On the Consumption of Internet Culture:

In my last post I determined that the internet is a culture worthy of recognition under the definition which Gaudium etSpes provides in chapter 53. At the very least, it is deserving of the attention of the Vatican due to it’s pervasive nature in the modern world, and so discussion and analysis of such a culture may prove worthwhile. I also offered that the internet culture has the means by which intellectual dialogue, growth, and development of culture might be achieved.

In this post, I discuss whether or not it actually achieves this aim.

While I firmly stand by my claim that the internet is a culture in its own right, by and large that culture’s content stems simply from sharing individual experiences online. Everything from Snapchat to Twitter to Facebook to Tumblr are largely used as methodical communication tools by which a person may update personal experiences regularly and share them efficiently.

This seems natural, of course: we can much easier note the particulars than we can effectively commentate on universals, so it makes sense that we would commentate on our daily droll of life, especially the moments that step outside our daily humdrum.

However, the internet is not simply a diary. Personal observation alone does not a culture create: it is only through sharing these experiences with others that a culture is created, and usually these cultures have a theme. Why? Because when several people share similar stories, they bond over their shared experiences, and whatever else they may have in common, to create a community and identity.

If this it true, then it cannot be denied that the internet culture is largely based around the consumption of culture itself. As this parody of a map of Tumblr so clearly indicates, the largest groups that have earned some form of identification is the fan culture. Everything from sports to cooking is included in this expansive subculture, but by far the largest and most omnipresent is that of the Fiction Fan Culture.

This makes sense of course: narrative storytelling has always been a common-ground basis of connection between human beings, as well as an effective and potent means of communicating cultural traditions, values, and belief systems. The most effective narratives were of course the ones whose values transcended that particular, distinct culture, reflecting a much deeper set of universally held beliefs. Narrative fiction, including everything from Disney to DreamWorks films, Marvel to DC Comics, BBC’s Sherlock to HBO’s Game of Thrones, Harry Potter to The Fault in Our Stars, are all stories which explain these transcendent values in a new and interesting way.

Naturally then, people gravitate towards these identifiers and groups online. It is far easier to confess to being a Whovian or Potternerd or even Brony than it is to confess being a Catholic or Muslim or Jew. Because of the internet’s anonymity, coupled with the fact that time does not end a conversation, defending or even simply discussing religion online is such a tiring concept that it prevents people from even daring to admit their religious beliefs when they can prove controversial.

Given this, it must be acknowledged that the majority of conversations on the internet are not directed in some aim to which “man develops and perfects this many bodily and spiritual qualities” (Gaudium et Spes, 53).  I am not saying that fan culture is wholly disadvantageous and has no counterpart in reality, or that fans avert themselves from renewing perceptions of cultural identities from the underground. After all, as Anais Nin says, “It is the function of art to renew our perception,” and fan culture largely reviews, analyzes, and renews those perceptions by extension of participating, quite proactively, in such art.

The fact of the matter is however, that if bonding over your love of Disney is far easier than bonding over your spirituality, then a larger portion of your conversation online with your fellow group will be concerned with that fandom’s subject matter. The internet fan culture becomes a consumption of culture itself. I may be able to brag that the greatest use I have made of my 2 years of philosophy classes were analyzing the nature of titans in Attack on Titan, but the matter remains disconnected from my spirituality and personal growth. 

And this is not simply true of fan culture, either.

The internet itself is a flood of information; it was previously hailed as “the Information Superhighway” during its first peak of public awareness in the 1990’s. The problem with this flood of information is that one is so bombarded with updates on what is happening on by the minute if not by the second, that reflection on these occurrences is swept by the wayside to make room for more information to consume. The internet’s ability to gather and re-distribute information, considered its greatest asset, is also its biggest flaw.

Again, I am not saying that the internet culture is incapable of producing ideas that are more thought-provoking than the average slew of information, nor is it impossible to share thoughtful discussion on matters pertinent to this world.

The fact of the matter is simply this: by and large, internet culture is not concerned with spiritual, developmental growth in a person, as Gaudium et Spes desires any culture to be. Like television, the internet’s superhighway of information has largely been used as the superhighway of entertainment. And shouldn’t the Vatican be at least mildly concerned with a community that is largely replacing time that could be devoted to personal growth with mindless entertainment?

Is the Internet a “Culture”?

Gaudium et Spes defines the term, “culture” as indicating 

“Everything whereby man develops and perfects this many bodily and spiritual qualities; he strives by his knowledge and his labor, to bring the world itself under his control. He renders social life more human both in the family and the civic community, through improvements of customs and institutions. Throughout the course of time he expresses, experiences and desires that they might be of advantage to the progress of many, even of the whole human family.” (Gaudium et Spes, 53)

The definition appears thorough in its description of the multifaceted term “culture,” but what of the online culture? In order to analyze Internet culture, it’s necessary to first see where the World Wide Web fits into the Vatican’s definition.

The two seem incompatible at first glance, for where in the intangible cyberspace can a person “perfect his many bodily and spiritual qualities”? Some might argue that while the internet is largely a communications tool for social interaction, it seems inappropriate to say that cyberspace “renders social life more human.”

Despite being largely devoid of what is normally considered a huge part of communications, such as body language, facial expressions, and colloquialism to identify a person’s place of origin, the internet may be a valid ground for genuine human interaction. The internet provides a bizarrely poignant intimacy between strangers through anonymity, allowing those with common interests to bond with one another across vast geographical distance. Furthermore, it also provides a unique point of penetration for cultural insight to the outsider, through which an insider might give him a greater depth of understanding of another’s culture, something which might not be offered otherwise, and indeed given space, time, and language constraints, might never have been offered otherwise.

But is the internet just another means of communication, as if the social experience was simply moved to a different, practical, and more efficient medium? Here, I stand by Marshal McLuhan’s statement, “the medium is the message.” Certain methods of communication lend themselves to a particular message. For example, smoke signals are effective for communicating short updates on what is happening in the nearby village, but no one would think of engaging in a philosophical debate via smoke signals. Much the same can be said about Twitter.

These communication mediums not only shape the message, but they naturally create a culture surrounding it, with its own unwritten rules of what is acceptable and what is not. The online communication additionally provides a strange combination of personable and accountability of the online profile, mixed with the freedom of anonymity in forums and online discussions, does indeed make the online community a more human experience of social interaction.

With this in mind, its seems fitting to say that the internet does indeed provide opportunity for growth and development of the human culture through a dialogue which offers, “improvements of customs and institutions,” as well as a means by which man “expresses, communicates, and conserves his works, great spiritual experiences and desires, that they might be o advantage to the progress of many.”

The question then becomes, “Does the internet, as both a means of communication and its own culture, lend itself towards such meaningful interaction by which humanity may improve itself?”