My 15-19 was 5 years ahead of the peak, but I played out the rise. I gave non-explicit suicide a few goes. I was nearly successful. I also remember the early internet well, visiting BBSes (bulletin board systems) often. The internet has so much promise before capitalism seized it completely.
Culture bends all to its will, and this is why technology will not save us alone. We need changed minds, not old minds with new programs. Then again, I am not a social scientist either. But we have front-row seats on how it's playing out.
OMG, so insightful, Amy. I started going online in 1994, and it allowed me to find a sense of connection with other people. Before that, I had none. I was definitely a weird, socially awkward kid. Now that the internet has become so dystopian, I often feel nostalgic for the old internet. Being able to read a brilliant post like this though reminds me that there are still some really great things on the internet today.
Born in 1980 and definitely saw Heathers a dozen times before I was 15. I remember thinking it sucked and the characters were all awful. As an adult I could finally appreciate that was the point.
Of interest, while you focused rightly on social media, it's also troubling to look back and see how Heathers predated Columbine by a decade.
I wonder about the connections between the agony portrayed in this film and the whole deadly epidemic of murder that "columbine" represents. I mean, the two phenomena seem to be on different curves, don't they? There's a crisis peak and a wellness trough in the teen suicide graph, but the school shootings graph just goes up and up and up. It probably has less to do with this stuff (prison-like schools with dysfunctional social systems creating pain and individuals finding or failing to find relief) than it does with the sheer availability of weapons of war ?
For sure. The culture and availability of guns in this country boggles the sane mind. I guess I was wondering aloud about which aspects of Heathers could be leading vs lagging indicators. Like, what issues did the movie depict that were actually improving at the time versus what issues were about to get much worse?
I certainly don't know. As someone in middle-age now the 10-year difference between Heathers and Columbine struck me. As a kid they seemed epochs apart. As an adult they seem like dominos.
lol, yes -- this might be the closest thing to Ye Olde Internets in a long while! But, of course, it's still built in the "modern manner": managed and monetized. (And if it weren't, it would be raided and destroyed -- it's a more hostile web these days!)
The biggest difference is that substack is not (at least not yet) manipulative, even as it uses social tools to let readers and writers connect. It's a delicate balance and I wonder how long Substack can pull it off. A lot will depend on how willing people will be to Pay For Writing, because while a lot of writers (like me) have a day job and consider a paid subscription a meaningful compliment, the organization, the system, the "managing" of a network against raiders and protective of those social tools, depends on people parting with dollardigits, and if they are not so inclined, the whole house collapses.
I believe we've had proof that enough people are willing to pay for reliably good content that business models like Substack are more than viable. The issue with the big social media giants is that they're built for maximum scale, which inevitably leads to exploitation. As long as Substack is OK with not being one of the three biggest tech companies in the universe, it'll be able to keep doing what it's doing indefinitely, and quite profitably.
> a window in time during which teens could enjoy and benefit from the good parts of global connection and information exchange without all the bad parts that followed, as things got monetized and made worse.
While I do broadly agree that this is a component, I also think it was easier to find dodgy stuff on the internet. I can't speak to BBS times, but in the early 00s it was easy to find pro-ana sites, suicide handbooks or galleries of self harm scars etc, and even recovery-type forums weren't shy about linking to them. I don't think they used to be de-listed from Google/Yahoo/other search engines. Nowadays searching for anything like that will bring up helplines instead, and people on mainstream platforms are more vigilant about blocking such content (at least once its brought to their attention).
one thing to consider though is the difference between access to information, and an environment that creates or aggravates pain.
You could read about pretty shocking stuff all the time, but never be at all tempted to enact it.
Whereas, you could have access to information about suicide or not, it wouldn’t matter, if a person or group of people were devoted to bullying you, you might be brought quite low, and instructions would hardly be necessary.
Great piece that made me reconsider aspects of 'Heathers' and who we're laughing at. If you're into games, I'd highly recommend 'Hypnospace Outlaw' as a game that accurately (emotionally at least) captures the utopian aspects of that period of the internet.
The older Internet could be a terrible place; endless flamewars, use of all sorts of gore and porn as shock images, and whatever 4chan had going. But it was impersonal. All the "kill yourself" cyberbullying stopped the second you stepped away. Now, it's turned RL into a fucked-up global village; high school forever. Pick your table...you want the Red Tribe, the Blue Tribe, the Greens? Now, posting the "wrong" thing on one of the Big 5 Sites will get it virally spread to the rest...and all your newfound enemies will happily track you down, jump on every online presence you have, even threaten your job, your house...the fact that the term "swatting" even exists leads me to despair. Give me the old days when a new start was as simple as a new username.
Nailed it.
My 15-19 was 5 years ahead of the peak, but I played out the rise. I gave non-explicit suicide a few goes. I was nearly successful. I also remember the early internet well, visiting BBSes (bulletin board systems) often. The internet has so much promise before capitalism seized it completely.
