The Blurring Line Between Internet Culture and Society

Have you ever noticed how much Internet society impacts regular society? Or how much of your day-to-day culture is synonymous with what you can find on the internet? If you haven’t, think about it. Really think about it. If you can name anything about your culture, anything that you think is truly something you and your friends share, ask yourself, is it from the internet? And if it isn’t from the internet, where is it from?

A Quick Clarification: What is Culture and what is Internet Culture

Culture is defined in a few depending on who’s doing the talking, but the most prevailing definition for our purposes is a set of beliefs, customs, institutions, language quirks and other products of human work and thought to be considered particular to a certain time period or social group. Typically when we refer to culture though, we talk about a set of predominating attitudes and behaviour that either form the basis of decision-making in a given group or that show the most outward signs of difference from other groups.

For example, something unique to internet culture is Gif and meme culture, using images or short video clips to communicate sentences, concepts, or even moods and emotions. This is something that fundamentally separates it from human interaction since that sort of communication can only be produced through technological assistance. However, if you’ve ever mimicked Obi-Wan Kenobi saying “Hello there” to a friend or co-worker, you can see how culture can impact and be translated from one setting to another.

For many of us, we like to think that our culture is our own - who we are in real life and who we are online are different. Likewise, the culture we identify with and the culture we engage with online is different and separate from how we engage people in general. We have our own cultures, our own heritages, our own styles that are unique to us that do not originate on the internet, and while some transfer might happen every now and then, it’s not constant or pervasive. Well, you might think that, but honestly…

…The Overlap is Extreme, But Why is This a Thing?

Sure, you might think that your personal culture is separated, and you might be right. But in this modern world of globalism, everything overlaps. Think about it, where do you do most of your day-to-day interaction with friends and co-workers? How many hours per day do you spend engaging with society via social media and online platforms? Now think about how you speak. Where did you learn those turns of phrase? Where did you get that particular way you intone a certain idea from? What in-jokes do you have that come from your shared community - and how much of that community exists online?

That Obi-Wan Kenobi reference we made earlier? Think about that again, I’m certain you can think of hundreds of references like that which ultimately come either from cinema or online - and if you’re part of an older generation chances are you’ll get what I’m saying if I point out that your culture came from TV or Movie culture.

There are of course studies on this effect on modern culture. Here are two to start with, one on cyberculture and a much more focused piece coming out of professors from the University of Southern California. But if you’re American, maybe you won’t notice all this as much since, after all, most internet culture is American internet culture, but if you’re not American, it’s pretty obvious pretty quickly when something has been affected by internet culture because chances are it’s been affected by American internet culture - the dominant culture on the internet.

But the thing is, it’s not just American Internet Culture because Internet Culture is filtered through a very specific filter. Digital Law. Digital law impacts technology in countless ways, shaping everything from how blog writers write their articles - so that they can appear high on a Google search - to how YouTubers present their videos and what content they include or omit - so that the algorithm will treat them positively - to what your friends do or don’t say on social media in order to avoid the infamous banhammer… or specifically to attract it, you get both. And that’s where a lot of the intrigue of Internet culture lies. Internet culture is a culture striving to maximise outreach to the world’s largest audience… the world. We all do it, we are all affected by it. So why not check out some of our links above and learn about it? Who knows, maybe you’ll find out that your culture is much wider than you ever expected.

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