PicoBlog

Welcome to Extra Garbage Day! Every other week, I’ll be dropping a bonus Thursday issue just for paying subscribers. To start, these will be Q&As with interesting people I’ve been dying to interview. Let me know what you think.

Today, I have an interview for you with the guy who basically inspired this entire interview series I’ve been doing. Back in 2007, Rob Dobi created a website that would take over my life for several years. It was called Your Scene Sucks. The conceit was very simple: 36 caricatures of different music fans, complete with eerily specific wardrobe breakdowns and playlist suggestions. For me, it was like that moment at the end of Iron Man when Tony Stark finds Nick Fury in his living room and discovers he’s part of something much larger.

I suddenly realized that everything I was seeing in my local music scene was happening all over the country. I really cannot overstate how profound that feeling was in the days before social platforms took over the internet. It’s hard to imagine it now — in a world of VSCO girls and e-boys and doomer meme cosplayers — that in the mid-00s, the internet was just beginning to affect the way subcultures worked. Looking back on it, it’s clear that Myspace was altering the way kids dressed and what media they consumed. And in the same way, the proto-influencers of that era — screamo bands and mall goth models — were leading a fundamental shift in how the physical world is impacted by the digital one.

We can make all the jokes we want about Facebook turning everyone into a QAnon extremist or Instagram wellness yogis, but let’s not forget that in 2007, Myspace made me think that this was a cool way to look:

(I think white belts could make a comeback in 2021 tbh.)

Dobi’s Your Scene Sucks is a perfect document of that time period. All of the world’s music was suddenly in our pockets thanks to the first iPods and with Myspace and AOL Instant Messenger. And we had an online social network advanced enough to really connect with each other. And that connection created an inertia that made things start evolving really fast.

I was also struck by how Your Scene Sucks was one of the last websites besides maybe Something Awful that I would actually type into my browser to see if it had updated. We don’t really have that experience anymore. Content comes to us, and because it does, it feels maybe a little less special.

The interview below is a really fun one. It’s a trip down memory lane for sure and maybe just a little self-indulgently nostalgic for me, but I also think it’s a really good reminder that the internet has changed a lot in 10 years and it’s primed to change even more in the next 10 years and it’s worth stopping and thinking about how we got here and where we’re going. The following has been slightly edited for pacing.

I wanted to talk to you because you made a website many years ago that had a profound impact on the way I saw the world as a teenager. It was a big deal, to the point where me and my friends would sit around and wait for the new update or the new person added—

You've been waiting a while haha.

Haha yeah it's been a very long time now. So I guess let's start with: What made you start Your Scene Sucks?

It started off as another site. I don't even know if other people saw this one. It was called "How To Dress Emo" and I went to, I believe, I think it was called Skatefest in Worcester, Mass. They did it a few years in a row — not sure if they still do it. The lineup was completely across the spectrum. It was just Drive-Thru Records bands, but then there'd also be like The Hope Conspiracy and Converge and Thursday. It was just a broad range of bands.

[Ed. note: It was a weird mix of pop punk bands and hardcore bands.]

But everyone there looked exactly the same. It was that early Myspace period where every single dude had skin-tight blue denim with the studded belts and a tight black T-shirt with a logo with some blood spatted on it and the thick-rimmed glasses. The stereotypical Myspace look. And so I was bored and had my sketchbook with me and I actually did a drawing and wrote, "how to dress emo" and put on both the boy's and the girl's bathrooms. And I think someone actually found it and messaged me on Myspace. And I'm like, "oh, someone actually found this funny. Maybe I'll make a website about it." And then I made a website about it and it caught on a little bit and then I actually updated it and people liked the new version better and then I made another one and expanded it.

Mostly I just did it because I looking around and at the time I wasn't a very fashionable little hipster and I was like, "oh my god, everyone here looks exactly the same." So I should document this somehow. And then with Myspace, you started to be able to see this distinction of fashion styles, where you could instantly tell what this person's playlist was and what their interests were based on their little scene.

It's interesting me, looking back on it, that all the subcultures had very specific names and rules and signifiers. It all seemed very formal. I was wondering if you think Gen Z fashion is similarly chunked up like that or do you think it's all just a big mishmash now.

