I’ve been online all my life, I genuinely feel at home here. I relate more to random strangers across the world than any neighbors. Is it wrong for me to think of the (western/English) Internet as my culture?
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No Patrick, Internet is not an ethnicity …
Ethnicity, no.
Culture, I think that’d be a bit of a strong claim.
Sub-culture, definitely.
To add to it, I wouldn’t put “Internet” as a subculture since that is way too broad of a definition of place.
Yeah, there are subcultures within “Internet culture”…but these days, I don’t think “Internet culture” is cohesive (and omnipresent) enough yet to call it a “culture”.
It’s complicated and messy. Hard to define, lol
Cultural background isn’t the same as ethnicity. But yeah I’d say online spaces can act as sort of a secondary cultural background. Where you live will still most likely have an impact on your preferences, general knowledge, belief system and so on but there are numerous factors that make up a person’s cultural background.
Not to mention determine which watch list you’d get put on.
They largely are, ethnicity is culture (tradition, language, customs, beliefs) and history.
I do not relate culturally to the people where I live, I have far more in common in beliefs and values with the typical terminally online compared to people where I grew up. And I’ve been online since the Internet started, so I’ve got the history too.
Ethnicity is absolutely not culture.
For example, a buddy of mine is Asian but he was adopted by a white family at birth so he is culturally No different than any other [white] guy from the Midwest.
Or, alternatively, there’s nothing stopping me from experiencing, learning about, and practicing cultural practices from another area of the world even though I am ethnically “just” white.
I find the concept of ethnicity to be weird and fuzzy at best. Like, even within my own country there’s a whole bunch of different cultural sub-divisions (not talking about the russian army, obviously). West of Ukraine almost speaks a completely different language from Kyiv residents and might have more in common with Poles or Hungarians in terms of cultural background.
I think it’s absolutely valid to claim Internet as your cultural background, but the label of “ethnicity” is not defined well enough to use it that way and people love to argue semantics.
I think totally. 100%. If Wikipedia is to be believed
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people that perceives themselves to be different from other groups based on shared attributes. These attributes include having a common language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, religion, history, or social treatment.[1][2] The term ethnicity is sometimes used interchangeably with the term nation, particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism. It is also used interchangeably with race.
Then I think that your ethnicity could be based on the internet communities you exist in.
Its directly related to things like the slow
dissolutiondissolving of regional accents we see due to the internet and the general melting, appropriation, and reappropriation of cultural aspects we see facilitated by the internet.I read an interesting line on this yesterday on 13th century Mongolians would be confused encountering European christians whose primary identity was their religion. They would feel that they’re Mongolian first. I say this is interesting as their concept of Mongolian was most likely different than that off today, at least from my recent readings. I would assume it would be based on their smaller plains ethnic group but with the growing Mongolian empire it would be part of a larger plains way of life. Just think this may be an example of someone having a different understanding of ethnicity and what is primarily important.
If the European Christians of that time found their Christianity most important what’s stopping you from finding your online community and culture most important.
Makes sense to me. I was on Reddit for about ten years before jumping ship, and there were so many running gags, and new terminology that “outsiders” would never understand. It certainly has a culture, and it’s not like we don’t already have people fighting over who’s the “superior race” X, Facebook, Reddit, Tictok, etc.
This is going to sound like an insult or snappy comment, but I genuinely mean this as something that might be helpful because I relate to this and think it’s affected me my whole life.
I think you’re describing mild autism. I got my own diagnosis a few months ago, at age 47, and I wish I had known so much sooner. Some of the things you describe were part of what the psychologist who diagnosed me talked to me about.
One genuine question.
What change did a diagnosis made?
I’ve known all my life I am in the autistic spectrum, it is clear as day. Never diagnosed and to be true, I don’t see the point. From my perspective it would be like going to the doctor to tell me I have pale skin and that I need sunscreen when going outside.
I don’t really think my life would change because one person told me what I already know.
I’m genuinely scared I could do damage if I explain this badly. I’ll try my best. And bear in mind, mild autism, I communicate things strangely sometimes.
