The Death of Local Maxima
November 24, 2024
In my last post about the Seattle grunge scene, I explored how geographic isolation and local subcultures helped create something truly unique. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder: could grunge have even happened in today’s hyperconnected world? Probably not. And that’s a problem—not just for music, but for creativity, politics, and culture as a whole.
The internet has fundamentally changed how we chase status. It’s no longer about dominating your local scene or finding your niche; now, it’s about competing on a global stage. On paper, this sounds great—bigger audiences, more opportunities—but in practice, it has flattened everything. The same status symbols are distributed worldwide, and status itself is now painfully legible.
Back in the day, if your band sold fewer records but packed out every local venue, you could argue that you were just as successful as the mainstream acts in some ways. Now, there’s no argument; follower counts, streams, and likes have made everything quantifiable. That might be good for metrics, but it’s changed culture significantly. People who once chased local maxima—becoming the biggest fish in their specific pond—are now chasing global maxima, and most of them are losing. Worse, we’re losing the vibrant ecosystems they might have created if they’d stayed local.
The Cost of a Homogenized World
This shift hasn’t just affected art and culture; it’s reshaped how we engage with politics too. There was a time when people deeply cared about local politics. City councils, regional issues, and state elections felt significant because they were close to home and had tangible impacts. But as the internet and media coalesced around national politics, the local stuff started to feel less important. Why obsess over your city’s pothole budget when everyone’s yelling about presidential elections on Twitter?
This shift has frayed local institutions. Politicians who once built their careers by focusing on their communities now aim for national headlines. In cities like San Francisco, it’s painfully obvious. Local officials spend more time crafting statements to go viral than solving problems in their districts. San Francisco politics is just a stepping stone to something more lucrative in DC.
The Internet Isn’t Weird Anymore
The internet was once a weird, wonderful place. Niche forums, oddball subcultures, and obscure websites flourished. But now, the internet feels like a giant corporate city, mediated by a handful of platforms. Algorithms dictate what we see, and everyone’s experience converges. TikTok feeds us the same dances. Twitter regurgitates the same hustle-porn mantras. If you want something different, you have to dig—hard. And if you’re lucky enough to find it, it’s probably in a group chat.
Ironically, it might be easier to find weirdness in the real world now than online. Hanging out in the fringes of your local community feels more unpredictable than scrolling through Instagram (which is a far cry from the internet of the early 2010s).
One of the only digital spaces that still captures some of that old internet energy is something like /r/LocalLlama, where people cultivate niche interests without worrying about global reach. But those spaces are rare, and the trend is clear: the internet has matured, and in doing so, it may have lost its soul.
Making the Internet Weird Again
This is why I found crypto so exciting, at least in its early days. It offered the promise of a decentralized internet, a place where weirdness could thrive again. No corporate overlords. No algorithmic homogeny. Just communities emerging organically and creating new local maxima. While many are building in the right direction, that dream hasn’t fully materialized yet. But the idea remains compelling: what if we could build spaces online that encouraged people to stay small, think differently, and create something truly unique?
What if local status became valuable again? Not everyone should be chasing the same Silicon Valley goals or TikTok virality. When everyone’s fighting for the same prizes, we miss out on ideas that don’t fit neatly into the global narrative. We need islands of uniqueness—pockets of the internet (and real life) where it’s okay to care more about your local community or niche group than what the world thinks.
The Internet as a City—and What Comes Next
In many ways, the internet’s evolution mirrors that of a city. It started as a low-population frontier, full of niche communities. Over time, it became a bustling metropolis—exciting, but crowded. Then came the corporations, building a shiny downtown full of skyscrapers and chain restaurants. It’s functional, but no one really loves it. So what happens next? Does it all collapse into a ghost town, like the empty streets of downtown San Francisco? Or is there a way to create new “cities” online—smaller, weirder spaces where people can thrive without worrying about global visibility?
The grunge scene thrived because Seattle was geographically isolated. It wasn’t competing with L.A. or New York; it was focused on its own thing. That isolation fostered creativity, community, and culture, and eventually, the world took notice. But it all started with local maxima—people who cared more about their scene than about global success.
On the bright side, we may have hit a turning point which can lead us back to the promised land. There's so much distrust in media generally with the fraying of mainstream institutions (like CNN, NYT, etc.), and AI generated slop that people are reverting back to local trust networks. You'll only trust people and personalities that you actually have a relationship with (including parasocial ones). This could bring back local maxima since people will optimize for value and trust within those existing networks which they care more about vs. trying to get very broad distribution to a global audience. We'll have to wait and see what happens over the next 5-10 years, but no matter what we'll be living in a dynamic, interesting time.