction is a lot less loaded and the tone seems more informative than persuasive. There are no vulgar similies or metaphors. With the use of these device, the author conveys much more clarity and calmness in their post.

It may just be a personal bias but I truly believe grunge changed the music scene of our country. As such, I highly doubt that without the Seattle Sound music today would be the same. Music movements change our culture. We saw it happen with Elvis and Buddy Holly and again with the British Invasion, which ushered in big name bands such as The Beatles. Grunge was no different.

Technology: Is it our new culture?

After drastically losing our intramural basketball game on Thursday, I and a few members of the team (and of the organization I am a part of) decided to drown out our sorrows in pancakes at the local IHOP. While waiting on our food, we began talking how our meeting went last week and we discussed the new technique we had adopted in order to keep people involved in the meeting. Our executive board introduced live tweeting the meeting and at the end of the meeting, we would go back through the feed and showcase the tweets on our projector. It was about this time at IHOP when a friend asked me if I have a profile on Twitter, to which I replied I do not. The shock on her face was indescribable, almost to the point where I was about to ask if I had, instead, said something offensive.

Twitter is just one example of how technology has taken over our lives nowadays; it is so ingrained in our lives now that you're almost not human if you haven't embraced the new technology. That night at IHOP I had left my phone at home and, to be perfectly honest, I felt naked without it. Letters have become text messages and video chats are almost as commonplace now as phone calls. There have been times that I have called home only to be told by my parents that they want to "Skype me instead". Phones have now become our lifelines. At any moment one can find the weather across the state, have access to breaking news happening nationally, or even start a conversation with someone who is not even on the same continent with you. Society today has gotten to the point where when you apply for a job, you essentially have two resumes: the printed pieces of paper and your Facebook profile.

There's a wonderful picture floating around on the internet of the presidential family and Vice President Biden all staring into their phones during the second inauguration of Barack Obama (source: www.politicker.com). When I first saw this picture I immediately realized how much our culture has changed in recent years with the explosive growth of the smartphone. Not even the family of the most powerful man of the United States of America can escape the pull of technology. If not even someone like our president cannot put aside his cell phone for a couple of hours, are we, as members of a society that now relies on access to social media sites, expected to rely less on our phones?

I am not saying technology is bad. I am not saying that our technological culture is something we should be ashamed of. There is no need for us to go back to a time where we used a telegraph to tell people how we were doing. But instead, I ask that you look to the future. What kind of technological advances do we have in store for us in the upcoming years? Is that something we can even begin to predict? Is it a bad thing that hangouts with friends have become people sitting around together while on their phones? Technology, and especially the smartphone, has turned this culture around, but is it for the better or the worse?