I have a hard time telling. A lot of those characters [on Your Scene Sucks] are me. I listened to stuff all across the spectrum. I love post-rock, I love ska. I have no shame about it. I grew up in ska-necticut. And right now, I'm more of an "orgcore dad," I guess. But I’m still listening to the crusty music and everything else.

One thing that I think is really interesting, and you mentioned it early on, is that you had an idea and you made a website. And that seems so crazy now. The idea that you just made a website and people went your website. I feel like that sort of thing doesn't really happen anymore. You would have made an Instagram page or a TikTok or something now.

No, right, my wife was building a website last night and we were trying to think of websites to find inspiration from and I just was like, "I don't go on websites anymore." I don't know what websites... I go on Reddit, but that's not really a website so much as it is an aggregator of content from other places. Websites are sort of a thing of the past, especially ones that created original content. It was practically like a book, I guess. A field guide.

I'm curious, what was the traffic like at the peak of Your Scene Sucks. 

Oh god, I can't remember. It was big. There wasn't a single person involved in the music scene that didn't see it. Everyone knew what it was. And I think it's fascinating to look back on because there were certain people who I never would have thought would have seen it. I read an interview with [famous grindcore band] Pg. 99 and they saw it. I don't think they liked it. There were a number of bands that did not like it at all. But it was always fascinating to see how far it reached. How everyone knew what this place was that was just nothing more than poking fun at people and myself.

When you were updating it, it felt like you were tapped into this conversation that, during the early days of the internet, no one knew everyone else was having. And it felt like you were this person who had figured out a way to connect all these conversations teenagers all over the country were having about fashion and music and culture. Back before Facebook, you couldn't really tell if other people felt the same way as you. And I remember being in a Newbury Comics and seeing a guy who looked exactly like what you had released that week. It was crazy to think that you were sort of a lightning rod for this stuff. Because there was no way to find out what people were talking about.

It's weird. I do see people in the wild that still look like these characters. People were dressing up as these characters for Halloween. The weirdest thing to me, I'm a big pro-wrestling fan. There was a promotion and on their first inaugural event, there's a photo of a guy doing a back-flip off the top rope to the outside and there's a dude in the front row, who, I kid you not, is dressed exactly as the ska fan, the rude boy. I want to try and find out who this guy is. I want to know if he's trying to dress like him or that's just his sense of fashion. 

It's weird because I don't know if people use [Your Scene Sucks] as a guide or a starting point for how to dress like these things or if they are in on the joke. I once ran into some kids in a mall food court and they had on a Fall Out Boy shirt I designed. I stopped them and was like, "oh that's cool, I've never seen this shirt in the wild." And we got talking about something and I mentioned that I made the site and he goes, "Oh yeah, that's why I've got this pin right here on my pants." And I just went, "Oh my god," and I just had walk away because I realized this thing that I created might actually dictate how people dress and act in a certain way and I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

I feel like you did invent several subcultures. Particularly the "orgcore punker". I had a friend named Dave from Massachusetts who dressed like that down to the tattoos on the legs and New Balance shoes. Everything. He drank PBR. The whole thing. And when he saw that, it was like we all finally had a word for what he was. And we didn't have that before. 

Just to be clear, I'm not sure if I made that term up. I mean, I know that I made it up. But actually about a year ago, Spotify, on their year-end list, actually classified something as orgcore. And I was just like, "did I make this up?" I can't remember. It was 13 years ago. I can't remember if I made it up. So I actually sent people on a quest on Twitter to find when it was actually first used and someone actually found it used a few months before me just by one person who was a reviewer for Punk News. 

I feel like most of the readers there were those dudes who listened to [punk bands like] Hot Water Music, Against Me!, D4, all those bands. And it's one of those things where I can't remember if I saw his review coming up with the name. I don't think I did, I think I just came up with it based on their site. It was a different lifetime ago.

I feel like Myspace was playing this really interesting role where, for the first time, the cables of the internet were connecting. And I think Your Scene Sucks, in a lot of ways, is a document of that period of time where everything is evolving really really fast and we're getting new sub-genres of alternative music every week. 

