Everything Old Is New Again

The remix culture is the water in which we swim

What would a time traveler from the past think of our current age? What would they make of the culture of the internet, for example, where something like this could be viewed by almost 100,000 people and disliked by only 13. "Have humans gone collectively mad?" this hypothetical chrononaut might ask.

Further exploration would reveal that this video-game-musical-homage was not an isolated incident, but rather a widespread, hugely popular phenomenon. There would seemingly be no end to this rabbit hole for our intrepid explorer.

Perhaps (he or she would think) -- perhaps culture is a finite resource that will be eventually depleted. Maybe internet culture is like a snake eating its own tail -- an ouroboros -- that is never satisfied as it consumes and re-uses itself over and over again.

And maybe that's not so bad.

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