Subculture Woes of the Digital Divide.

My apologies for my tardiness in my first entry. Life in grad school is a fickle beast, draining time, and offering no chance of sleep. With that said...

Do any of us go about charting how often we spend in front of the technological idiot box? My time recently has been devoted to the seemingly never-ending process of updating and editing my music collection. 37 gigabytes worth of my teenage and 20-something history, laid out in the OCD shades of trying to find all the musicians for a Charles Mingus piece called "Pithecanthropus Erectus."

And then, it got the gears in my head turning a bit faster: where do we draw the line now between where subculture stops and technology begins?

It used to be simple. Your efforts in subculture depended wholeheatedly upon your circle of friends, where you lived, and what construed "rebellion" between you and your parents. Now, if you take a stroll in your local mall or center of conspicuous commercial consumption, subculture and culture as a whole (both as container metaphors and as the physical aspects thereof), are purchaseable. You can walk into any number of stores based upon a 10-second first impression, to purchase, listen and learn. Grab a few buzz words, some slang, and ask people what they're listening to lately, and (seemingly) $100-200 later, you have estabished your outward credibility in a band shirt, the way you speak, or perhaps the slouch of your jeans.

This idea leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Namely because technology is so close to my heart. The idea that the internet, in cooperation with the undeniable force of word of mouth has been responsible for some of my favorite musical discoveries, makes me realize that I too fit into this mold at some point. I was that kid with the backpack, sharpies, sketchbook, and oversized headphones getting my first tastes of underground hip-hop. But, along these same lines, the internet wasn't everything. Culture is not an ornament to be observed...part of participation in it is research, though we never see it as such. By taking in a single experience, or listening to a single piece, we open ourselves to others, whether we realize it actively or not. With the case of the aforementioned "culture in a package," where does this research come in? Is it still research if the matter of discovery is Wikipedia alone?

In subculture, it is sometimes regarded that the face-to-face interaction is the primary method of absolute growth. By speaking as opposed to typing, we come to interact from across this digital divide, perhaps retreating to it when we have no further interactions to make for the time. In this case, the digital divide is a "pacifying chasm," that we either fall face first into, never changing our rate of descent, or one that we come to from time to time, to explore the depths of. Indeed, it is a reappropriation of the "divide" metaphor, but I believe an applicable one, none the less.

Is culture a packaged medium? Perhaps, but the limitations and size of the package vary from person to person, which perhaps leads part of cultures into "pastiche" or parody of previous elements. It is something ever changing as the "digital divide" grows, but where subculture is concerned, this divide may also be a trap. Subculture does not exist to refuse entry or deny interest based upon credibility (per se). However, in the grand scheme of the "digital divide," and how these cultures relate to technology, it is perhaps only a fraction of what is shown. The rest is to be discovered in trial, error, and research, only retreating to technology to look for more, and bring it back to the circle you have learned from.