Cyberculture Generations...From Fire to Firewire

David Silver’s writings on cyberculture studies hit the nail on the head, for me at least, with the analogies he referred to as the internet being as significant as the discovery of fire to mankind and later quoting William Gibson with “Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators.”
While Gibson and Terrence McKenna might adamantly agree on the hallucinogen aspect of things and it’s influence on the positive progression of mankind, I’m sure many would vehemently disagree. Silver digs quite deep into three topics, Popular cyberculture, cyberculture studies, and critical cyberculture studies. To me, this is one of the better scholarly articles regarding the Internet and cyberculture that I’ve come across. What Silver does is he documents the history of cyberculture and the profound studies that have been researched and discussed regarding this evolving phenomenon since the early 90’s. He then uses those things to convey how many see and use it at the turn of the 21st century. I absolutely love how he starts the essay on cyberculture studies…”Like most generations, mine bleed.” What a wonderful summary for the second generation of cyberculture. After all, every generation suffers a crisis of significance in some way or another. This reading sparked the thought in me, ‘what if the crisis of significance that runs ramped on the web and spreads faster than the common cold in an elementary school classroom is just the crisis of the current generation, not humanity as a whole over time?’ The only difference is the generation isn’t necessarily restricted by age.
To think that we are the “second generation” of the cyberworld is almost unphathomable because there is still so much unknown. But we are and it is evident when you look at the dualism that exists today with people and their thoughts of the web and it’s activity. This dichotomy of beliefs is not limited to age either. Silver notes that it now seems to be a decision between identity and the opportunity to expose more of yourself or to remain unknown and anonymous, but either way, remaining a part of the culture.