Online Communities :: Music Shoegaze Internet Essays

Online Communities When searching for online communities I decided to research a subject I already had a little knowledge about. My friend had told me about an online forum he was subscribed to named Blisscent. Blisscent is a group of over 1500 people who are interested in the musical style of shoegaze rock. For those who do not know what shoegaze sounds like it can be described as a spacey textured form of hard rock; shoegaze began in Britain during the early 1980’s. Shoegaze is a semi-sleepy music. The guitar riffs are often overlaid many times during the recording process, which makes one feel like he is surrounded with a wall of thick sound. The chords are not hard and cut up, they are slow deep chords. The synthesizers often add a background noise and the drumbeats meld with the synthesizers that in turn meld with the guitars. The vocals are usually slowly exhaled and pulsate with the direction of the music. Every aspect of the music combines together to create a hybrid sound that seems to be originating from one source. It could be described as the seconds before getting taken under by a title wave, only in slow motion but with the regular sounds of the waves crashing into you. I know a little bit about shoegaze, it’s not my favorite genre of music, but I thought I would be able to understand the basic ideas of the community. I found that I was wrong; I had never heard of most of the bands being discussed. I could recognize a few and had heard some before but the members of this forum new everything about these bands. The community seemed to know each other very well; members were inviting other members to concerts their band was playing at. Some members sent postings making fun of other bands that they knew. Members congratulated each other with a posting after seeing the others band.