Digital Countercultures and the Struggle for Community by Jessa Lingel

Author:Jessa Lingel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: counterculture; communities; technology; social media; internet; nework; digital; platforms; Facebook; online identity; online persona; subculture; sociotechnology; STS; internet studies; cultural studies; communication; case studies
Publisher: The MIT Press
Published: 2017-04-28T04:00:00+00:00

After participating in punk and indie music scenes elsewhere, I was initially taken aback by the extensive measures that the New Brunswick community took to control local flows of information. Their protocols contradicted a basic premise of event promotion—that show information should be as accessible as possible to draw the largest possible audience to an event. Instead of eliminating hurdles to entry in a bid to attract more people, a New Brunswick basement norm was to erect sociotechnical barriers to inclusion. With all of the tactics described here for keeping shows secret (but particularly the practices of code names and ask a punk), there is a tension of exclusivity versus publicity, echoing the membership tensions described in the previous chapter. A key difference between BME and New Brunswick is the taken-for-grantedness of membership attrition. The community’s proximity to Rutgers University means that there is a predictable turnover in participants. Membership turnover results in a continual process of enculturating newcomers by exposing them to the fine line between committed community secrecy and arbitrary social exclusivity. In a small community that did not have a constant flow of potential new members, it would be more problematic to insist on rigid information practices, and there would be consequences for excluding people arbitrarily. But with a steady supply of new people to the area, New Brunswick punks have—to some extent—the luxury of embracing exclusivity.

Participants voiced varying degrees of concern about the community’s exclusivity. Referring to ask a punk, Brady said, “I don’t think it’s supposed to be like, ‘Hey you’re not punk. You don’t know anything.’ It’s not discriminating against anybody. It’s just a little phrase that became the thing to put on a flyer.” Brady’s comment both highlights the transitory nature of information practices (“It’s just a little phrase that became the thing”) and downplays the possibility of alienation (“It’s not discriminating against anybody”). Tim expressed a similar view: “There’s no one walking around like, ‘Oh, I was going to go to that show, but I didn’t know where it was.’ That never happens.”

Brady’s and Tim’s comments reflect long-timers’ perspectives on the scene, but others had difficulty finding a show’s location, even if they knew the date, time, and names of the bands that were playing. For example, Lowell described his experience: “So when I first moved here, I would go to Myspace, and I would search the New Brunswick zip code to see if there was anything going on. And then from there, there would be a struggle to find an address because I didn’t know where anything was because this was when I first moved down here. I didn’t know any code names. I didn’t know anyone really. I just tried to figure it out.” This description illustrates how social media sites enable outsiders to access some (but not all) of the information that is required for show attendance. Mahdu offered a more measured view of the possible effects of ask a punk on the scene’s inclusivity: “I thought it was the dumbest thing ever at first.

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