Atomisation
Dec. 30th, 2019 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI have been feeling disconnected and like it's difficult to find community
even more so now than... some halcyon golden age when I was younger, that was probably really stressful at the time but at least involved occasional conversation.
I think it's not just me.
I been seeing comments around so these are not original thoughts, but:
There isn't one unifying experience of culture any more. Any culture.
When we had three or five TV channels, a regular comics schedule, and book shops full of this year's books, there was kind of a rhythm to cultural consumption. DVD and VHS started to change things, but the restricted stock in the video rental store and the prices on early equipment and even tapes made saving up a season a rare and precious thing.
Right now I can watch any Doctor Who they've saved, in the iPlayer or BritBox. Apparently DW was the most streamed TV on Britbox for xmas? But I haven't tried it yet. Since I have all the DVDs (except the ones I forgot).
But that ought to mean I can talk DW with way more people now. The barriers to watching it are pretty much gone. You still need equipment, but a much broader variety of multi purpose equipment. Everyone can watch and many people do.
But that is true of so many other things at once.
So any individual's experience of TV this week or month or year will be spread out back to 1963 easy, with entire shows there for the streaming any time
and the competition means harsly anyone has watched the same thing this week.
... also they watch them like regular people, not enthusiasts or fans.
... it turns out regular people can watch tv for an hour or day and then have nothing to say about it.
*blinks*
And with comics as well, you've got this mixture of extreme mass coverage (Disney and WB promoting everything) with very varied levels of knowledge about very different products. And I've seen purists try and refer back to the comics as the real and true, but that's never been very convincing when so many more people know the movies or cartoons. And yet comics are increasingly available online. Makes me feel vaguely guilty for not getting back into them. I could go read my favourite ones again, on this here screen, as I understand it. No idea how much money or whatever, but is all out there somewhere.
So everyone is reading something different.
And books... well, online makes it seem like everything is available forever, but then you want to try buying something ten years old and that's... tricky, but probable in ebook form, or you're going back further and it's probably all paper and increasingly tattered. But the big new releases of the year? OMG so many more of them. It used to be you could plausibly read the Hugo eligible works, or so I read, but now there's just... books, far as eye can see.
Which is great, but increasingly unlikely to lead to any two people you know having read the same thing.
All this customisation of our own experience is grand and enjoyable
and leaves us in tiny atomized cultures of one, because nobody else traced the same path through media to get here
which is awesome
and
isolating.
And it's not just media.
I mean football seems to be more of a shared experience still, but it isn't exactly the local community thing.
and my shopping arrived early and unusual cleaner is here and that all interrupted my chain of thought
but
basically
There is so much more culture now, the whole of history all around the world talking to seven billion people, and all seven billion talking back
that it's increasingly difficult
I find
to have an experience in common
in the way fandom used to be built on.
So I do not know how to find the places we connect
or build on them.
Needs worked on.
even more so now than... some halcyon golden age when I was younger, that was probably really stressful at the time but at least involved occasional conversation.
I think it's not just me.
I been seeing comments around so these are not original thoughts, but:
There isn't one unifying experience of culture any more. Any culture.
When we had three or five TV channels, a regular comics schedule, and book shops full of this year's books, there was kind of a rhythm to cultural consumption. DVD and VHS started to change things, but the restricted stock in the video rental store and the prices on early equipment and even tapes made saving up a season a rare and precious thing.
Right now I can watch any Doctor Who they've saved, in the iPlayer or BritBox. Apparently DW was the most streamed TV on Britbox for xmas? But I haven't tried it yet. Since I have all the DVDs (except the ones I forgot).
But that ought to mean I can talk DW with way more people now. The barriers to watching it are pretty much gone. You still need equipment, but a much broader variety of multi purpose equipment. Everyone can watch and many people do.
But that is true of so many other things at once.
So any individual's experience of TV this week or month or year will be spread out back to 1963 easy, with entire shows there for the streaming any time
and the competition means harsly anyone has watched the same thing this week.
... also they watch them like regular people, not enthusiasts or fans.
... it turns out regular people can watch tv for an hour or day and then have nothing to say about it.
*blinks*
And with comics as well, you've got this mixture of extreme mass coverage (Disney and WB promoting everything) with very varied levels of knowledge about very different products. And I've seen purists try and refer back to the comics as the real and true, but that's never been very convincing when so many more people know the movies or cartoons. And yet comics are increasingly available online. Makes me feel vaguely guilty for not getting back into them. I could go read my favourite ones again, on this here screen, as I understand it. No idea how much money or whatever, but is all out there somewhere.
So everyone is reading something different.
And books... well, online makes it seem like everything is available forever, but then you want to try buying something ten years old and that's... tricky, but probable in ebook form, or you're going back further and it's probably all paper and increasingly tattered. But the big new releases of the year? OMG so many more of them. It used to be you could plausibly read the Hugo eligible works, or so I read, but now there's just... books, far as eye can see.
Which is great, but increasingly unlikely to lead to any two people you know having read the same thing.
All this customisation of our own experience is grand and enjoyable
and leaves us in tiny atomized cultures of one, because nobody else traced the same path through media to get here
which is awesome
and
isolating.
And it's not just media.
I mean football seems to be more of a shared experience still, but it isn't exactly the local community thing.
and my shopping arrived early and unusual cleaner is here and that all interrupted my chain of thought
but
basically
There is so much more culture now, the whole of history all around the world talking to seven billion people, and all seven billion talking back
that it's increasingly difficult
I find
to have an experience in common
in the way fandom used to be built on.
So I do not know how to find the places we connect
or build on them.
Needs worked on.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-30 02:42 pm (UTC)I guess this is just the new normal, but it sure makes me feel isolated.