Updated 2 years ago
Electronic music genres, and scenes, in general, follow similar cycles as the video game industry
Childhood
The most fun time for a scene, or a gaming community, or relationships, is when it’s all new, all experimental, no one knows what they are doing, and they are just getting to meet everyone. It is like that re-emergent birth phenomena felt when coming back from a deep and profound K-hole. Time moves very slowly – one night feels like an eternity. People make illegal mods that go viral. Things are janky as fuck and no one cares. You are like giddy kindergarteners at recess. You are naked in the Garden of Eden and know no shame.
Outlaws thrown by people either insane or brilliant lay down the foundation and structure of the future.
But slowly, once it all starts solidifying and gets set in stone, this transitory world fades away into something more defined and sculpted from the participants’ own personal agendas. Our hunter-gatherers are now leaving the mushroom-dotted veldt and learning agriculture.
Adulthood
As people finally have a piece of soil to call their own, it changes them. People start to dig into their styles, and become effete at it. A community starts to form, and with it, standards. “Crazy shit” starts to be frowned on as self-indulgent, superfluous, and inefficient. Those that most efficiently harness the dopamine are elevated, and competition to be one of these desired valuable archetypes comes into play.
People stop dancing amongst themselves, stop creating Temporary Autonymous Zones, and making experimental theater with weirdo costumes and themes, and start to face the DJ.
Smartphones and Twitch appear, turning it all into one big rock concert, and people hesitate to act weird in front of cameras.
Your Rock Star DJ selection must be x y and zed. Your song must follow a generally accepted structure for your genre, or your viewer count will suffer.
The feeling of being part of something really special gives way to the feeling of being special.
(Philosophy sidenote: René Girard‘s “mimetic theory” states that most of human behavior is based upon imitation. The imitation of desires leads to conflict, and when a buildup of conflict threatens to destroy all involved, they use a scapegoat to return to balance.)
Cliques form, and if you aren’t part of the cool crowd, you are bullied and branded, whether it’s dirty hippy, candy kid, noob, or casual. Shit Lists and blacklists form. The Problem People are finally identified after a honeymoon period of ignorance.
All potential sexual encounters are fulfilled over a long enough time period, rippling through the scene like a wave.
Your game becomes a chore. Your rotation should be optimized for maximum damage per second. Guides are posted on the Internet. Spreadsheets, and Best in Slot lists start to appear. It becomes increasingly a numbers game. Cheating and botting become well-honed and destroy any sense of fair play. People can just pay to win. If the community is not strong enough to ward off these threats, you all become products in a grocery store. Cogs in a machine.
Collectively, these farmers outproduce the hunter-gatherers, and start to take over the world and its ecosystems.
Middle Age
From this point, it can go 2 directions:
- If the macro environment permits it, It might become monetized, homogenized and co-opted into a big business, something younger people consider very Boomer. People get married. It becomes something Old People Do, joining the ranks of Bridge, Canasta, big bands, and horseshoes. The average age of the player steadily increases. Grey hairs start to appear.
Then the industry gets corrupted with its easy wealth, and the big players industry collapse. From the ashes rise the new order of indies. Big New York real estate collateralized mortgage backed securities go bankrupt, leaving the field fallow for hipsters to come back in and start gentrifying anew. - If there are structural factors preventing 1., it all slowly dies, the makers cashing out (or die trying) with its last crusty adherents one by one in a nursing home. Like everything else.
No matter what happens, as enough times passes, if the art was truly timeless, and did not depend on gimmicks, young people might rediscover it, and a hipsteresque renaissance may happen, with retro games and genres and old formats like vinyl becoming cool again. The creation of new genres and lifestyles will always depend on recycling the past, for nothing is ever truly original.
Don’t get bogged down. Remember the forest for the trees. Perfect the art of walking through mud puddles without getting too dirty. Stay nimble. Mutate. Watch for the reincarnation.
