My 90s TV: Browse 90s Television

Several years back, perhaps even via an HN post or comment, I came across a blog, hosted on a university network (IIRC, perhaps related to media studies). The page consisted of a group of possibly graduate students contributing some of the weirdest and most obscure media I've ever seen online. Nothing obscene and nothing seemingly new/current, so it was rather hipster in that sense, but I kick myself for not having saved the URL.

Nothing says I need to use walled gardens or get my news from the big networks, but I often feel I'm being pointed that way. In the end, I just want something different than what's usually being served up.

(It doesn't escape me that this 90's TV site is full of walled garden/big network type content of the time)

Unfortunately our virtual world are built in a way to addict us with content we create ourselves giving a few monopolists total control of our virtual presence.

I'm boarded in a project to think in another approach, in a way the give us more power and freedom to shape our virtual collective consciousness..

Without us figuring out a way to get us all out of this trap, i don't see a very bright future for us, and the current political and social status-quo are a clear sign of what all this is making to us.

The power and control is too concentrated in the hands of a few, and its easier than ever to pull all the strings from a couple of places.

Eg. If we have a dozens of key people to agree into some plan to permanent power and control, it will be impossible for us to take our freedom back, of course it will not look like any sort of government that we have witnessed before.

I know this is a conspiracy theory and i dont like it myself, but its pretty possible and easier to happen with all the technological status-quo and tech monopolies we have nowadays.

How does this happen in the monoculture of the global internet, where local heterogenous subcultures (music, art, cuisine, traditions, languages) are eradicated?

The question is how much resilient we are to create and cultivate local stuff over the global noise.. I'm pretty sure that despite the difficulty of the task, we can handle it..

But we must have the proper tools to make it flourish.. but my fear is that while we are figuring out all this, some big players decide to replay the titanic wars devouring their children before they get too powerful..

Its not happening yet, because there are barely no threats, but once they start to show up and become trends, i don't expect them to play nice.

And with all the power and control "they" have, it will not be like any old industry vs. newcomers we have witnessed before.

(BTW the matrix app being kicked out of peoples cell phones might be a sign of what will come)

Personally, streaming has now also ruined watching the TV/movies for me.

Since my TV burned itself I've had a non-smart TV and it's actually really refreshing to have such minimal choice and be walled in as such. I end up watching films and actually enjoying them, not dealing with FOMO and wondering if there's something better).

If you asked me, that'd be my guess as well, but saying it such a way that it projects hopelessness for the rest of the humanity is a bit too much :)

Narcissism is dangerous as it tends to create and feed extremist communities. For an example, see any political forum full with extremists (these days it's hard to find any without) and observe how often they call themselves intelligent (or woke, or whatever fancy words they use to work around the obviousness of self-flattery).

You can have that. All you need to do is make sure the developers who make those sites get rich. Find the sites and tell your friends about them. Subscribe to their work. Buy their merch. Click on the ads. Pay them. Then everyone else will see that sort of site making bank, and they'll follow along with similar things.

The only reason the web is what it is today is because the money went to the walled gardens and social media sites. To change that, change where the money goes.

First, of course is a subjective experience and therefore prone to error, but i came to this conclusion by observing this community over a long period of time.

Second, the communities you mention have mostly common ideological guidelines and goals, working like a cult or a religion. Therefore there's this feeling of belonging. HN is far away from that as people here have all sorts of different beliefs, background, etc. It's an heterogeneous community that will hardly agree on anything.

There's also no sense of belonging here, to a group, or a brand. etc..

There's no HNer, not a club, or have a card in the sorts of "Mensa" that you would proudly show to tell how smart you are.. as most of us are anonymous here.

So i don't think the patterns apply here. I think some people spend too much time on toxic social networks and suddenly start to see 33 all over even when the number is 21, because his neurons are seeing the same pattern too many times with these algorithms that are optimized to turn us all into neurotics.

