1. Tribes! How Technology Creates Culture & Subculture By Beth Agnew ©2003

2. June 03Beth Agnew Culture “Are not the processes of culture rapidly creating a class of supercilious infidels, who believe in nothing? Shall a man lose himself in countless masses of adjustments, and be so shaped with reference to this, that, and the other, that the simply good and healthy and brave parts of him are reduced and clipp'd away, like the bordering of a box in a garden? -- Walt Whitman Democratic Vistas, 1870

3. June 03Beth Agnew Cyber Anthropology Study of the artifacts of a culture Culture as defined by the computer The anthropology of cyberspace Tribal Culture Environment Communications Values & Beliefs

4. June 03Beth Agnew Definitions Culture Subculture Cultural Anthropology Cyber Anthropology Meme Technocracy Alpha Geek Cargo Cult

5. June 03Beth Agnew The Great Divide Technical vs. Non-Technical

6. June 03Beth Agnew Creation of Culture Common tools Shared environment Shared values & beliefs Common language Technology facilitates all of these Language / Communication Values & Beliefs Environment Tools Tribes

7. June 03Beth Agnew Creation of Subculture Subculture GroupsSelf-identifyMemes Values Medium

8. June 03Beth Agnew Evolution of a Meme…

9. June 03Beth Agnew Evolution of a Meme – 1.Toaplan creates the Zero Wing video game, ports it to the Sega Genesis console adding an intro scene, which is very poorly translated into English and released in the United States. 2.Toaplan goes out of business. 3.Someone from a Zany Video Game Quotes website notices the poor translation, and highlights the game. 4.Overclocked.org does a humorous voiceover of the Zero Wing intro in a fake Wayne Newton voice.

10. June 03Beth Agnew Evolution of a Meme 5.Dozens of game-related message boards begin to post quotes from the parody, as well as images altered to show the phrase. 6.The Flash movie/video is released with images from the threads, and music taken from the original game someone had added the phrase "all your base" to.

11. June 03Beth Agnew Evolution of a Meme 7.AYB explosively expands to the general (non game message board- reading) public. 8.The original site for the video is shut down within hours due to excessive traffic, and moves to PlanetStarsiege. 9.Lycos ponders how "All your Base" was transformed from obscurity to a top 50 search practically overnight.

12. June 03Beth Agnew Evolution of a Meme 10.Mainstream media begin to notice the trend, and stories appear in Time Magazine, USA Today, Fox News, The Los Angeles Times, Tech TV, Wired, and many others. 11.The.MP3 'remix' used in the video goes from 58 hits a day to several thousand per day. 12.Large websites such as Angelfire and Hewlett Packard sneak "all your base" references into their designs.

13. June 03Beth Agnew All Your Base… http://www.planettribes.com/allyourbase/AYB2.swf

14. June 03Beth Agnew Cults Dot Com Cargo Cult Entrepreneur –I Survived Toronto –Klingon Warriors Gallery

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17. June 03Beth Agnew Corporate Cultures Technology dictates the boundaries of time and space Technology mediates all communication Technology may even be the reason for existence Technology determines the elite Technical vs Non-technical

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19. June 03Beth Agnew Tribes! Even if smog were a risk to human life, we must remember that life in nature, without technology, is wholesale death. -- Ayn RandAyn Rand

20. June 03Beth Agnew Subcultures Shared values – AlbinoBlackSheep.com –Yatta! Shared activities – Parking Spots

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27. June 03Beth Agnew Tribes! Culture, with us, ends in headache. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Experience, 1841

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29. June 03Beth Agnew Coming in June 2004… Cyber Athletes and the Community of Avatars