well no, victoria is no montreal, victoria is no san francisco, and victoria certainly is no new orleans.
what victoria is though, is interesting. the cultural events that happen are not the kind where they are delivered to you on a silver platter. and i’m glad they’re not, because if that were the case, they would have to water the content down to the lowest common denominator to market it on that scale.
so then, take a look through the victoria phone book. look in the yellow pages under entertainment and under culture.
hold on, i’ll do it for you.
entertainment:
- clowns
- belly dancers
- magicians
- comedians
- hypnotists
arts and cultural organizations:
- british columbia association of performing arts festivals
- british columbia festival of the arts
- canadian music centre
- victoria literary arts festival society
i can’t say that those entries excite me in any way. so, if this was ones approach, yes.. it would appear that victoria is a void when it comes to culture.
i don’t think this is exactly representative of how it actually is in victoria, however. it is a bit different. you have to know where to look, and to do that, you must do your homework. that’s okay, it makes it all a discovery.
although i have to say, it is easy to expect more accessability from cultures and sub-cultures, considering the last super popular “sub-culture” supernovaed to the extent that it became subject to ridicule such as this:
[synja] wouldnt it be so rave cool to have a museum of glowsticks, like, all the art was made out of glowsticks, and they all glowed.. and like.. the museum itself was built of of glowsticks too?? kind of like tooth picks, but i mean.. lets not be ridiculous here it would take too many tooth picks to make a whole museum!!
not to say that rave culture is dead, but the pop culture accessability which destroyed the rave mystique stands taller than anything else right now, and also serves for comparison when expectations about new (?) or different cultures are being made.
which brings me to my next question. what is going to be the next big thing? and i don’t mean electronic genre, i don’t mean drug, but i do mean: what is going to be the next big subculture? rave was as big, as widespread and as globally synchronious as i can think of.
it happened to coincide with the erruption of global communication (i’m not referring to the band) through the internet, which could have a lot to do with it.
what i am seeing these days is more and more splinters of special interest groups, autonomous communities and some sort of gravity between personalities. i am referring to blogging, specifically. however, a subculture, it isn’t. it’s just a different way of communicating, like an email list, but less obnoxious and more involved at the same time. sort of magnetic.
or is it a subculture? what defines a subculture?
princeton university says it means the following:
subculture
n : a social group within a national culture that has distinctive patterns of behavior and beliefs
well, no, not specifically distinct beliefs. maybe we all believe that blogging is good for your mind, maybe we all find it therapeutic, but it is my belief that many of us blog for different reasons.
that being said, lets look at another definition, this time from merriam-webster:
subculture
n : an ethnic, regional, economic, or social group exhibiting characteristic patterns of behavior sufficient to distinguish it from others within an embracing culture or society
social group? well kind of. there are blog friends, and there is something somewhat distinct about writing in regards to your own life, or on your own views for all to see. it isn’t so unique when it comes to the expression is broadcasted, but more that we all have our own soapboxes with an unlimited audience. what is distinct about this is that we can hear eachother whilst standing on our own respective soap boxes. has that really happened before? i don’t know. i don’t think so, at least. i would liken a lot (not all) of the blog-land to column writing. i can’t see newspaper columnists listening to eachother as much as some bloggers do. further to this, some of us end up meeting because of our blogging. is there a distinguishable social group characteristic? yes, there is. the method of communication would be it. within the social group, are there common distinguishable characteristics? well, no, there isn’t, because of the intrinsic autonomy of the weblog.
beyond the soapbox, the only thing we have in common is that we’re all different.
