Netflix and Ch-Ch-Chilly

https://backchannel.com/the-internet-really-has-changed-everything-here-s-the-proof-928eaead18a8#.vrhmwhsi2

by geodel • 10 years ago

189 29 10 years ago

runj__• 10 years ago

Why don't I read more articles like this? I always enjoy it, instead I read some inconsequential piece about nothing. This was great, personal, journalism.

Mathnerd314• 10 years ago

It reminds me of a Jack Reacher novel, minus the fistfights of course.

In answer to your question: HN has stories like this every day, maybe you haven't scrolled through the 2nd/3rd/4th pages enough?

sinkensabe• 10 years ago

I had the same thought reading through this! Loved the images!

enthdegree• 10 years ago

Really interesting content, it is fascinating and somehow heartwarming to see a picture of an environment like this one. Unfortunately this is in stark contrast to the narrator, who at times seems like a total jerk. Why be so snarky to the photographers? They're just trying to do their job! I have to admit, I had to stop reading and start skimming when I got to this line:

I consider asking the boys if they appreciate music beyond the norm, maybe bebop or grime or chiptune, but luckily realize the ridiculousness of that line of questioning. So instead I ask about their favorite rappers. They amass a respectable list: Kendrick, Wiz, Jeezy, Kanye, Juicy J.

There are many more lines just like it scattered throughout the article, and I hope I do not have to explain why they leave a negative impression of the author. I am sorry Mr. Sorgatz but your culturally-savvy, hard-edged commentary makes me feel like you are a phony.

fsloth• 10 years ago

"makes me feel like you are a phony."

Funny as it is, that's the author's confession of his own feelings as the last sentence.

nocarrier• 10 years ago

I think you're being overly harsh. I read the entire article and enjoyed it very much, including the author's commentary.

I didn't interpret their tone as trying to be hard-edged or snarky; I felt it was just them honestly showing the process of someone returning home to a place that was incredibly isolated 25 years ago, and then trying to rectify what it's like for these kids in that same town who now have access to so much more information and avenues of communication.

I liked the different asides where they mentioned what was popular in the town 25 years ago versus what the kids like now, and how the kids interests today compare to bigger city tastes. I grew up in a town that's 5x larger than Napoleon but still pretty small, and I see many parallels with this story that match my experiences.

david-given• 10 years ago

I more read the article as a study of the author's own regret at going back to a place that they no longer understood or felt part of. The line you quote, to me, just emphasises the author's own feelings of awkwardness and isolation.

Also, the photography was amazing (and I'm glad that Photog2 was a character!). It's worth skimming for the photos alone.

mysterypie2• 10 years ago

The line you quote seems completely innocuous to me. If he actually asked teenagers if they like bebop or grime or chiptune, I imagine the answer would be something like, "Uh, noooo, I don't listen to anything weird" or "I don't know what those are." So he asks a safe question about rappers. The writer is explaining his thought process in a lighthearted way.

We both read the same thing, but I like the author and you dislike him. Which is really interesting, because this is a totally uncontroversial article. It's funny that subtle choice of words have hugely different effect on different people.

alexilliamson• 10 years ago

I read the comments before reading the piece, as one tends to do, and I started out on the side of the narrator being pretentious, if that's the best word to describe enthdegree's feelings on the conveyed tone. Interestingly, however, I am now most the way through the piece and am strongly identifying with the narrator, have warm fuzzies, and completely trusting of his or her good intentions.

Maybe I should start reading posted content more often, rather than reading only the comments?

finnh• 10 years ago

I'm with you. The author just keeps returning to his reflexive self-cringe, and (for me) it distracted a lot from what is otherwise an interesting piece. Gonzo journalism doesn't really work if the narrator has no self-confidence, and has to keep telling you that.

flomo• 10 years ago

The second picture perfectly sets the mood for this piece.

The 1970s Plymouth Sapporo in the foreground (a rebranded Mitsubishi Galant). Haven't seen one of those in decades, and this one is rustless. Behind it a 1990s Chevy Caprice, a 20000s Chevy Impala, and then the grain elevators. It is the land that time has forgotten.

nl• 10 years ago

Maybe next time someone on HN claims that FB is dying among teens it would be possible to point them at this story.

feintruled• 10 years ago

Fascinating article. I would have expected that modern technology would tear old fashioned communities like this apart, but it can actually enable them to survive. People don't have to leave to see the world, it comes to them.

tempodox• 10 years ago

Reminds me of the Tao Te Ching:

  Not venturing out-of-doors, one may know the world

Having technology actually support this is fascinating.

bryanlarsen• 10 years ago

"no drags to cruise"

Strange. That was the only daytime form of entertainment for a large portion of the teenage population of towns like this: driving up and down Main Street and in front of the school, either showing off your car (your status) for the girls or showing off that you have a girl in the passenger seat.

gilgoomesh• 10 years ago

Photog2 (aka Andrew Spear) really is "annoyingly good at his job". I especially liked the disheveled gaze of "Rex Sorgatz on West Lake outside Napoleon" in contrast to the author's cheery, preppy profile picture.

bshimmin• 10 years ago

The photographs really made this piece for me. The church is fantastic.

