Andy Baio linked to this top notch article on the gentrification of online, (and more specifically, geek news) communities. The key quote for me is:

The point is, we won. We took an idea, which said that the masses should be able to make their own media, and we did it as an example and eventually the people we were fighting against started copying us. No we didn’t win all of what we wanted, we had a political agenda which we able to advance here and there… but in may ways we won.

The piece was particularly resonant for me as I’m an 8 year member and contributor to Metafilter - basically the only site I can think of that has changed the least in tone, approach or spirit in all the years of its existence. (At least, I don’t believe it has, but maybe I’m in the tent looking out, so to speak.) Metafilter is essentially the internet equivalent of finding a favourite old jumper at the back of the cupboard.

…all of which reminded me of the times I lived on the Bethnal Green/Hackney borders and, in particular, this gem of a piece of graffitti.

I commented at the time, “There’s something admirable about these Citizen Smith types who CARE SO MUCH about the plight of the working classes that they take the time to use little anarchy signs for punctuation, (the radical urban guerilla equivalent of love hearts as dots over i’s,) and earnestly underline the word SCUM to really hammer the point home.

Having moved to Manchester recently, and on the subject of the gentrification (or, rather, the re-gentrification,) of urban areas in general, I notice that up in the North West they have a different attitude to percieved affluent professionals moving to an area. I think it’s connected to the fact that fewer people tend to get shot after it happens.

On a side-note, 10 years ago, this is the kind of thing I would have scrawled onto a wall. Now I just want to grab a bucket and sponge and, tutting quietly, scrub this nonsense off.”

That is all. Carry on.