Cyber
Culture
For
this paper, I decided to investigate a cyber community whose
main focus was dance. I put in a search on google.com
and, after getting over 14 million results, I decided that
it might be slightly more prudent if I refined the search
criteria somewhat. I searched for “swing dancing”
and came up with over 300 thousand results. I decided that
I would take this opportunity to click on different links
and see if I could further filter the topic. I went to one
website called Yehoodi.com,
“The website for the hardcore hep-cat swinger!”
This site provided a link to swing communities all over
the globe. As I was exploring the posts, I noticed that
there was an address listed for people who were thinking
about going to DC to dance. The address led me to Swing
Out DC. This site was obviously created after Yehoodi.com,
as people were complimenting the site’s creator in
making as nice a forum as the one in Yehoodi.com.
After finding, and registering with this forum, I decided
to focus on a cyber community of swing dancers in the DC
metro area, because this is where I am located.
I believed that this type of community would have links
to other dance related sites and forums about certain dance
elements. However, as I read further into this cyber community,
I found a much more diverse community than I had anticipated.
They do not have a specific name for themselves because
the community engages in so many
different
types of swing dancing, including jitterbug, smooth style,
hollywood and savoy. Although in personal posts and conversations,
they like to distinguish which type of swing dancing the
people in the cyber community engage in, they still fall
under the category of “swing dancer” or “swing
enthusiast” and do not seem to mind being classified
that way.
What is interesting about this DC based cyber community
is that, while the majority of members are from this area,
people from other parts of the country, indeed, even the
world, will post on this site. It seems as though the people
from this area are constantly in communication with other
swing dancers all over the globe. They discuss dance related
topics and political issues, they share pictures and inside
jokes. They even have what they refer to as “Lindy
Exchanges” that are held throughout the world. When
these events near, many posts are put out on different swing
forums in order for dancers to find other dancers to stay
with. People stay with each other for a couple nights during
the Exchanges. It seems that, although the community is
extremely large, people know each other through posts and
in person, making the community seem much more tightly knit
than one might first imagine.
Aside from the Swingout
DC forum, there is a large amount of other websites
that the people in this community like to visit. They not
only visit other dance related forums, like Yehoodi.com
and the Chicago based Windyhop,
but other websites such as Dance
Store.com located at http://www.dancestore.com,
a website where the dancers can buy dance clothing and accessories.
Some of the dance teachers even have their own web pages
in order to advertise themselves and the dances venues they
promote. Some of the more popular sites include Jitterbuzz.com
located at http://www.jitterbuzz.com,
Gotta Swing.com
at http://www.gottaswing.com,
Hollywood Swing
at http://www.hollywoodswings.com,
and Dance with David.com
at http://www.dancewithdavid.com.
Two more particularly popular sites that these dancers enjoy
visiting are located at http://www.swingmovie.com
and http://www.natch.net.
Both of these websites, Swing
Movie Database and Natch
Dot Net, are frequented by many of the dancers in order
to find a film that they can watch and get ideas about ways
to improve their dancing, or make it more vintage.
It seems that everyone I have spoken with in this community
is quite amiable and happy to hear that someone new has
joined, because this often means that they will be able
to dance with someone new at one of the local venues. The
main forum that I found, Swingout
DC, seemed to have a lot of people from various backgrounds,
ethnicities, ages, and political views. In fact, they even
held a long discussion about what one person believed was
the predominance of liberals on the board. They talked about
this issue in great detail and some people were found to
believe exactly the opposite, so there is really no way
to tell what the majority believes. However, even without
knowing the political orientations of each member, this,
and other forums holds discussions about political issues
that affect people both in and out of the dance world. They
talked at length about the issue of public school vouchers
and whether or not people thought the Pledge of Allegiance
was constitutional.
Although the posts seem to come less frequently, due in
part to many students going back to school and not having
as much time as during the breaks, this still remains a
lively board that I may want to stay a part of after this
assignment is finished, especially once it begins to pick
back up again. The individuals involved have taken their
passion for swing dancing and developed relationships with
each other, in person as well as online. They have created
a community that enjoys each others company and opinions,
regardless of age, race or sex. Though my own exploration
of this community, I learned a lot more about than I thought
I would about the general term “swing dancing,”
and I hope to continue building relationships with the people
in this cyber swing community.
To
read about which competencies I enhanced while doing this
report, please click on the competency button located to
the left.