Comment by bokoharambe
12 days ago
There is no "local community," so there is no local production in any meaningful sense anymore. I am nothing like my neighbors, never have been, and have never known very much about them in any of the places I've lived. That suggestion is entirely untenable.
Many indie works suffer from the same formulaic failings as popular works, so that doesn't seem like a solution either. The same old hero story with a black or gay protagonist is not suddenly more interesting, yet that's a large portion of what's coming out of the indie scene.
In the US, there is no solution. We are all shackled to the cultural carcass that is late modernity. Retelling the same stories we have for decades, just with different colors.
> There is no "local community," so there is no local production in any meaningful sense anymore.
This is absolutely not true everywhere in the US. In every place I've lived, there has been local community. More vibrant in some places than others, but always there.
I can't know if that's the case in all parts of the US, but I suspect it's true in the majority.
> I am nothing like my neighbors, never have been, and have never known very much about them in any of the places I've lived.
Perhaps you've been opting not to engage with the local communities you've been in?
Communities that are local =/= local community in a general sense. There are in some places participatory communities that (often older, middle class, family-oriented) people participate in, but I'm not sure those organizations can meaningfully be said to represent the localities they are present in.
When there's a loneliness epidemic that is especially pronounced with young people, it seems really silly to act like local community is a general institution that most people actively participate in. It might be true in your neck of the woods. It is certainly not in mine.
I'm using "local community" as a convenient placeholder for all the various things that count as community-based activities and groups.
> When there's a loneliness epidemic that is especially pronounced with young people, it seems really silly to act like local community is a general institution
One of the reasons for the loneliness epidemic is that people have stopped seeking out and participating in things that get them face-to-face with neighbors. That's a thing only those people can fix for themselves. As a light example, you said
> I am nothing like my neighbors, never have been, and have never known very much about them in any of the places I've lived.
Where in the same breath you both claim that you have nothing in common with your neighbors, and that you have never known very much about them. However, you can't know if you have anything in common with them or not unless you get to know them. A first step toward finding what community exists around you is as simple as making it a point to get to know your neighbors.
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They didn’t say “most people actively participate in” local community. They said people should do more of it, and you replied that there’s no such thing. Sorry you feel that way or that it may (or may not) be true where you live, but bold claims like “local community doesn’t exist,” and ambiguous gesturing toward it never having existed, is both untrue and unhelpful.
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>Many indie works suffer from the same formulaic failings as popular works, so that doesn't seem like a solution either
I think the indie scene for a lot of media is a lot less 'independent' than we might think. This became obvious to me when I noticed the absolutely insane fights that happened on Twitter surrounding young adult literature. (Eg https://reason.com/2019/05/05/teen-fiction-twitter-is-eating...)
Science fiction and fantasy seem to be doing something a bit similar.
I think if you want more independent writers you'll have to go to places like Royalroad or /r/hfy or scribblehub.
Local community continues to exist even though you choose not to participate in it.