TaggartRE: https://hachyderm.io/@skinnylatte/116325795881403391
This is a specific poverty of American-brand ultraprocessed white culture that has always bothered me. I have never known community like this. It was basically Church or GTFO.
Glyph@mttaggart I have pages and pages of thoughts here given my very specific combination of cultural backgrounds, but, what gave me this sense of cosmopolitan belonging-out-of-place was for many years “nerd” culture. Every city had some weird tech meetup, we had shared experiences, etc. Despite retaining an archipelago of connections based on that culture—I do still have an international community of friends—nothing feels safe and welcoming like that any more
@mttaggart drop by a random tech meetup and all the people working on custom lisp interpreters have been replaced by glassy-eyed “founders” microdosing some bespoke combination of MDMA, psilocybin and ritalin to try and maximize their metrics before they go broke. MAGA elon musk worshippers who can’t distinguish between reality and science fiction, rather than fans enjoying fiction for what it is. It was always a paper-thin culture I guess, but now it’s just trash
@glyph Closest I came was by walking backwards into a subset of Chinese culture by way of traditional Chinese martial arts. That was probably the most "belonging" I have ever felt anywhere, but there are some other parts of that dynamic that are not so great.
I guess I did have strong neighbor connections as a kid, but hoo boy does modern life work extra hard to prevent those from taking root anymore.
Ted Lemon@glyph @mttaggart Man, the random lisper bit. I had to give up on that a long time ago, but I wish I could still do it. :)