How the Internet Expanded Our Music Taste But Hardened Our Political Beliefs

The value of discovering not only different music, but different ideas.

Up until the mid-noughties, being in high school also meant belonging to a tribe.

The tribe you belonged to was usually based on either your ethnicity or your music or athletic choices.

During the 1990s, when I grew up, you were either a long-haired metalhead, a Fubu-wearing hip hop fan, a techno head, a melancholic grunge fan, or you spiked your hair high for the pop-punk stylings of Blink 182.

There were also less curious kids who ate up whatever mainstream radio threw their way, such as NSYNC and The Spice Girls. That, or you played Aussie Rules football, or soccer.

Like the previous decades before it, the battle lines were drawn, and you derived a great deal of identity from belonging to your tribe. As a teenager, choosing your side was an important rite of passage into adulthood, and as a metalhead, I often found myself verbally jousting with techno heads and hip hop fans.

Before the Internet

If you’re over 30, then you remember a time before smartphones, social media, and the information overwhelm we’re navigating today. Back in…