On the Ends of Eras and Decline

There is a genuine fin de siecle feel to the OSR/DIY D&D/whatever-else-you-want-to-call it movement these days. G+ is dying. From what I gather, alternatives to it are Not The Same. If you are reading this you will also I am sure be aware of certain controversies surrounding important figures that confirm that sense of general malaise.

Human cultural movements (at least within capitalism) tend to follow a pattern: a sudden flowering of amateur creativity followed by monetization, then corruption and decline, then a long tail of continuing but diminished resonance thereafter. I know no better illustration of this than grunge, as told in the absolutely seminal Everybody Loves Our Town: A History of Grunge, by the journalist Mark Yarm. A group of bands start out creating a scene through the pure love of making music. Some of them through luck and hard work make it big. Suddenly the outside world is interested and then there's lots of money to be made and the soul is ripped out of what once was. The creative flowering ends up becoming a kind of thin pastiche of itself, and then a parody. Finally most of the big bands break up, people marry and move on, or kill themselves directly or indirectly, and there's not a great deal left. Pretty soon all that remains is Eddie Vedder going through the motions of singing "Alive" for the 20,000th time and Third Eye Blind. And the kids are all listening to Offspring and britpop.

The "OSR" (I call it that for want of a better term) is not on the same magnitude but it has followed that pattern. A sudden explosion of blogging and forum activity born of genuine passion. Gradual monetization and pseudo-professionalisation. Oversaturation and too much stuff to buy, too many people selling product. Then slow deflation. (D&D arguably also followed this pattern.)

What's important to remember about this, though, is that there can be a long tail. D&D didn't go away after its peak in the early-mid 80s. It went into remission and is now enjoying refound popularity - and perhaps a slightly more mature and less frothy version of that. "Grunge" doesn't exactly exist as a pop-cultural phenomenon anymore but the music still exerts an influence and many of the personalities involved have gone on to have much longer post-grunge careers (Dave Grohl being the obvious example). It might be that the "OSR" will also go into a period of diminution and perhaps even hibernation. But it also might mature as a result: fewer "fevered egos", fewer supplements, less selling and a back-to-basics return to the blogosphere.

That has been my hope and in this corner of the internet it's going nicely. I don't miss G+, and quitting it has actually made me realise that for a long time I've missed just blogging and interacting with the commenters here. Readership and commenting is much higher than it has been for a long time. In a funny sort of a way, decadence and decline is working nicely for me. And I don't just mean that in an "I'm alright, Jack", sort of way; I think it will be good for the "scene", too, because it might mean a renourishing of roots which have been allowed to wither of late.