This article was very interesting to me in that it catalogued many small movements within the larger community of the internet. It is interesting to me that the digital world is often mocked by older generations as false and not real. And in a sense that is true. Yet, as documented in this article, many different sub genres of people were able to unite via early Internet forums and websites. This allowed people to connect like never before. Is that connection, like the feminist subgroup forums, any less real than an in person connection? Is digital art any less impressive? During a lecture I learned about an art exhibition where the artist simply wrote instructions for the viewer to create a piece of art. Some people argued that it was not art but then the professor countered that coding is just telling a computer what to do, yet you can create amazing art. Is that any less legitimate art?
The internet opened up incredible opportunities to artists. No longer are artists at the mercy of larger corporations, digital artists can share their art in different niche forums. These early days of the internet seemed liked the Wild West. It was truly uncharted territory. An example of this Wild West is Jodi.org. It is really cool that it was independently created and grew a cult following. It is cool too to see that artists were no longer censored due to the internet. This is true even today, as art is being censored in some areas of the world, the internet can be a place for artists to create community with one another. That is especially important in todays situation.