In class we talked a lot about how cool hunters and ad agencies have acquired and attempted to sell pretty much any subculture or trend that has surfaced since the beginning of the 90s. Whether it was Hip-hop, Rage Rock, Graffiti, break dancing, Punk, Exclusivity (as Lindsey points out), and a host of other cultures. We have also talked about how these ad agencies appear to create subcultures themselves or create cultural trends which people in turn absorb, change, and then feed back to them to influence new advertising and marketing: the Feedback Loop. However, we discussed a way that people can find new subcultural groups outside of this circular influence: the internet. With tools at our disposal like Pandora, Last.fm, and Grooveshark we can discover all kinds of new bands just by going to these websites. The most influential web tool I have discovered, however, is Stumbleupon. For those of you who do not know what Stumbleupon is I definitely reccomend you go to Stumbleupon, set up an account, and start stumbling! I have found everything from interesting subcultures like steam-punk, funny "demotivational posters", websites about psychological disorders, some of the web-comics I read (which are like a subculture by themselves), and of course anything else you can think of.
I encourage everyone to go stumble as soon as they find some free time and then share something cool or funny they found. It's a great experience and an easy (perhaps too easy) way to waste time and have fun.
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