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The Revival Beyond The Web

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Guest:
Many people who are participating in the retro web revival also seem to be reviving some other things — we have seen mixtapes getting back into circulation, people leaving their smartphones behind, old technology being utilized once more... do you think this can become a whole subculture? An anti-capitalist revival of the past, with associated clothing styles, slang, hobbies, meeting places?

Like, imagine just the same as there is a blues bar or a punk pub today, we'd all gather to drink homemade lemonade in a retro themed internet café...

I'd dedicate this thread to that effort. lol

wris:
Great idea for a thread. :smile:

We always tend to romanticise the past, but there does seem to be a growing awareness and resentment of how a lot of recent technical innovation isn't really done with our best interest in mind, and how even the genuinely well intentioned stuff can be too much of a good thing. We get a little bit of everything, all of the time.

I recently read Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman and he spends a little time talking about how the scarcity is really the point of a lot of activities. In your limited lifespan, you've decided to spend precious minutes picking out a handful of songs for someone you care about instead of sending a link to an algorithmically generated Spotify playlist, or hand writing a postcard instead of sending a DM or even using something like Moonpig.

I'm a little wary of a sort of reactionary shunning of technology (where would I be without Google Maps? Really, where?) if it's more about aesthetic than any sort of philosophical rejection of being wrung out for your data and attention, but it does feel like the pendulum is hopefully swinging away from being as jacked-in as possible all of the time.

Cobra!:
I think it has been a subculture for some time. As much as I'd love to say it's anti-capitalist, companies and scalpers are taking advantage of us with the latter making us pay much more for things that use to cost us pennies and the former making half-baked nostalgia catering films and games for a quick buck.


--- Quote from: /home/user/ on July 13, 2022 @592.33 ---Like, imagine just the same as there is a blues bar or a punk pub today, we'd all gather to drink homemade lemonade in a retro themed internet café...

I'd dedicate this thread to that effort. lol

--- End quote ---

I do love this idea, though I doubt they'd ever have anything like that where I live.


--- Quote from: wris on July 13, 2022 @641.06 ---(where would I be without Google Maps? Really, where?)
--- End quote ---

Probably using an actual map, or MapQuest. Or any of the many GPSes that were around before Google Maps was. :wink:

Guest:

--- Quote from: Cobra! on July 13, 2022 @642.01 ---I think it has been a subculture for some time. As much as I'd love to say it's anti-capitalist, companies and scalpers are taking advantage of us with the latter making us pay much more for things that use to cost us pennies and the former making half-baked nostalgia catering films and games for a quick buck.

--- End quote ---

Well, that only really applies to nostalgia-as-an-aesthetic, which is not really what I meant. The great thing about the retro web revival in my opinion is the utilization of obsolete technology and aesthetic for a creative, personal, remixed expression in a DIY fashion.

Old movie and game remakes and nostalgia fuelled retro bait do not really fit there in my opinion. I was thinking a much more DIY focused subculture, seizing the tools with which they build their (internet, movies, beverages, food, clothing, commodities,...) and doing it yourself.

Just like we are doing it with the web. They won't give us a noncommercial way to express ourselves? Then we are going to self host and learn how to do it ourselves, by taking long obsolete (and therefore cheap and no longer exploitable) technologies to make them our home.

Fanfiction for old TV series is more like what I had in mind. Sewing your own clothes from old material, or simply wearing leftovers. Learning how to do your own hair without following predatory trends. Making your own cola with a self-printed vaporwave label instead of buying Coke. That stuff.

I think the essence is: take retro aesthetics and rob them of their origins, turning them into DIY projects.

wris:

--- Quote from: Cobra! on July 13, 2022 @642.01 ---Probably using an actual map, or MapQuest. Or any of the many GPSes that were around before Google Maps was. :wink:

--- End quote ---

Massively overestimating my capacity for forward planning. :smile: That does highlight an area where smart phones are super useful in a way that's tough to replicate with traditional/single-purpose tech: stuff you didn't realise was going to be useful until it's too late.

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