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Post by davidv on May 17, 2009 18:22:35 GMT 10
As you'd all know, micronationalism enjoyed a boom from the mid-1990s onwards with the advent of wide use of the Internet when we saw some long-established micronations enter the Internet while others sprang up on the net.
This continued until about 2000 or so when the bubble more or less burst and there was a marked decline in micronational activity from then on, with many micronations dropping out of sight and fewer new micronations form. The reasons for these are many and have been explained elsewhere by myself and others.
So what is the next stage? I think we're seeing a period of consolidation- because the bursting of the bubble meant survival of the fittest, and only the stronger micronations, those able to remain interesting or maintain a high level of activity, endured and are all the stronger for it. The coming generation of micronationalists might be less likely to repeat those mistakes.
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George
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Post by George on May 20, 2009 2:31:56 GMT 10
I've seen this "boom and bust" theory expounded upon in various micronation forums at various times since the mid 1990s, but I don't believe it can be supported by the available evidence.
I would firstly argue that it's based on a false premise - namely that the more micronations there are in existence at any particular point in time, in simple numeric terms, the better... and thus, a period when there are perceptibly less micronations than an immediately preceding period must somehow signify a period of "decline" or "crisis".
On the contrary, I would argue that the true golden age of micronations was not the 1990s, but the period from the late 1960s through to the early 1980s - when quality not quantity was the order of the day.
During that period there were numerically very few micronations in existence compared with the present day - but those that did exist were far more substantive, achieved far more in real-world terms (generally in ways that have never subsequently been equalled, much less surpassed), and are in fact far more historically notable than the largely ephemeral hobbyist creations of the Internet age.
The founders of Rose Island, as just one example, managed to raise substantial amounts of REAL capital, from REAL investors, in order to actually construct a REAL man-made structure in international waters, which was perceived as a REAL threat to the sovereign authority of a REAL sovereign state.
How many later micronations have ever achieved anything that is even a pale shadow of this ?
Hutt River, Sealand, Aramoana, Seborga, Rainbow Creek Bumbunga and various others all had measurable impacts on real world geography, real world events and on the real lives of (sometimes) hundreds of people.
In micronational terms there is simply no comparison between those sorts of achievements, and the many hundreds of ephemeral - and let's be honest - utterly inconsequentially trivial - website nations created by bored teens as an early form of social networking during the internet boom years.
Certainly there was a boom in web or forum-based micronations during the mid-late 90s - but that really only represents a not-very-large or important slice of micronational history, and it certainly does not constitute the prism through which all micronational endeavour must be viewed.
It is no accident that almost all of today's truly successful micronations already had decades-long real-world histories, conducted in places on planet Earth by actual people whose activities were independently documented in multiple sources, when the internet came along and made their job of self-promotion a whole lot easier...
...while at the same time a whole generational "crop" of ephemeral online micronations simply disappeared the moment their nascent rudimentary social networking functions were supplanted by Myspace and Facebook.
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Chas Jago
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Post by Chas Jago on May 20, 2009 5:33:32 GMT 10
I judge how the community is by how the nations are progressing and the general separation of types, rather than how many nations actually exist.
In my opinion when you observe the community of micronations, there is generally 3 different types, I do not like the terms secessionist and simulationist, A/ because these terms cause anger, and B/ I dont think they actually describe the nations that exist.
Why? because I have found many nations including very large nations do not fit into those two terms.
Now the 3 different types I believe now exist are as follows,
Purpose: These nations are generally the likes of Hutt River, Aramoana, Rainbow Creek Bumbunga, etc These nations exist for a purpose and have been created for a reason. Also in this field is nations such as TorHavn ete.
Community: This is where I list 90% of so-called simulations etc, because they are communities of citizens who exist for fun, excitement, political simulation, I would also place nations such as Reunion etc in this area, because they exist to generate a community around an identity.
Self-existing: Now this is where I place nations who I believe exist for no other real reason than to boost the ego of there founders. Some may take offence to this term, but I feel and many others do too, that these nations exist for no other reason or purpose.
Some nations do cross between the 3 types or span over 2 or more types, but they all fit in these 3 types, and accurately describe all micronations.
No offence is intended by this description, but these 3 types were dreamed up several years ago and to be honest as much as people object, accurately describe all Micronations.
Now before someone asks, Alteria fits into the Community term but also crosses into Purpose.
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Post by davidv on May 20, 2009 17:50:08 GMT 10
I certainly can understand the quality v quantity argument for micronations which is relevant now because we have fewer but definitely stronger micronations.
