UPSB v3
General Discussion / Pen Spinning as a Social Study Case
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Date: Sat, Jun 5 2010 01:07:30
It's interesting to see how, thanks to the Internet, an isolated practice like Pen Spinning developed its own society. I'm not an anthropology expert, but I'm pretty sure online PS communities can make a good study case.
Some of the stuff I think are pretty common in message boards, for example:
- Bullying: newbs on the board are flamed, learn the ropes and in turn will bully future newbs. Pretty sure that's a common occurrence.
- Off-topic: any message board which is active will develop a strong social community which is unrelated to the main subject matter (in our case, PS).
But some stuff I'm not sure I have seen anywhere else in other online communities:
- Reputation: the concept of individual spinner reputation. A spinner wants to first be known in its local board, then move on to be known internationally. Collabs and competitions are the main ways to boost one's rep. It's also a positive feedback loop: the more collabs you take part in, the more known you are, the more you become requested. Reputation is a powerful motivator and gives some spinners another reason to improve (other than direct enjoyment of PS)
- Community pride: Very interesting concept. On example: even in an individual competition like WT where it's every man for itself, the board you represent will be affected by your performance. Also the strong desire to see your own community succeed and become more famous. This involves developing future generations so that your community keeps producing quality spinners to replace the "old guard". I think this is another powerful motivator for pen spinners. The other aspect is the bias when appreciating local spinners.
- Community style: A collective mindset can be found in certain boards that encourage their spinners to spin certain style.
- Community worship: The bias when evaluating products from worshiped communities. Less known boards don't get the same treatment.
- Inter-community relations: The idea that you behave differently if you're talking with a foreigner than on your local board. Especially when you are acting as representative of your community, you want to impress others. See: official collabs.
- Trend spinning: The idea that certain aspects or tricks can become very popular for a set amount of time and then fall off in popularity. Example: bakfall. There's also always the opposition group which criticizes the current trend.
- Teams: The incentive and benefits of making and forming teams. I personally am not in a team so I can't elaborate on that much.
For pen modding, almost all of these can apply as well (especially trends).
What do you think? Disagree or agree with any of the observations? Have you seen any of these aspects in other online communities? Are there are other aspects that I did not mention that's interesting? -
Date: Sat, Jun 5 2010 01:14:14QUOTE (Zombo @ Jun 4 2010, 09:07 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>It's interesting to see how, thanks to the Internet, an isolated practice like Pen Spinning developed its own society. I'm not an anthropology expert, but I'm pretty sure online PS communities can make a good study case.
Some of the stuff I think are pretty common to all message boards, for example:
- Bullying: newbs on the board are flamed, learn the ropes and in turn will bully future newbs. Pretty sure that's a common occurrence.
- Off-topic: any message board which is active will develop a strong social community which is unrelated to the main subject matter (in our case, PS).
But some stuff I'm not sure I have seen anywhere else in other online communities:
- Reputation: the concept of individual spinner reputation. A spinner wants to first be known in its local board, then move on to be known internationally. Collabs and competitions are the main ways to boost one's rep. It's also a positive feedback loop: the more collabs you take part in, the more known you are, the more you become requested. Reputation is a powerful motivator and gives some spinners another reason to improve (other than direct enjoyment of PS)
- Community pride: Very interesting concept. On example: even in an individual competition like WT where it's every man for itself, the board you represent will be affected by your performance. Also the strong desire to see your own community succeed and become more famous. This involves developing future generations so that your community keeps producing quality spinners to replace the "old guard". I think this is another powerful motivator for pen spinners. The other aspect is the bias when appreciating local spinners.
- Community worship: The bias when evaluating products from worshiped communities. Less known boards don't get the same treatment.
- Inter-community relations: The idea that you behave differently if you're talking with a foreigner than on your local board. Especially when you are acting as representative of your community, you want to impress others. See: official collabs.
- Trend spinning: The idea that certain aspects or tricks can become very popular for a set amount of time and then fall off in popularity. Example: bakfall. There's also always the opposition group which criticizes the current trend.
- Teams: The incentive and benefits of making and forming teams. I personally am not in a team so I can't elaborate on that much.
For pen modding, almost all of these can apply as well (especially trends).
What do you think? Disagree or agree with any of the observations? Have you seen any of these aspects in other online communities? Are there are other aspects that I did not mention that's interesting?
You make a lot of assumptions, for example that all message boards inherently have a common activity or hobby. Also, that there are similar/competing/associated boards elsewhere.
I frequent another board that's literally just a compilation of random topics and subforums and stuff, politics, art, games, subforums for almost everything. For this messageboard the only one that really applies is "Reputation" and yeah, people there also build up reputations, either good or bad. As far as "trends" "teams" "inter community relations" etc, none of that really applies. Maybe "pride", but not in the way you use it. Not compared to other boards, just proud of the community in general. if someone comes on and says the board is gay, people get pissed -
Date: Sat, Jun 5 2010 01:19:36
ok well I shouldnt have used the word "all"
The 2 first observations were things that I think are "common" and can be found in some other online communities, the rest I think are more unique to PS boards -
Date: Sat, Jun 5 2010 01:23:30
Hmm well reputation is widespread
Also I think for things similar to PS, all of those things will apply too ... glowsticking boards for example -
Date: Sat, Jun 5 2010 01:33:28QUOTE (strat1227 @ Jun 4 2010, 09:23 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Hmm well reputation is widespread
Also I think for things similar to PS, all of those things will apply too ... glowsticking boards for example
well someone said competitions were banned in glowsticking community, so i'm pretty sure their society looks completely different from ours -
Date: Sat, Jun 5 2010 01:35:31QUOTE (Zombo @ Jun 4 2010, 09:33 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>well someone said competitions were banned in glowsticking community, so i'm pretty sure their society looks completely different from ours
is there only one glowsticking community? that seems unlikely, but i'm not familiar with it
but yeah i'm sure you're right in that there's probably nothing identical to PS, but i doubt any particular element is unique, just the whole atmosphere -
Date: Sun, Jun 6 2010 10:38:26
Trends, reputations, teams, intercommunity relations... Seem to happen in all skills.
Trends happen everywhere, most common cause seems to be one or more very good or highly respected people doing the skill doing certain tricks. Then people who aren't as highly respected try to copy - Trend created. It can take just one person, one DVD or video to do this.
Reputations - Everywhere. In hobbies, work, life everywhere.
Teams - Everthing from diabolo to juggling, acrobatics to football, ping pong to darts - All skills, all have teams.
Intercommunity relations - Most other skills don't have only online communities, but also clubs and meetings etc. There are always going to be intercommunity relations going on in this case. Circus has an interesting intercommunity relationship!
So most of you observations are true for many skills and don't really apply to just pen spinning, making pen spinning just another of the same social study case.