The Internet Didn’t Kill Counterculture—you Just Won’t Find It on Instagram
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The Internet Didn’t Kill Counterculture—you Just Won’t Find It on Instagram
In context, these artists (like the psychedelic hippies of yore) were being literally countercultural—using culture against itself to violate the hegemonic push toward, in Allin’s and Rice’s case, neoliberal “responsibilization.”
documentjournal.com • The Internet Didn’t Kill Counterculture—you Just Won’t Find It on Instagram
The names of these e-deologies tend to be both fantastical and literal. A “post-civilizationist” might focus on what optimal human survival would look like were civilization no longer possible. A “voluntarist post-agrarianist,” meanwhile, might value anarcho-primitivism skills but see them as integral to realizing a civilization sustained through o
... See moreCaroline Busta • The Internet Didn’t Kill Counterculture—you Just Won’t Find It on Instagram
In an era more profoundly organized by Big Tech than our own elected governments, the new culture to be countered isn’t singular or top-down. It’s rhizomatic, nonbinary, and includes all who live within the Google/Apple/Facebook/Amazon digital ecosystem (aka GAFA stack).
Caroline Busta • The Internet Didn’t Kill Counterculture—you Just Won’t Find It on Instagram
For one, anonymity, or at least pseudonymity, is increasingly important if not fundamental to being active online in counter-hegemonic ways.
Caroline Busta • The Internet Didn’t Kill Counterculture—you Just Won’t Find It on Instagram
In the age of social media, personal expression has become the most valuable form of currency, yet we still use the term ‘counterculture’ to describe alternatives to the hegemonic forces of yesteryear, as if dressing middle-class, white, and preppy still aligned with the rules of power today.
Caroline Busta • The Internet Didn’t Kill Counterculture—you Just Won’t Find It on Instagram
Now “selling out” is tying your online identity to your IRL life and real name. In part, this is because one of the biggest impediments to countercultural activity is the fact that the internet doesn’t suppress expression—it forces you to express and then holds you accountable for whatever you say for years. On the platform, silence isn’t an option... See more
documentjournal.com • The Internet Didn ’t Kill Counterculture—you Just Won’t Find It on Instagram
“To be truly countercultural in a time of tech hegemony, one has to, above all, betray the platform which may come in the form of betraying or divesting from your public online self
Caroline Busta • The Internet Didn’t Kill Counterculture—you Just Won’t Find It on Instagram
the system will only make the system stronger, the next generation is instead opting for radical hyperstition: constructing alternative futures that abandon
Caroline Busta • The Internet Didn’t Kill Counterculture—you Just Won’t Find It on Instagram
To be truly countercultural today, in a time of tech hegemony, one has to, above all, betray the platform, which may come in the form of betraying or divesting from your public online self.