Web-scale independent production exceeds 1970s countercultural reach but needs existential reframing

Evidence

The web has a distributional reach, a global instaneity, whose unprecedented scale is easy to take for granted. But its vast potential far outstrips anything that fanzines or records could have achieved in the Seventies. What needs to happen is a kind of “existential reframing”: to see what happens here not as Kapital wants us to see it, as “failed” writers resentfully carving out some insignificant niche because they can’t “make it” in the overlit interior. The logic of Kapital insists that anything that is not reproducing it, or serving such a reproduction, is a waste of time. But to reframe what is happening would be to radically reverse these idiotic priorities. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1025

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Early DIY cultural production framed independence from corporate media as political resistance — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 85; Web 2.0 adopted DIY individualism while abandoning zine culture’s anti-capitalist and feminist critique — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 98; Web integration of a scene erodes its scarcity-driven mystique and romance — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1263 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Web 2.0 adopted DIY individualism while abandoning zine culture’s anti-capitalist and feminist critique #complicates (0.85) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 98
• Web 2.0 ideology fuses Silicon Valley capitalism with countercultural activism while embracing capitalism #complicates (0.85) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 55
• Riot Grrl zines bridged feminist consciousness-raising and the web’s personal homepage culture. #exemplifies (0.78) — Theresa M. Senft, Camgirls, 62
• Web integration of a scene erodes its scarcity-driven mystique and romance #qualifies (0.75) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1263