In a general sense, diagnoses are predictive statements, not just labels for communicating about a condition. There’s often sets of related behaviors and common kinds of advice or treatment. Think of it as peer reviewed science, instead of an algorithm, saying “struggling with this? You might also be struggling with this and that, and here’s how we can help with all of those.”
Also, diagnoses unlock access to medication. In my case I’ve also struggled with generalized anxiety disorder. Anxiety meds are having a profound and positive effect on my life. I do so much stupid shit when my brain is constantly making small worries into thought-destroying anxiety and fear. I was really resistant to the idea, thinking medication just avoids problems instead of letting you learn how to deal with them. I was very wrong.
And since I’m in the US where health insurance is a profit making industry, I had to go the route of counseling (“yeah I’m recommending you get tested”), then testing, and then with a diagnosis in hand, psychiatrist for possible medication. (It can take a long time to get meds dialed in. I was lucky, the first thing he prescribed worked great and we’ve just been slowly ramping the dosage, starting at half the usual starting dose in January and going up slowly every month.)
I don’t know if this was persuasive but I hope it at least made sense.
Thank for the time for an answer.
It is true that there are some differences I haven’t considered. For instance where I live there’s Universal healthcare, so going to the doctor for anxiety and getting medication would be easy and free, I have done it in the past when I needed. I suppose I’m very lucky of not needing an official diagnosis to be able to have easy access to treatments for the issues it may give me.
I’m probably doing some kind of “this solution worked for me, so it should work for everyone!” thing, but it does seem that our understanding of autism has improved in recent years. Even if all you can see is some variant of mild autism (autism spectrum disorder) a professional might see other related things. Like in my case, where my problems were being amplified by constant anxiety … they might find something chemical they can treat, or something that counseling can train you to mitigate or moderate.
I wish you the best.
I don’t think it’s rational today, but I don’t have anything more than gut feeling to back it up. I do think it will be realistic quite soon though. It’s not hard to imagine a world even more digital than today.
No. Your not genetically connected to the Internet,your heritage isn’t internetish,your ancestors didn’t Leave the Internet to escape persecution. No,your not “Interneter” you just need to spend more time out side. Try a little walk,or trip to your local book shop or something
Ethnicity is not ancestry or “race”. And yes I know Americans like to call different looking people ethnic.
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people that perceives themselves to be different from other groups based on shared attributes. These attributes include having a common language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, religion, history, or social treatment.[1][2] The term ethnicity is sometimes used interchangeably with the term nation, particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism. It is also used interchangeably with race.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnicity
You are that third minor sometimes used footnote, not the norm.
In the US, at least, usually if you’re asked about your ethnicity (say when you’re doing the common app for colleges) it means that you are at least a quarter (I think, maybe it’s an eighth) of whatever the ethnicity is. So for example, my dad was a Hispanic immigrant, which makes me 50% and therefore ethnically Hispanic despite living in the US my whole life. Honestly, I don’t have much in common culturally with Hispanic people who grew up in a Hispanic country, however I have a fair bit in common with other Hispanic kids who grew up in the US, distanced from our parent’s culture. Sure the Wikipedia definition may say that that’s just one way the word ethnicity is used, but if you just go ask people “hey what’s your ethnicity” aside from very likely being confused why you’re asking, they’ll likely answer something like hispanic or Asian or whatever
I think culture is the better word to use instead of ethnicity in this case. Like others have said though, the internet is such a big place, that it’s not very descriptive to say your culture is internet culture. Even in your original comment, you had to clarify that you’re referring to the western/english side of the internet, and even that can be broken down further. Do you primarily use TikTok or Reddit? Instagram or Facebook? Do you collect memes or read fanfics? Do you play video games or watch craft how-to videos? The internet is vast and obviously you have more in common with the people and content you find on the internet because the whole point of the internet is to be able to find people like you. But there’s a whole bunch of other people out there using the internet that have nothing in common with you, like for example, your neighbors. It’s not wrong for you to say it, it’s just not particularly descriptive without a bunch of extra info