Creative work is currently having its sources of income decimated, from all sides. We should get used to reminiscing.

What was this?

Be the change you want to see in the world. Get creative. Tell your friends.

* to be fair, CSS is possibly where the rot started to set in... some poorly thought-out design choices from 20 years ago are still haunting us. But stick to the basics and focus on the content instead, it still gets the job done.

So far, I've come across MhZ Choice (for EU shows, with subtitles), FlixOlé (for Spanishf films, no subtitles), Wlext (foreign tv shows...pirated). Also, I recommend using a VPN for Netflix to access different shows and films, depending on the country you choose. The other day I found myself watching a Chinese action film that only had Italian subtitles (luckily my Italian is up to scratch).

With music, my tastes are boarderless and timeless. At any moment, I'll put on 13th century Iberian cantigas, Latin motets, folkloric Sardinian, 90's French indie, 1970s Congolese rumba, modern Ivory Coast reggae, South African Xhosa pop, Indian mantras, Peruvian ethno-techno, and the list goes on.

But yes, the plethora of options is, at the same time, wonderful and dreadful. I tried to sit down and start reading a semi-dense physical book the other day and it's like my mind was too fried to focus due to having just got off the internet.

This is just anecdotal but I see a lot of very niche creative people making money that they wouldn't have made before through YouTube, Discord, Patreon, Gumroad etc.

I think the opposite is true, while in the past it was maybe PayPal there's a lot of ways to make money online that's very approachable for everyone.

Let's be precise here. The Element app was suspended from the Play Store (and restored in less than 24 hours) It was most certainly not removed from peoples' phones.

We have serious issues with the centralization of network services and we should scream loudly about it and look for ways to diminish the power that comes with that centralization.

However, making specious claims like that doesn't help. It just makes those who rail against the concentrated power of these big corporations seem deranged.

There are plenty of real issues to rail against without making shit up.

Maybe https://neave.tv/?

Whatever the form, content by itself just doesn't pay a lot for most and never has. I just finished a new edition of a book of mine. It's valuable for "branding" (ugh term I know). But I'll directly make less money than from cranking out a blog post for some company.

The former is still very much booming, and I don't see why the latter would go anywhere.

I'm also running a web crawler to discover fresh music videos from various music blogs.

In the flesh live, people together experiencing something collectively.

"I don't see why the latter would go anywhere"

There's an ongoing pandemic and during it the vast majority of venues where people can experience performance or sport collectively are and remain closed. During this time the income normally generated has understandably ceased. Many places may remain permanently closed, including historical outdoor events.

I do eventually expect a move toward normality but it's going to take many years. In the meantime we can add online live & reminiscing in lieu of the 'real thing'.

There are a bunch of reputational benefits to certain types of book writing which (probably) lead to significant career/comp benefits. But the direct money can be less than what companies will pay for a ghostwritten content marketing-type blog. Or even whatever a lot of salaried people earn for doing that sort of work on company time. There's a reason a lot of "creatives" end up working for corporate product companies as their day job.

But unfortunately, no. The one I remember wasn't TV-based. It was more like a normal blog but hosted on a university domain, iirc.

FAANG's are feeling that the antitrust guillotine is near their heads, so things will be a little quiet for now, but once the dust have settled they will probably keep doing what they were doing before, unless of course a proper legal framework come to rescue.

But as the political class have more urgent matters to take care of, i think this legal sophistication we urgently need will not be a priority.

To make it successful, some kind of authority should be present in the sauce.

https://opensubtitles.org

One of the biggest reasons I’m a proponent of Universal Basic Income is that I want creative people to be able to create without having to fall prey to things like cutting out their medium in order to make sure they can eat and have a place to live.

However: we are currently within a capitalist society, and because of that we have to think of how we can financially enable the art and culture that we want to see more of.

This is a deeply interwoven and complex topic, but at the end of the day I just want to see interesting stuff and know that the people creating it are better because of it.

The good old days of going down a Youtube rabbit hole :)