Pride is immaterial to the larger issue... The fact of the matter is that society (gay and straight and everybody) has become fractured by the Internet.
In every major city, organizations such as old-style clubs with club presidents, secretaries, newsletters and so forth are dying out and none are rising to replace them. Once somebody goes to Google to find out more about their hobby, then why would anybody need to pay for membership in a club in order to hope for the same information?
Gay gathering-places such as bars are dying away and new ones aren't appearing to become overnight smashes, as in the old days. In the old days, gay men NEEDED hankie codes in order to weed through 400 prospects in a crowded bar. Now, you leave your profile page online, and they contact you directly. Why go to a bar, when BEAR411, ADAM4ADAM, CRAIGSLIST and 10,000 other meeting-places have become better cruising-places?
A buddy of mine was bitching to me that Pride in our city is a drag, because folks are constantly trying to get his contact-information. I told him that this was because there was NO OTHER WAY to reach our community the rest of the year. We no longer read every issue of the gay rags any more, so we no longer can be counted on to convene at the same events as a community. Old-style fundraiser events attract very, very few people, because the rest of the folks are at home, in front of their computers and oblivious.
Frankly, I am old enough and set-in-my-old-ways enough to wish this would all stop happening and the Good Old Days would come back, but it's not going to happen. Gay Pride events, gay publications, gay ghettos and homogeneous gay culture are artifacts of a bygone era.
IT'S NOT ABOUT PRIDE, PEOPLE!
Pride is immaterial to the larger issue... The fact of the matter is that society (gay and straight and everybody) has become fractured by the Internet.
In every major city, organizations such as old-style clubs with club presidents, secretaries, newsletters and so forth are dying out and none are rising to replace them. Once somebody goes to Google to find out more about their hobby, then why would anybody need to pay for membership in a club in order to hope for the same information?
Gay gathering-places such as bars are dying away and new ones aren't appearing to become overnight smashes, as in the old days. In the old days, gay men NEEDED hankie codes in order to weed through 400 prospects in a crowded bar. Now, you leave your profile page online, and they contact you directly. Why go to a bar, when BEAR411, ADAM4ADAM, CRAIGSLIST and 10,000 other meeting-places have become better cruising-places?
A buddy of mine was bitching to me that Pride in our city is a drag, because folks are constantly trying to get his contact-information. I told him that this was because there was NO OTHER WAY to reach our community the rest of the year. We no longer read every issue of the gay rags any more, so we no longer can be counted on to convene at the same events as a community. Old-style fundraiser events attract very, very few people, because the rest of the folks are at home, in front of their computers and oblivious.
Frankly, I am old enough and set-in-my-old-ways enough to wish this would all stop happening and the Good Old Days would come back, but it's not going to happen. Gay Pride events, gay publications, gay ghettos and homogeneous gay culture are artifacts of a bygone era.