
The Melancholy of Subculture Society - gwern
http://www.gwern.net/The%20Melancholy%20of%20Subculture%20Society
======
bitwize
If you quote William Gibson's analysis of Japanese society as authoritative or
insightful, you already lose. Gibson's social commentary has always had a
strong element of pseudointellectual profundity masquerading as depth.

In terms of tech adoption, Japan may have been ahead of the USA in some
respects, but in terms of how their society is structured they're still a few
decades _behind_. Their treatment of women, in particular, would strike an
American as archaic and quaintly _Mad Men_ at best, and at worst barbaric and
abusive. But the expectation of men -- to attach oneself to the underbelly of
some company and be taken care of for life in exchange for labor and undying
loyalty -- also comes, in the American perspective, from a long-bygone era.

Younger Japanese (age 40 and below) tend to be more worldly and cognizant of
other cultures, and understand that the social structures which served their
parents and grandparents are keeping Japan held back and isolated,
economically and socially. But because of deeply ingrained Confucian cultural
values about submission to elders, there's little they can do about it. The
gooey nougat of the hikikomori phenomenon is, it's sort of a quiet rebellion
against the complicated and restrictive social protocols that are part and
parcel of _being_ Japanese. It is the same with otaku: however trivial their
interests may be, they are determined to follow their own interests and choose
their own path, rather than simply do what is expected of them.

Is it possible for mainstream Japanese society to evolve to be more flexible
and accommodate more individuality, yet still remain distinctly Japanese? We
don't know that yet. They haven't tried.

~~~
telephonetemp
> If you quote William Gibson's analysis of Japanese society as authoritative
> or insightful, you already lose. Gibson's social commentary has always had a
> strong element of pseudointellectual profundity masquerading as depth.

Could you point out some specific flaws in this or other Gibson's essays?

~~~
runamok
And ruin a perfectly good ad hominem? ;-)

~~~
rfnslyr
Welp, here we go.

------
VLM
"As ever more opt out, the larger culture is damaged."

What is the larger culture? Those who've opted out of the real world and into
primetime TV, rabid sports fans, and social drinkers. Those opt out activities
are much more popular than EVEonline or the other examples and would seem like
a much better essay topic, certainly more raw material.

Fox news viewers outnumber active EVE players by an order of magnitude, as
just one of a zillion examples, and certainly are not any closer connected to
reality.

"gamer after gamer was now playing alone"

You can draw almost the same argument from live plays, to movie theaters, to
"the" family TV, to watching TV alone.

How about the trend of sports are something you play, then something you watch
your neighbors play, then something you watch regional teams play, then
something you watch in a bar with an expensive radio, later expensive TV,
finally sports are something you watch alone at home on TV.

Meanwhile in both examples, the real world goes on, outside.

You'll have about 100 times more data and over a longer time interval to
gather data. Seems a little overly trendy to grab an inferior topic instead.

~~~
pharrington
We're human beings. We're social animals. Popular culture is just as real as
nature. Popular culture is a popular way to connect with other people. And for
your example of Fox News, while that certainly is toxic to society, the
salient element of that toxicity is _not_ the popularity.

The article is about increasing hyper-specialization to the point of extreme
isolation.

~~~
cortesoft
Yes, we are social animals, but for much of our evolution we were social in
much, much smaller groups... even smaller than these 'sub' cultures the
article is talking about. Hunter-gatherer societies only had around 10-50
people in each group; we have evolved to be social in groups of this size.

The 'hyper-specialization' that you speak of might be a way to get our group
size back to this original size that we have evolved to be comfortable in; the
huge, un-natural, size of popular culture might be what we are reacting
against.

~~~
pharrington
The hyper-specialization we're talking about is specifically a way to avoid
having a social group. While the hikikomori may not have exclusive interests,
the whole point is to avoid physical contact with anyone at all. Maaaaybe I
just can't see far enough into the future, but personally I think physical
contact with other people is still _pretty_ important.

