• • • • • •
Gordon Ball Barrier Kult Lindsey Kemp Andrew Peden Illustrators Photographers www.youthandrust.com
November 18, 2014 • ∞• Issue 3 • It is better to make a mistake than not do anything.
TUNED TO A DEAD CHANNEL
IF INTERNET DESTROYS MASS CULTURE, HOW DOES SUBCULTURE CONTINUE TO EXIST? When William Gibson began conceiving the concept of cyberspace he would popularize in his 1984 novel Neuromancer, he envisioned a data-composed space with limitless possibilities where, in his words, “we would conduct the world.” Cyberspace may not have exactly manifested itself to encourage the hallucinatory physical action perfect for science fiction, but the Internet’s ubiquitous social commons Gibson mused about has become an increasing reality. 20 years later, the Internet has been paramount in democratizing information; we’ve seen everything from albums to 3D printing plans for a prosthetic arm become accessible en masse. This shift in the dissemination of information seems at first glance like a natural benefit to punk culture, which practices values of anti-capitalism and anti-authoritarianism that the internet can facilitate. Punk has found new ways to spread its cultural capital through forums, blogs, and downloads, handing out access more effectively on its own terms. It’s true some (old) people whined about how once you really had to try to access your tribe — now you could just download your identity (somehow equating difficulty to one’s right to possess culture or one’s cognitive ability to digest it), the argument proven somewhat moot based on the fact that Internet or no, posers have always existed and tend to either age out fast or reveal their poserness by being aggressive pricks/homophobes/ass kissers/etc and get phased out the scene. Anyway, it’s true that the Internet has managed to push most underground cultures into a space where anyone with an interest can access them with ease. I sometimes wonder what the result has been for more remote punk communities. For example, would Squamish, B.C. have such an intense grindcore scene without the Internet? It’s also not just subculture that’s been formed anew — I’d argue that because of the Internet, mass culture has started to collapse in on itself. Here’s why: the Internet has led us into an era of individualized cultural consumption. We’re no longer reliant on television, record
Image by Chloe Ringe companies and other top-down structures to distribute culture. In the 21st century, we curate (and are starting to fund) what we consume based on our individual tastes and interests. “Mass culture”, implying essentially, the cultural products marketed and distributed to society as a whole, can now cease to exist. Evidence of this is everywhere. In the summer, Bell Media announced that Much Music — definitely one of the only golden nuggets to come out of the mass culture structure — would be cutting 91 jobs, reducing it to a skeleton staff and playing mostly syndicated content. Last time I walked past Queen and John, the wheels on the Chum City truck had literally stopped turning. Taylor Swift was the only artist to reach over 1,000,000 albums sold this year, and until her late October release, it looked like this would be the first year since its inception that no album would go Platinum. The closest contenders were 2013 albums by Beyonce and Lorde — who herself looks like she burst out of a tumblr page. By chance I ended up seeing the Replacements play Osheaga in Montreal this summer and they were great, though 90 per cent of the people there didn’t care. As I was turning to leave along with all the dads who had also come just to see the Mats, I was aggressively shoved away from the stage by teenagers clawing their way past me to
by
GRACE SCOTT
watch Lorde. As I walked towards the exit, I heard her breaking into a warbly rendition of “Swingin’ Party”. What’s left percolating in the death knell of mass culture seems ambiguous and fascinating to me, maybe because the market has become a less prevalent factor in trends, and the varying niche tastes of consumers are creating an interesting collage. Okay, Lorde covers “Swingin’ Party” and I can’t decide what I think about that. But I know I don’t inherently hate Lorde as a recording artist, the way I hated Evanescence or the fucking Pussycat Dolls in the early 2000s. I really like that Juicy J and Katy Perry single which to me seems like pure pop paradox. The gothy shoes they’re selling at Top Shop right now are pretty sick. However tolerable what’s left of the mainstream is becoming, the affect it could have on punk is something worth considering. What initially drew me to punk was its subversion of mass culture, while in a way revering it in the same moment. The cheeky infantilization of Ronald Reagan in “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg”, the violently skewed pop imagery of early British punk; “On T.V.”, “T.V. Party”, “T.V. Casualty”.
OH! MR. DISNEY WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? Continues on back page...