what is this "4chan" business?

Waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

 

I've never been there, either. I am not really interested.

 

Actually me and my friend were having a discussion, and I called 4chan the asshole of the Internet. He corrected me "no, it's the buttplug", and I thought it was rather apt, as it made the Internet clog with shit (though it's influence seems to have faded).

 

I don't see that he said anything in defense of "the hippies". It was Dave who seemed to be alluding to the fact that the hippies were in some way formative in filling a gap.

 

There's no defense. It's by contrast. He said Dave was giving too much credit to 4chan by comparing their social role to the hippies and by saying 4chan is not revolutionary. Implying both that the hippies had a bigger social role, and that hippies were revolutionary.
I wouldn't argue that hippies had more social impact, but I think calling them revolutionary is rather ludicrous.
The hippies did have a social role, just as all social things do. Whether 4chan and the hippies are comparable is highly debatable. I'd definitely agree in some ways, and I can see other ways in which they are less comparable. But 'revolutionary' is completely moot when talking about either group.

 

Yes, the gap in which amazingly astute observations are made. DOI

 

Actually, there's defense. Poor defense, but defense.

The term "revolutionary" may be loosely defined, in which case it may be applied here, unless, of course, you prefer to use it only for such "radicals" as Che Guevara and the like.

Understandably, the so called "revolution" of the sixties was really full of hot air, as it was mostly defined by self-serving self-indulgent narcissists, calling themselves, or rather, allowing themselves to BE called by a name that seemed to attribute to them a distinct identity apart from the entrenched mainstream society (read: "the establishment"), which they tended to shun.

In essence, a "revolution" is merely a breaking away from what was considered traditional and commonplace, with some degree of passion. It needn't be accompanied by the taking up of arms, if that's what you're getting at.

The gradual erosion of the passion of the sixties was due to the numbing dilution of the movement through the introduction of narcissistic materialism by some, taking advantage of the idealism of the youth to make a buck and cause "hippiedom" to become externalized, therefore becoming merely a form of industrial production.

Hmm,,

 

Me either...there are plenty of other posters from here who are willing to go through the time to sift through the crap until they find something funny, and then they post it over here. Lots less work involved.

 

Wasn't at all what I was getting at.
I was focussing more on the social, idealogical, etc. revolution that the hippie movement was intended to bring about.

Exactly. Not to mention free love equaling free sex, and mind expansion equaling excessive drugs.
The culture self imploded, and stopped any chance it had of bringing about real change.

 

I guess you could say that in spite of the fact that it failed in many ways, and in fact did give, unfortunately the IMPRESSION of being significant, and in so doing, created a false sense of hope, as a "faux" revolution, merely something that made the restless masses fall back asleep, that there were perhaps revolutionary ideals within the movement, though largely dormant today, depending upon which demographic one observes. SOMETHING about the hippiefied movement did get the attention of the press, and therefore was considered significant, but that's as far as much of it went.

I'm amused when watching the re-runs of the Woodstock festival on the tube during the past few days. That was, and still is, so frequently vaunted as some kind of "miracle event", when it was just a bunch of self-indulgent middle-class weekend hippies to a very large extent. There was the hair, the garb, the drugs, but eventually just crass commercialism behind it. People believe what they want to. But look at the crap they left behind for the poor clean-up crew. Utter irresponsibility, touted as "the grand event", offered up to the god of indulgence. Thousands patiently waiting to be fed, entertained, and become part of a legend. What stuff legends are made of.

I was a hippie. I lived on the road. I took acid, smoked pot, partied with strangers, played my music, but I knew at some point that it was mostly a grand experiment in dress-up make-believe, with some cool and pleasurable aspects. The chicks were "free", and the drugs and music were good.

Oh fuckin' well. It was, and still is, less boring than what "the man" has to offer.

Not saying there aren't some "real" people. But those that are, may not "look" the part. Seriously.

 

hippies weren't revolutionaries either for the most part, merely kids drugged out of their gourds listening to those who sounded more "far out"

there are revolutionary basement dwellers, and there are regular basement dwellers

just like there were revolutionary hippies

and hippies who just went to any cult that would have them because they were lost little lambs.

 

It's good to have henchmen...

 

If the internet was a ******, 4chan would be his abused, unwanted baby.

 

Best analogy ever.
Or rather most EPIC win evar!!1!

 

That could be why 4chan hates niggers so bad.

 

I remember investigating one of the cults back then, one that had a reputation. The BBC did some filming at one of their centers, at a ranch in Texas. There was a tv documentary, a kind of news program like today's "20/20" done on this group, based on the filming. They reported that the only group more radical, more revolutionary than this one that they had witnessed were the communist guerillas in Central America. In order to join the group, you had to give up everything, basically. Family, jobs, property, everything.

That group grew, migrated throughout the earth, still exists today under a different name. Their premise, at the beginning, was to be a "revolution for Jesus". But the founder, a very perverted man, took the whole thing down a rather dark path. He died, but left a legacy of damage. The group today has developed a "clean" appearance, PR specialists, etc. Seemingly innocent, they perform at the White House, get awards for such things as "Parent of the Year", have huge corporate sponsorships, where basically at one point, and still infecting the group, there was sexual sharing and child molestation going on.

But they considered it all quite "revolutionary". God equated to sexual love, introduced at an early age through the child caregivers.

One of the entertainers in the group was one of the original members of Fleetwood Mac.

What made the members of this group more "lost" than any other corporate cult was primarily circumstance, and the dynamic mechanism and group structure, that required, literally, a total suspension of one's personal reasoning process, in order to "live by faith", and "obey those above".

That's what "faith" can do, if it's not your own, but a "transplant".

There were quite a few of those "Jesus communes" around back then.

Jesus wasn't happy about it.

"Revolutionary" isn't all that it's cracked up to be.