Also partaking in popular culture doesn't mean pulling everyone alive that's
interested in that culture into your social group.

------
egypturnash
> It is much more satisfactory and social to play MMORPGs on your PC than
> single-player RPGS, much more satisfactory to kill human players in Halo
> matches than alien AIs.

I'll grant that it's more social. I won't grant that it's more satisfactory.
For me, half the _point_ of video games is an onanistic retreat from the world
to a simpler world where I can just play around with some robots for a while.
I spend enough time managing my social circles in real life; I don't want to
have to do it when I relax, as well.

I don't think I can blame the internet for this. I was born before the rise of
the PC, never mind the internet; even then I would much rather have curled up
with a good book, or sat around drawing, than go out and make friends. The net
is _great_ IMHO because it lets introverts like me connect to other
introverts, and disconnect when we need to.

> As ever more opt out, the larger culture is damaged.

I don't think so. I think it's stronger. "Culture" becomes a flourishing
ecosystem of subcultures, rather than a monoculture. Some of them grow and
become major components of the overall culture. Some of them die out. Some of
them never grow to more than a modest size, but stick around.

The author of this speaks of "otaku" with a hint of disdain - but how common
is the stereotype of the "absent-minded scientist", who is so focused on their
work that everything else in their life kind of falls apart? What's the
difference?

I dunno, I just feel like this essay starts from the unspoken thesis that
"social connection is good and introverts are bad" and goes from there.

Fuck it; I just spent the whole weekend in a highly social environment,
sitting behind a table selling my comic book to people. I'm gonna go play
Skyrim in my bathrobe for six hours straight.

~~~
egypturnash
Seven hours of Skyrim later. I amused myself by tweeting about my game from
the point of view of my character, and had people saying I was making their
dreary Monday brighter with these little dispatches from a fantasy world.

Social is where you find it.

~~~
cowpewter
Kinda shameless self-promotion here, but I've doing exactly that in long-form
(basically a cross between a let's play and a fanfic) at honorablenord.com

Excuse to play lots of Skyrim and creative writing exercise all in one.

------
MarkPNeyer
> Spending months mastering Super Mario Bros - all alone - is a bad way to
> grow up normal.

Disagree. Even if you play mario brothers alone, when you're in school, you
can talk to other kids about playing mario brothers. It was _normal_ to do
this when I was a kid; when i met someone new, the first thing that I always
asked what "Do you have a computer? Do you play games on it?" I made many
friends this way.

~~~
gwern
Or you could have played something like sports with other kids, and both spent
time with them _and_ had something to talk about.

------
mwcampbell
Part of the article laments the possibility that two Americans might have less
in common than an American and a Japanese, as if nationality actually matters.
Why does it? Surely the only cultures that mean anything are rooted in ideas,
interests, and activities, not ancestry or aggregation of political power.

~~~
jorleif
That is a very modern take on it. I think the cultures that matter are the
ones that will protect you if you protect it. Traditionally they are very much
based on ancestry or political power. Still today, when people run into
trouble, the ones who pick them up are their oldest friends and relatives, not
people from their professional or hobby subculture, even if they are big shots
within those circles.

~~~
lmm
There are plenty of recorded cases of extraordinary acts of kindness between
people who knew each other only via some online hobby subculture. It'd be nice
to get some objective statistics here.

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psb
The multiple overlapping hierarchies stuff is new to me and pretty
fascinating. You could probably make a case that whatever benefits Alcoholics
Anonymous impart come from providing a community to feel useful and valuable
for its members.

~~~
ewzimm
I would go one step further and say that the desire to find one's place inside
a hierarchy is itself a (very large) subculture. It's certainly possible to
operate happily outside systems of social evaluation. Hermit monks have been
happily meditating for centuries, and the American West was once idealized for
its pioneer culture and the opportunity to live apart from civilization. While
some people retreat to subcultures to find peer approval, others certainly
just want to be alone with their environment.

