Tag
Articles tagged subculture.
The archetypal online community is specialised in its collective interests, hostile to outsiders, particular about its tastes and difficult for normies to get into. Knowledge and skill, especially when useful for creating relevant content for the community, is highly valued; "otaku" is the Japanese equivalent of the "autist".
The following is my take on doing the same for online subcultures. I do this by clarifying the definitions of three highly popular terms used on the Internet to describe different kinds of subcultural participants, and clarifying the concept of the ironist in the context of online subcultures.
I think there's a school of ‘Internet philosophy’ like there is continental philosophy or Anglo-American philosophy, with its own dominant interests and a unique style of discourse. I'm trying to figure out what this consists of. It's a combination of demographics, dominant areas of interest (both within and without strict philosophy) and conventions and canons unique to the school.
I was walking home from a friend's place yesterday when I saw a few children chasing each other and play fighting. As I walked past, I heard one tell the other, 'get wrecked!' I wondered whether they learned it from video games they play (my guess was either LoL or DotA, but it could be one of those FPSs) or from older kids (or perhaps, most befittingly, even older kids online!) they know such as their older siblings.