However, I have to disagree with the premise that the rise of social networking has had anything to do with the decline- because the social network phenomenon has only become a big thing in the last 5 years or so, and that from what I saw the "bubble" burst long before (a good 4-5 years) that took place.
In another thread I've also pointed out that micronations that grew out of the so-called "bedroom state" phenomenon only did so because they grew beyond the bedroom into a real, living community in their own right.
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George
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Post by George on May 20, 2009 18:49:45 GMT 10
I don't believe that there is a causal relationship between the decline of online micronations and the rise of the social networking phenomenon - but I do think that it's fairly self evident that there are fewer online micronations being created today, because the basic social networking functions that pretty much define the majority online micronations are simply done better by Facebook, Myspace etc - and therefore that the nett outcome of this process is a decline in the number, prevalence and social importance of online micronations.
A kid who 10 years ago might have founded an online micronation, and used its forums and messaging functions to progressively build up a small community of likeminded souls because there was no other way of building an online community, now has a Myspace/Facebook profile which essentially achieves the same outcome for them, in a fraction of the time, with little or no effort required on their part to make it happen.
For the "instant gratification" generations, this pretty much trumps anything most online micronations can offer.
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Chas Jago
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Post by Chas Jago on May 20, 2009 19:33:36 GMT 10
I also disagree with the aspect that Social Networking has caused a downturn in Micronationalism.
Many of the micronationalists I know of who have left Micronationalism, have left because of real world commitments and the fact that they have become bored with it. Others have left because of the atitudes of some in this community.
One such Micronationalist is just completing a Doctorate, in the UK. several others have left for several reasons, so I dont believe that facebook etc has anything to do with it.
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Post by D. N. Vercáriâ on May 26, 2009 4:26:31 GMT 10
Many Penguineans created accounts at Livejournal after the collapse of this micronation. They stayed in contact there, if they have been friends before the collapse. But neither did this social network cause the collapse of Penguinea, nor has it ever been seen as a replacement. It just became a way to stay in contact.
But as far as I understood George, he didn't say that social networks had an impact on existing micronations. He said that micronations were the social networks of the past. I'm not sure if this is true. IMHO, micronations have been micronations all the way, i.e., constructs / foundations of people who are interested in this strange obsession / hobby / whatever.
It's just that more or less incidentally, this strange stuff got some attention around 1996 / 1997 when the internet and "surfing" as a private hobbyhorse was brandnew. Maybe some micronationalist pioneers were the first to understand that the internet is a perfect place for advertising ego-shooting hobbies.
But around 2000 and later, they remained an eccentric minority, and so they almost vanished in the big picture of the internet with its social networks and other exciting stuff.
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George
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Post by George on May 26, 2009 6:58:33 GMT 10
But as far as I understood George, he didn't say that social networks had an impact on existing micronations. He said that micronations were the social networks of the past. ... Maybe some micronationalist pioneers were the first to understand that the internet is a perfect place for advertising ego-shooting hobbies. ... But around 2000 and later, they remained an eccentric minority, and so they almost vanished in the big picture of the internet with its social networks and other exciting stuff. Dieter's comments above pretty much sum up my position on this subject. A lot of online micronations were founded as "me-too" efforts by people who read about micronations such as Talossa and Molossia in the press and sought to imitate them. Now that that there's much less media coverage overall - and what coverage there is is a lot more analytical and critical (properly so) of its subjects, there's a lot less of the "gee wizz I could do that" factor around to attract potential new micronationalists - particularly as they're typically already involved in other social networking sites and activities. ...and I don't just mean Facebook and Myspace when I refer to online "social networking"; massive multiplayer online games and second life are all part of that phenomenon - and they're all more appealing alternatives to starting a micronation as far as most people are concerned.
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Post by davidv on May 26, 2009 11:48:10 GMT 10
That's very true. Talossa's entry onto the Internet in 1996 is considered to have been a starting point, since many micronations followed in an attempt to emulate them, but there were also micronations such as the Aerican Empire which also had a pre-Internet existence.
But most of them missed the point. Talossa had been a mature, developed community long before it stepped into the Internet limelight. Most of the micronations that sprang up in their midst never developed to the same degree, instead preferring to demand "recognition" from each other. Reunion is one of the very few that formed in that time still existing today.
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Chas Jago
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Post by Chas Jago on May 26, 2009 15:04:22 GMT 10
Alteria was formed originally in December 98, as an offline entity, it was brought online the following year, but has struggled to stay active since moving online.
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