------
_quasimodo
Not directly on topic, but i thought the ideas were somewhat related:

[http://xkcd.com/915/](http://xkcd.com/915/)

[http://xkcd.com/1095/](http://xkcd.com/1095/)

~~~
towski
You and your xkcd subculture

------
towski
I enjoy the ideas that are thrown around in the article, and it seems to
oscillate between pro and anti subculture. I definitely agree with the
advantages of sticking to a subculture, but am also stuck with a horrible
feeling of dispassion when I see people who are limited by their own
subculture, and unable to interact outside their chosen subculture.

I agree that the larger culture suffers as people retreat from it, and no more
is that more evident that the city. A large city like Los Angeles feels much
more healthy culturally than a small city like San Francisco, and I think it's
because people don't feel the need to retreat into their own subcultures, and
not give anything back to the larger community. What makes Los Angeles great
is the ability for many of the people to communicate between subcultures, and
that would be my argument for what gives a place a "healthy" culture.

However, the American culture as a whole has always been fragmented, and
perhaps it isn't possible to reconcile the separate parts. I certainly tried
to cross between Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, and San Francisco cultures,
and found that it is almost impossible to understand the deep cultural
assumptions of people who identify with one city, given experience with
another.

~~~
gwern
> I enjoy the ideas that are thrown around in the article, and it seems to
> oscillate between pro and anti subculture.

I started this essay back in 2009; 4 years later, I still have no idea whether
I am pro or anti.

~~~
derefr
Really, it's just a rephrasing of the meaning-of-life question, which itself
is, as far as I understand it, incoherent; "what is the _proper_ utility
function" is a value judgement, and thus can only be answered by someone who
already _has_ a utility function by some means or another. (Even questions
like "do you want your posthuman descendants to have this utility function or
that" depend on the parts of our utility functions that finds comfort in
familiarity, or interest in novelty, etc.)

Assuming that the less universally-agreed-upon aspects of our utility
functions are mostly built during childhood through social interaction,
whether you're better off in "culture" or a subculture depends entirely on
which one you end up adapting yourself to. It's sort of like asking whether a
refrigerator is better off plugged into 120V/60Hz or 240V/50Hz power: it
depends entirely on which power system the refrigerator was designed for.
Except, in a way, we design ourselves. I think the most important takeaway is
that children should be made aware of the grand choice they are making, in
hewing themselves to the mold of one reward system or the other; and of what
sort of efforts they'll have to make, and games they'll have to play, to
achieve happiness within one or the other system.

------
peterwwillis
I don't see how anyone could actually read this entire page and grok it. It's
like a giant puzzle made by stream of consciousness.

~~~
aeontech
Any thoughts on the actual content of the article rather than the presentation
style? Or is it the lack of a neatly packaged conclusion that throws you off?
It seems like a perfectly readable exposition to me, even if I don't
necessarily agree with author's points.

~~~
peterwwillis
It's hard to have thoughts on the content, as it's basically a novela of
random things tangentially relating to self-imposed isolation. I would be here
all day.

~~~
aeontech
Fair enough, I guess people pick some specific points the author makes and
respond to them, but if that's not your cup of tea, no questions :)

------
abolibibelot
The main article, though nice formally doesn't say anything new about
subcultures and the alleged end of big C Culture - my main gripe with it being
it generalizes from cultural microcosms. The Appendix (which takes the lion's
share of the whole article), about Japan and Internet/FLOSS is where the
interesting stuff lies.

------
gkanai
Commenting only on the Appendix:

Web design is subjective. What looks "ugly" to one person or one culture,
works in another. Is it just happenstance that East Asian web design (Chinese
and Japanese web design have a lot of parallels) looks quite different from
Western web design? Could it be that it has something to do with the
information density of East Asian languages?

WRT the gwern's comments regarding Japan and software, I do think that this is
largely correct (with the exception of the gaming industry where Nintendo,
Sony, Sega, etc. have made globally popular software.) I should note that Asia
overall (not just Japan) does not have a track record of developing globally
popular consumer-facing software aside from game software. Korea is largely
reliant on Windows on the desktop and Android on mobile. Same is true for
Mainland China. So wrt software I think the critique is Asia-wide, not just
Japan.