I'm looking at the line-up right now and some of these things [on Your Scene Sucks] created in that time have since probably died. I'm still paying like $10 a month to keep it on my server and there's literally nothing else on my server than this. It's basically becoming like a Space Jam website at this point. It's just a total time capsule of a couple years of music subculture all wrapped into one.

It's crazy. The last update is from 2011. It's literally 10 years old almost. 

I don't know if I got really busy with work or I had stuff to do. One of the main things is that it's built on such an archaic piece of HTML, I'm not sure I'd even know how to update it at this point. Like I'm sure I could port it over to Squarespace or something, but I just don't know if I have the energy.

It's kind of nice that it's untouched, in a way. It's museum. It's also just makes me miss the days of websites. I miss the days of StumbleUpon and finding a cool blog.

It's funny, I just went to the very first page and right on the main page, I ask people to "Digg" it. Which was basically like Reddit before Reddit.

Do you feel like we'll ever go back to the world of decentralized websites that people go check out or do you think that ship has totally sailed?

In terms of just content like this, I'm not really sure. I can't remember the last time I saw something that people really pored over. I can't remember how much work I put into this site, in terms of each of these characters. I mean, you'd have to pay me a lot of money to do this on my own again. I don't know. I feel like it would be so much easier to create content like this and just throw it up on Instagram and especially in terms of traffic. The views I get on stuff like Instagram, compared to everything else, I don't know if they have a better algorithm or what, but I really don't know. I can't remember the last time I saw a website that was a standalone website, rather than social media first.

Without it being on social media, it doesn't feel like it has to constantly update. I feel like we've lost that. Where a website was a website and maybe it would update once in a while, but it wasn't this living breathing thing. Whereas an Instagram page or something, because of the algorithm, it has to keep creating content. And I think it makes stuff get very unfunny, very fast. But 10 years ago, you could make a bunch of characters you thought were funny, put them up, and then let it live and it didn't have continue to grow. It could just be its own thing.

Totally. I've seen a number of YouTubers who were fairly successful on YouTube, you know, 15 years ago and get a ton of views. And now they're still at it and they're only getting a thousand or so views a week even though they've got 500,000 subscribers. It's like, what are they doing. They're kind of tarnishing their legacy a bit. And that's maybe another reason why I should never touch [Your Scene Sucks]. I should just leave it as it is. 

I think that's nice. I think the internet needs more of that. Of people being like, "I did the thing and I'm very proud of this thing. OK, this thing is done. You can go check it out. We don't need to mess with it."

I would sort of rather Breaking Bad the site than Walking Dead it.

Exactly! OK, so, I have one last very important question for you. This is the most important question: Who is your favorite scenester?

Oh god. Um, uhhhhhh... Right now? This could change from day-to-day. But right now, I'm going to have to go with the SXE Mosh Warrior because he is a positive role model in that he wears a mask. 

Yeah, I think the SXE Mosh Warrior is having an extremely active 2020. 

I've seen him in a lot of places. Oh shit, I just realized the Cybergoth is wearing proper PPE. She's wearing like a legit ventilator mask. So I feel like it's a toss up between the two.

I feel like SXE Mosh Warrior is 2020 and I feel like Cybergoth is 2025 when we get the next pandemic. When things go real, real bad.

Yes!

Seriously, a huge thank you for being a paying subscriber of Garbage Day. You have helped this newsletter grow into something a lot bigger than I really expected.

If you’ve been forwarded this email, welcome! Definitely make sure you check out previous Extra Garbage Days like my interview with extremism researcher Sarah H (@nezumi_ningen on Twitter), my interview with YouTube musician Skatune Network, and my interview with Their.Tube developer Tomo Kihara, and my interview with community activist Gwen Snyder.

One last fun fact for you: Speaking of the network effect of internet platforms and mid-00s emo, I first heard Something Corporate’s “Konstantine” after I started “online dating” a girl I met at a Green Day concert during their American Idiot tour. She sent me the song over AIM’s file transfer. It took almost an hour to download. A simpler time!

***Typos in this email aren’t on purpose, but sometimes they happen***

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