People say that tradition is dying in the 21st century. But tradition has always been dying no matter when and where you look in history, for culture is fluid and ever-changing, and bound by nothing but the heartfelt passion of the living people.
In the bygone eras of the old, human experience was determined predominantly by natural geography. When the most accessible means of transit is walking and most people struggle in poverty, the broader world outside one’s immediate town or village did not exist past stories and legends. This limit forces a consensus on “what is happening”. Everyone knows when the blacksmith’s family is expecting children, or if there will be a festival happening in a week - for there is nothing else to care about. Any two people from the same region on Earth will always share much more of their world with each other, compared to a person from somewhere else. This shared world creates shared experience, which over time brews into shared culture.
The world slowly grew bigger over time. Books, pamphlets, newspapers, radio, television. The knowledge of a greater outside world created the “other” in culture, without which identity cannot meaningfully exist (what is identity if not separating people into inside and outside?). Thus this predominantly geographical and demographical understanding of culture and identity was born. We see the larger world, yet our values and lives are still predominantly determined by the physical world around us - family, ethnicity, race, geography.
The Internet was the tipping point of cultural transmission. While (lamentably) for many these days its magic is reduced down to “staying connected with people you know in real life”, for others it enabled a new age of digital-native small communities. Art, myths, connections, celebrations - people get together for common passions and create something they truly love with each other.
I’ve been a fan of the Touhou Project for nine years at this point - in English-speaking circles it’s a series most famous for Bad Apple and fumos. However, in East Asian countries, it is also a mascot of sorts for doujin culture - roughly referring to “works done by indie, amateur, and/or small teams for passion rather than money”. While the original games, manga, and publications offered a wealth of worldbuilding, music, and characters, the Touhou community is mainly powered by fan works. As of today, there are roughly 2.4 million posts of Touhou fanart on Pixiv, at least 4 terabytes of fan music arrangements spanning thousands of CDs, hundreds of fan games, and hundreds of fan conventions held worldwide annually where thousands of active groups sell their works. To many, Touhou is a prominent, or even the most prominent aspect of their lives.
And the phenomenon - dedicating a significant aspect of your life to a fandom or subculture - is not limited to Touhou by any means. The artist and writer otomerson spent five years of their life creating art and an extensive story mod for OMORI, while dealing with a worsening chronic illness. The fanfiction writer Hieronym started “To the Stars” - a sci-fi Madoka Magica fanfiction with magical girls fighting genocidal aliens - 15 years ago. Today, the fanfiction has its own tertiary fanfics set in its expansive universe, with the best futuristic sociopolitical worldbuilding I’ve ever seen. For anyone who’s spent a sizable amount of time online, these cases should not sound unfamiliar at all. As members of these small, sprouting cultures, people create works out of love and a desire rather than monetary goals. In this increasingly commercial digital age where every post is optimized and monetized, I find this to be the closest instance we have to the ideal utopian vision for the early Internet.
Our niche online communities deserve to be celebrated more, to the same degree we celebrate traditional identities and cultures (or perhaps even more). When a group of people share art, expression, history, and community, then this group is by all means a culture just like any other (what’s the difference between a chat server with a dozen frequent members that chat daily and a small village of the same headcount?). I share much more in common with another human being who loves the same things, compared to someone who happened to be born in the same place as I was or have a similar genetic makeup to me. In this respect, there’s nothing more humanist than an identity acquired on the Internet. For it is forged not by birth, not by force, but by voluntary choice and genuine, heartfelt passion.