DanielBMarkham2• 10 years ago

Agreed. That's a tricky shot and he nailed it.

The piece was a little too rambling for me, but the mix with the good pictures made it all work.

drewg123• 10 years ago

Interesting read.

I grew up in a rural town just outside the suburbs of a US rust-belt city. I had a similar experience, but not nearly so severe. Luckily for me, the suburbs were a 40 minute drive, and we had access to 2 metro areas worth of radio stations (thanks to being across lake Ontario from Toronto). So I not only heard the talking heads thanks to CFNY, I saw Depeche Mode, New Order, etc in concert with my high school friends.

The point I was going to make is that I just returned to the town for the first time in 20 years (my parents moved away in the mid 90s) due to a family vacation to Niagara Falls. I was AMAZED at how little the town had changed. If I squinted, I could be back in high school in the mid 80s. The only real differences were some of the shops had changed hands and the cars were newer. This is in stark contrast to the places where I've lived in my adult life (Raleigh-Durham, the Bay Area, Virginia) where things change at a rapid clip.

imjk• 10 years ago

I'm really glad the editor was insistent that he have a professional "photo". Those photos were beautiful and affective.

MrZongle2• 10 years ago

I really enjoyed reading this.

I grew up in Spokane, and graduated from high school there in the late 80s. At the time, the place seemed just as boring and backwater as Napoleon...though it retrospect it was far from it. I was eager to get out and go to "real" places, so I joined the military. I saw new states, countries, continents.

I still went back to Spokane, though. Up until this year, I had family there. My mental map, however, was frozen in the early 90s; 1993-94, specifically...the year I lived in town after getting out of the Army. Subsequent visits to Spokane over the next 20 years became increasingly jarring, as that city moved on but the image in my head did not.

In that respect, I envy the author because sometimes a lack of change can be comforting. The fast-food place where I worked my first job for two years? Demolished. The same for movie theaters where I took dates, pizza parlors and bowling alleys where I hung out with friends. That's progress, of course, and if Spokane hadn't changed at all that would probably be even more disquieting.

After reading the article, I think the residents of Napoleon may have the advantage over the rest of us "big city" dwellers. While modern technology has made it into their world, they still have developed interpersonal skills that a close-knit community fosters. In my neighborhood, in contrast, I barely know my neighbors. We all have Netflix. I've worked on sexy, shiny things in my career but as the cutting edge has moved on, they've faded away; folks in places like Napoleon are more likely to focus on hardy things that last.

Small, remote towns have obvious disadvantages but I think sometimes their benefits are overlooked.

nkurz2• 10 years ago

Small, remote towns have obvious disadvantages but I think sometimes their benefits are overlooked.

I'm probably blindered by my asocial nature, but I strongly agree. "Internet culture" is often considered synonymous with urbanization, but improvements in communication and delivery make rural living (at least in the developed world) much more appealing.

For me at least, technology removes the need for proximity. If I were incubating a technology company and working with a small team, a small town in the Dakotas would be an ideal location. Yet so far as I know all of the incubators are encouraging companies to base themselves in expensive (and distracting) urban areas.

Assuming you have an idea, and a small team, and need a place to implement it, what are the actual disadvantages to a rural location? Sure, maybe bustling cities are great for generating new ideas, but what startup has ever been long on time but at a lack for ideas?

Veering off in analogy, my guess is that there is probably a correspondence between those who like "open office layouts" and those who want to live in dense cities. Many productive engineers prefer offices with doors, and fewer distractions. Am I wrong to associate "rural life" to a "an office with a door"?

nkurz2• 10 years ago

The photographs look hauntingly familiar. I lived for a few years in a mirror image town just across the South Dakota line an hour due south. Some stray thoughts:

The area was mostly settled by "German-Russians". These were Germans who moved to Russia under Catherine the Great, and then re-immigrated to America in the late 1800's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans. German was the primary spoken language in the area until World War Two (1940's) when it became too politically unpopular to continue. Which is to say, they made it through World War One before making this change.

Pheasant hunting is probably the primary activity that brings visitors in to this part of the country. Pheasants were introduced from Asia about the time the German-Russians came, although they nativized faster. There is lots of public land available for hunting, much of it enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to keep land out of production and often opens it up to public access: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_Reserve_Program#E....

The town's approach too "development" was different than other parts of the US. Primarily, they were concerned with tearing down houses before they became dilapidated, or worse, "bought up by some California trucker passing through who'll move in with his Go-Go girlfriend" (close to exact quote). You could (and still can) buy a very nice house in town for less than $50,000, or a livable fixer-upper for much less. There's probably better potential for being a remote technology worker now than when I was there trying to do it by dialup.

I was back a couple falls ago, visiting from California for pheasant hunting. The town I was in looks exactly like the photos in the story, enough so that I wondered at first whether Napoleon was a pseudonym. Visually, it was almost identical to how it had been when I was last there a decade before. I had been wondering how much impact the internet has had on the culture, and this article gives nice insight. Thanks Rex!

Netflix and Ch-Ch-Chilly

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