Widening Epicenters

Online culture is a fascinating thing. I've talked about it a lot, pointing out individual community behavior, the sizes and lifespans of online communities, community regulation, and community leadership. But now I want to ask a broader question: How has online culture changed over time?

Different question from the center of the Internet or the end of the Internet. (Image source here)

Once upon a time, I once drew a line between "old" and "new" internet culture, with Anonymous as the border between the two. 4chan used to be considered the epicenter of online culture on the Internet. Nowadays, that title might go to Reddit.

But that's just me talking about anecdotes. Can we demonstrate that there is such a thing as online epicenters? Where is it? Where has that title drifted to over the course of the Internet?

Reddit, Online Hubs, and Street Gangs

Yes, yes, sensational title. Today's thesis is completely crazy and unlikely to actually be correct. But hey, I thought it might be interesting. Of course, this post's written mainly from an American perspective.

Reddit has a multifaceted reputation. As one of the most popular websites on the Internet, the online hub has earned a name for itself as a place where you can find funny pictures, personal insights from celebrities, and atheists. Lots of atheists. As we've also seen, however, it has its seedy underbelly, harboring MRAs, racists, and literal pedophiles.

The things that lurk behind that friendly gaze...

We can praise or condemn the site as much as we want. Reddit's existence, for better or for worse, has overtaken the role of the traditional internet forum. Sure, social media has played a role in the decline of online forums in general, but Reddit is easily the most forum-like of the big sites today. Reddit's features make a lot of smaller forums redundant, and over time, forums have been dying out.

What can we learn from this? Let's go way out into left field and talk about street gangs.

Identity Dunces

We've talked about online social justice before, and its profound ability to bring information and perspective to otherwise sheltered individuals. We focused on the most powerful and most socially pressing of the movements, but in reality, there are a variety of social movements that have begun emerging in various corners of the Internet.

Some are certainly legitimate, but go deep enough and you'll find bizarre and contrived claims to identities, each with their own strange internal politics.

And guess where we'll be going to find them!

Today we'll look at the very long list of Tumblr social justice movements, starting with the more legitimate causes, and then diving deeper until we find the criminally insane. Because this Twitter account was definitely inspired by something.

As Real as it Gets

In 1992, The Real World hit television screens nationwide, and sparked America's love affair with reality TV.

Though, it did not rekindle America's love for beatnik sweaters.

The appeal of the show - and other shows in the reality television genre - came from the unscripted, 'raw' element of the footage. People naturally find other people fascinating, so what kind of zany scenarios could we see if we throw a bunch of complete strangers in a house and film it?

The Internet has emerged as one of the fastest and easiest ways to transfer information, through text, images, and videos. It has become the ultimate reality show, giving us a new window into other people's lives and exposure to situations previously unimaginable.

Anonymous and the Chaotic Wellsprings

Lots of people - even those who aren't too steeped in Internet nonsense - have probably heard of the group called Anonymous.

Ah yes, who could I possibly trust more to talk about the Internet than FOX News reporters?

The much-sensationalized group originated on the website 4chan, where the default setting for its members' names is "Anonymous". Since the vast majority of people don't bother to change the default name and let their online handles remain "Anonymous", the joke is that Anonymous is one entity, formed by the contributions of many. On 4chan's "random" subforum - often shortened to /b/ - the posters would get into all sorts of strange activity, giving Anonymous its wild reputation.

But Anonymous is not unique. The /b/ subforum was one of a long line of similar forums on the Internet, where the rules are relaxed and the users form an unwieldy community. Today, we'll explore the corners of the Internet where this has happened before, ant talk about why Anonymous has been elevated above the rest.

Digital Jargon

I once wrote a blog post talking about insular communities on the Internet, complete with shared quirks of language that help members of the group identify one another. In that particular post, I used fairly mundane examples of quirky language - mostly single phrases that function like passwords to the group, like Reddit's "What time does the narwhal bacon?"

Still loving this picture.

Some online communities have more specialized vocabulary than others. Sometimes an online community gets to a point where they have so many inside jokes that outsiders have trouble understanding people's messages. But sometimes - in rarer instances, admittedly - it's a conscious construction of a new way of speech. Sometimes it's so extensive that you, as an outsider, can't interpret basic statements without having prerequisite knowledge about the community.

Today, we're talking about two websites that are particularly insular in this way: TV Tropes and Less Wrong.