anyways reddit being basically a linking aggregator is something designed to basically propagate memes? this can potentially be good since it also functions basically as a news website, in theory, but in practice it's just a bunch of dorky "ha ha cool links" stuff. and even that's not necessarily a problem, since showing people stuff that is cool and interesting right now is a pretty basic human thing. but the real thing with reddit and similar things is that what it becomes ultimately is a race to post the coolest link or to be part of the community that brings x story or meme to the forefront. people are more interested in the idea of being that cool person that brings the link than the contents of the thing itself. and reddit is basically just that, in perpetuity, codified and constructed. i mean, look at the front page of reddit: mostly tech & programming stuff, of which a lot of it is about entertainment stuff – a steam sale, a golf game, etc. and the actual news is something where, if you had a blogroll, you'd have read it already.
i don't know. maybe this argument isn't entirely clear. but i feel like reddit ultimately is another of web 2.0's tools of self-aggrandizement – a way individuals can develop a kind of personal brand and become prominent figures of their chosen online community. and yes yes i understand that this might seem disingenuous coming from a dude who has a clearly delineated posting style and five blue stars under his name but the difference is mainly that i was never really gunning to be a forum superstar or whatever, i just stayed here and chatted with my friends and i guess developed at some point a reputation for being the kind of person who might make an okay mod. i'm explaining this so that i can make my next point, which is that reddit is less about developing connections within a community and more about how good you feel having posted something that went viral. and that's i think different in a lot of ways since what it places value on is not what is being communicated but rather its capacity for being something that spreads. so it's stuff like said steam sale or chatroulette or, say, double rainbow guy*. and the thing is that forums ultimately foster and engender and reward discussion and thought about things. i'm not convinced that reddit does, at least not in any long-term or valuable sense. i think it largely fosters "wow!!! look how neat this is." a kind of online informational adhd.
and the problem i have and that i was alluding to in that one line is that that's an attitude that i guess i'm finding more pervasive in people's attitudes towards music and culture. culture has become a thing of memes, really, a thing meant not for permanence or anything but rather how much it says about your personal brand. and how much you're able to participate in the lightning-quick conversations surrounding it that are commonplace in the era of chillwave and witch house. and i think, getting actually serious about this stuff, that there's plenty that we stand to lose in this situation. and because of how reddit already works in the broad sense outlined above, i'm extraordinarily skeptical about the overall reddit user base and the average reddit user's attitudes towards music. i'm worried that they think of music in the same way that they think of information. and so when i read that list and see a bunch of stuff that had either a ton of blog hype or a ton of marketing behind it, i start to wonder which was more important in the ranking – the music or its cultural markers.
i'm probably a pessimistic dork who overthinks shit, but whatever. i worry that our generation isn't really concerned with thinking about the way that we think nowadays.
oh and for the record – the haircut thing was a joke at the expense of the folks who compiled that list, based almost exclusively on real-life personal observations. if it offended you, trust me, it was nothing personal, nor was it an assessment of character or worth or whatever, okay? to you or to them.
*who if you watch the autotune video is himself usurped by the autotune the news glee club† dweebs who have this really discomforting habit of appearing in their videos to re-sing and re-arrange what they do in them in order to show off how talented they are and won't you subscribe to them &c – but i respect you might not have the time in your day to read me ranting about that for too long
†and like i think glee's whole modus operandi of "hey, remember when this song happened!?!??!" is symptomatic of the same short-term memory reveling in ephemera type deal i'm clumsily prodding the edges of with this argument, but again that's another argument entirely