Culture bends all to its will, and this is why technology will not save us alone. We need changed minds, not old minds with new programs. Then again, I am not a social scientist either. But we have front-row seats on how it's playing out.
I remember BBS's, too. I used to go on Talkers, where you just login to a server and talk to people. That was it.
OMG, so insightful, Amy. I started going online in 1994, and it allowed me to find a sense of connection with other people. Before that, I had none. I was definitely a weird, socially awkward kid. Now that the internet has become so dystopian, I often feel nostalgic for the old internet. Being able to read a brilliant post like this though reminds me that there are still some really great things on the internet today.
Born in 1980 and definitely saw Heathers a dozen times before I was 15. I remember thinking it sucked and the characters were all awful. As an adult I could finally appreciate that was the point.
Of interest, while you focused rightly on social media, it's also troubling to look back and see how Heathers predated Columbine by a decade.
I wonder about the connections between the agony portrayed in this film and the whole deadly epidemic of murder that "columbine" represents. I mean, the two phenomena seem to be on different curves, don't they? There's a crisis peak and a wellness trough in the teen suicide graph, but the school shootings graph just goes up and up and up. It probably has less to do with this stuff (prison-like schools with dysfunctional social systems creating pain and individuals finding or failing to find relief) than it does with the sheer availability of weapons of war ?
For sure. The culture and availability of guns in this country boggles the sane mind. I guess I was wondering aloud about which aspects of Heathers could be leading vs lagging indicators. Like, what issues did the movie depict that were actually improving at the time versus what issues were about to get much worse?
I certainly don't know. As someone in middle-age now the 10-year difference between Heathers and Columbine struck me. As a kid they seemed epochs apart. As an adult they seem like dominos.
Sounds like a good plug for Substack to me!
lol, yes -- this might be the closest thing to Ye Olde Internets in a long while! But, of course, it's still built in the "modern manner": managed and monetized. (And if it weren't, it would be raided and destroyed -- it's a more hostile web these days!)
The biggest difference is that substack is not (at least not yet) manipulative, even as it uses social tools to let readers and writers connect. It's a delicate balance and I wonder how long Substack can pull it off. A lot will depend on how willing people will be to Pay For Writing, because while a lot of writers (like me) have a day job and consider a paid subscription a meaningful compliment, the organization, the system, the "managing" of a network against raiders and protective of those social tools, depends on people parting with dollardigits, and if they are not so inclined, the whole house collapses.
Time will tell.
I believe we've had proof that enough people are willing to pay for reliably good content that business models like Substack are more than viable. The issue with the big social media giants is that they're built for maximum scale, which inevitably leads to exploitation. As long as Substack is OK with not being one of the three biggest tech companies in the universe, it'll be able to keep doing what it's doing indefinitely, and quite profitably.
> a window in time during which teens could enjoy and benefit from the good parts of global connection and information exchange without all the bad parts that followed, as things got monetized and made worse.
While I do broadly agree that this is a component, I also think it was easier to find dodgy stuff on the internet. I can't speak to BBS times, but in the early 00s it was easy to find pro-ana sites, suicide handbooks or galleries of self harm scars etc, and even recovery-type forums weren't shy about linking to them. I don't think they used to be de-listed from Google/Yahoo/other search engines. Nowadays searching for anything like that will bring up helplines instead, and people on mainstream platforms are more vigilant about blocking such content (at least once its brought to their attention).
This is definitely true…
one thing to consider though is the difference between access to information, and an environment that creates or aggravates pain.
You could read about pretty shocking stuff all the time, but never be at all tempted to enact it.
Whereas, you could have access to information about suicide or not, it wouldn’t matter, if a person or group of people were devoted to bullying you, you might be brought quite low, and instructions would hardly be necessary.
Great piece that made me reconsider aspects of 'Heathers' and who we're laughing at. If you're into games, I'd highly recommend 'Hypnospace Outlaw' as a game that accurately (emotionally at least) captures the utopian aspects of that period of the internet.
The older Internet could be a terrible place; endless flamewars, use of all sorts of gore and porn as shock images, and whatever 4chan had going. But it was impersonal. All the "kill yourself" cyberbullying stopped the second you stepped away. Now, it's turned RL into a fucked-up global village; high school forever. Pick your table...you want the Red Tribe, the Blue Tribe, the Greens? Now, posting the "wrong" thing on one of the Big 5 Sites will get it virally spread to the rest...and all your newfound enemies will happily track you down, jump on every online presence you have, even threaten your job, your house...the fact that the term "swatting" even exists leads me to despair. Give me the old days when a new start was as simple as a new username.
The only thing better then Heathers is Heathers: the Musical. There’s a whole song titled “I love my dead gay son”.