There is with others who enjoy those topics. And the internet helps with discovering new trivial things to nerd out about.
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Also connects people with interest in the same obscure topics.
Rare and knowledge about the rare may have changed but as noted above the original article is a bit too simplistic.
The latest DSM rolls Aspergerâs into the general autism spectrum, instead of considering it as a separate thing. That doesnât mean that itâs not a disorder anymore, just that itâs categorized differently. (And even that is quite controversial, BTW; the World Health Organization retains the separate classification.)
Does knowing that, and telling you about it, make me just another obsessive? I feel like itâs getting too easy to dismissive useful information by accusing the speaker of being an Aspergerâs dork.
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As someone who grew up in a rural area and had to put up with the ânon-rareâ bigotry, ignorance, and simple-minded crappy garbage pumped out by corporate mass culture, you can be nostalgic for rarity all you like. For me itâs good-fucking-riddance. Being one of many in the crowd is a small price to pay for not having to deal with being the only person who sees that Dallas is a brainwashing torture device.
It was the 90s desire to escape that locked-down world of incredibly dumb bullshit that drove the binaries newsgroups, that drove comic books stores, etc. That glorious (?) decade was a transitional phase in the democratic response to Reagan/Thatcherland. Now the transition is largely done and the only places left to open up are the remaining sheltered enclaves still tied to their megachurch or mosque. At this point their only option is to withdraw back into Amish-like separatism or to dissolve. This is a good thing.
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Not at all. Useful information is useful information, until you hear the same stuff for the fifteenth time.
I still canât figure out whether a DSM classification is driven by the ability to prescribe a pill for each separate disorder. Thereâs no pill for Aspergerâs, so it is not a profit center.
So where did hipsters fit in here?
As very brief aside, The ark of the covenant would still be rare, thatâs probably the reason why its so hard to come to grips with the idea of post scarcity, because its 100% digital while in meat-space terms, its not even a dream (yet).
Huh? Thereâs no pill for autism either.
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Rarity implied exclusivity; to be part of that rarified inner sanctum of âpeople who knowâ required social connections.
This post-digital desire to share the obscure does not diminish the value of the piece in question. Since distribution is more oecumenical, the barriers to becoming an enthusiast are vastly reduced. The only loss here is the prestige of being part of that âeliteâ circle.
Take MST3K for example. In the mid 90s, it was a badge of pride to have the original KTLA run in your collection. Now itâs probably as easy as getting the latest Rihanna single. But are the people that choose to watch those (arguably terrible) episodes any less of a fan? The old guard would say yes, while the newcomers say âwho gives a shit?â
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The article seems to confuse ârarityâ with âaccessibilityâ. For instance, Iâve been looking for a ârareâ out-of-print Golden book and have been seeing a few on Amazon and eBay. The fact that I know there are a few for sale around the world and can see them doesnât make them less rare. They also wouldnât be more rare if I didnât have internet and didnât know about them.
Having âencyclopedic knowledgeâ of anything is always going to be rare. Most people donât want memorize a bunch of b-sides, album release dates, verbatim horror movie scenes, etc, etc. The internet isnât breaking that either.
What ârarityâ has morphed to; finding Iâm one of few to seek a particular something enhances my specialness. That and turning my kids onto something theyâre into before they already have known about it forever!
And now, 1,358 views⌠not so rare anymore; but, you found it at 58!
Thank you.
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Thereâs always been people who are fascinated by weird obscure things, and are fascinating themselves in turn.
Thereâs also always been people who donât get the hint when you donât find their obsessions fascinating.
What we also have today is easy access to data, facts and opinions. We also have a wide spread belief that this conveys both, actual knowledge and expertise on a subject, a la Matrix; âWhoa!, I know Kung Fu!â
Iâm thinking this is how modern criticism of intellectual pursuits really only fit pedantic fact-pushers that try to pass themselves off as smart.
What Iâve seen is people having lower tolerance for knowledge, in a time when knowing a things is relatively easy, any semblance of caring about knowledge itself is viewed as obtuse and probably driven by some flaw in personality.
Edit:
Oh and thews people couldnât possibly just be nerds either, cause nerds are cool now too 
YouTube should have an option to change the video title to âpost-rareâ after the views reach a certain amount.
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Well done?
I agree 100% as I went from desperately getting British shows like Red Dwarf imported by getting somebody in England to mail me a tape that I had to get transcoded to⌠Downloading it 30 minutes after it airs.
There are still rare things to find and here is my short list of nearly impossible to get media:
Pilot to Jakes Journey
The Day the Clown Cried
Thatâs Cat
No Soap Radio
Turn-On (A Tv show that got canceled during itâs first episode being broadcasted)
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I think itâs cool.
Fuck Snuggles.
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Hmmm⌠maybe whatâs less rare is âexposure to the rareâ. I regularly participate in Atlas Obsuraâs field trips, going to places that are off-the-beaten-path and might not have ever been seen by me without an internet connection. When I go to those destinations, I sometimes see things I couldnât see most anywhere else - hardly even on the internet. One trip I took was to the Moore Laboratory of Zoology to examine their bird specimens - about 60,000 housed onsite from Mexico and the southwest. I even saw a few examples of extinct species!
So rarity itself hasnât ceased to exist (modern production practices make rarity more rare), but the internet gives us the chance to experience the rare - even if the rare thing is man-made. For example:
In this video, youâre allowed to âwalk aroundâ the sculpture The Kiss at The National Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland. Itâs a three dimensional object, so a picture in a book doesnât represent it well.
This video shows kinetic sculptures. So a static image could never do them justice. Only a video shows their true form.
So even if the object itself remains rare, the internet provides access that once didnât exist.
sorry, totally wrong.
better luck next time
Instead of a continuum of rarity, there is now Uploaded and NotUploaded. The radical decrease in ârarityâ is the flip side of a Great Forgetting, where immense amounts of cultural production are vanishing into unknown ever to have existed.
Itâs like the situation with movies: huge swaths of movie production are irretrievably lost.
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I donât know about the rest of your rare quest items, but I do have some No Soap Radio (great stuff, BTW). I can put it up somewhere, then it wonât be so rare, I guessâŚ
And, talk about rare, Iâve actually seen (and touched) the original artwork for the Negativland U2 album (poster sized) on Don Joyceâs wall. I am Negativlandâs live sound guy. But I sadly donât own either the CD or 12" vinyl.
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Iâve been having the damnedest time finding any information about some Saturday morning kiddie shows of the late 60s (NYCâs CBS station, âWhatâs Around the Cornerâ or âJust Around the Cornerâ) and early 70s (possibly ABC, or syndicated; artsy live action sketch show).
Thereâs piles of information about better known Saturday Morning shows, but the educational ones, often local, are dust in the wind.
