Thursday, May 17, 2007

NEW CULTURE, NEW MEDIA

I spent the weekend at a gathering of what might best be described as the post-mass-media tribe in Black Mountain, N.C.
  • They don't read newspapers, and why should they? Newspapers scorn them to begin with.
  • They don't watch much TV, either.
  • Big music labels piss them off. Small labels that care about music turn them on.
  • They don't like one kind of music: they love all sorts of music.
  • They would rather entertain themselves than be entertained.
  • Some of these people just recently opted out of mainstream culture. Others stopped caring what you think about them 40 years ago. And some of them are second- and third-generation products of the counter culture.
In other words, they're not a counter-culture. They are a culture.

This isn't youthful rebellion. It isn't a bunch of people sitting around smoking pot on Daddy's dime. These are competent, intelligent, community-oriented people with a variety of interests and skills. They care about the environment, justice, free-expression, equal opportunity and liberty. They put their money -- and their muscles --on their values.

And I have this powerful sense that these are the people who are about to power the next wave of cultural creativity in America. Old values, new threats and emerging technologies are morphing into a Green Revolution that is both global and intensely local, with a strong emphasis on sustainability and responsibility.

Thow-away media mean nothing to these people. They don't "do" shoddy.

Got anything for them?