[Air-L] What is web culture?

[Greg Williams]

I'm more of a lurker here but I thought I might try to weigh in on  
this "web culture" thing. Pardon any incoherence, it's been a long  
week and this is mostly stream of consciousness.

As I understand it, "web culture" is a misnomer. The term seems to  
have been created to describe that slightly different way things seem  
to occur online when compared to related offline experiences, but I  
think this is all barking up the wrong tree.

Cyberspace (in this instance, AKA the Web, the Internet) is a virtual  
world extension; it's an extension of our real world. Saying that  
there is a unique culture in cyberspace is the same as claiming that  
there is a unique culture in your toolshed.

Culture is something produced, carried, consumed, displayed, etc, by  
the people that occupy a space, not the space itself. Therefore, there  
isn't a "Web culture", but the cultures of the people interacting with  
one another within the Web. They may have different tools available to  
communicate and share that culture, but I don't think that those tools  
beget a culture in their own right.

e.g. "Web culture" didn't produce LOLcats, "bored teen culture" (or  
something like that) did. The ease of sharing LOLcats online is what  
made them popular.

Hope this helps...



Greg Williams
e-: greg at lexiphanic.com

P.S. Apologies if I'm on the wrong track! :)