As an aside, I'd ask anyone to list European-developed globally popular
software. My list: Skype, Rovio, Spotify...

A bunch of the links in the appendix are many years old and not that accurate
any more. Japan has many billion-dollar Internet/IT companies today. It is a
market that both is large enough for domestic Japanese firms as well as
foreign firms.

------
quokwok
I'm surprised you rate "The Spirit Level". I think it's a pack of lies, partly
because of Chris Snowden's book but mainly Tino Sanandaji's many posts about
it on his blog. The most devastating criticisms are

1\. They use data from a UN report from a particular year. Except for one
reference, they use a report from a different year. It turns out that this
report contains data which supports their argument, but all the other years
disprove it.

2\. They use a mysterious sample of countries. When a larger sample is used,
the effect goes away or reverses.

More generally, the whole argument is nutty. If you spot an apparent
correlation, you have to come up with some causal mechanism. Inequality is
supposed to somehow make people unhealthy, through envy or something... nuts.

------
lbarrett
I think the thing the author is missing is that there has never been one big
culture. For a long time, the culture was segmented primarily by location:
people in a region played the same sports and games, talked similarly, made
the same music, and so on. Now, the culture is starting to split based on
interests rather than geography.

It may be problematic that culture is now being sliced on this new axis, but
don't just compare it to some imaginary wonderful past that never actually
existed.

------
civilian
I'm not convinced about Japan being a forerunner for 5-years-in-the-future
culture. Their culture is very different from ours.

Here's a random article from today that shows that:
[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/young-people-
ja...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/young-people-japan-
stopped-having-sex)

------
SkyMarshal
Fascinating essay and references. I wonder about the ramifications of how the
Internet makes it possible for people to associate with others of similar
interests around the world, rather than just similar interests in a local
geography, or of varied interested in a local geography. This is a good
discussion of at least one answer to that.

------
lani
Subcultures are genes mixing and matching and exploring corners. Sentience
burdens us with the ability to understand connotations of 'status', 'outcast'
etc, but otherwise nature is on track with her research & development

------
guard-of-terra
"The country I live in now is the best country in the world for people like
me; I would be terribly unhappy if I was exiled." If your mental reply goes
something like, "Why, what’s so special about the USA?.."

Now this is one of the funniest things I've read for a while. Of course you're
never happy about your home country neither you think it's the best country in
the world - unless you're monumentaly stupid and forgiving.

National feeling isn't about lying to oneself, rather it's about being ready
to invest yourself in your country, spend efforts on fixing problems and feel
bound to it. We'll call it "Daughter Homeland" because it actually behaves
like a teenager, and not an easy kind.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Another delivery:

"everyone admires a person who became a billionaire in a depression more than
a good-times billionaire"

There is a strong scenario of making a fortune out of depression: that is,
vulturing and monetizing decay.

A factory struggles? Buy it out for nothing, lay out everybody, scrap
equipment for metals! People can't make ends meet? Micro-lend them at 200%
interest! Local police grinds to a halt due to lack of funds? Murder @ Steal,
you'll legalize your capitals later! Use chaos and pain to forcibly take every
low hanging fruit, and there would be totalitarian dictators and serial
murderers less hated than you.

This all actually happened in ex-USSR in the 90-s.

------
guard-of-terra
I think there no longer is any Culture.

Enough smart people disengaged to subcultures so that Culture died inside. It
can't do anything, its place poorly covered by a conjunction of a few bigger
subcultures. Most commercially viable writers are from subcultures, most
successful movies are from subcultures.

What is left from Culture preys on people who don't know better - teenagers
(not even majority) and undereducated people of age. Who are forced to consume
sub-par product (take modern "mainstream" music) or be left out. Some
mainstream stars of previous times are still active but every new offering is
either subculture or crap.

