Volume 2, Issue 1 – Santiago Fernández Sánchez – A Walk Through Music Forums

We are the children of the internet. We were raised on a diet of a trolls, sockpuppets, avatars and signatures. We stayed awake until 4 am discussing why Radiohead’s In Rainbows was a step beyond or a living proof of their decadence. Rock critics were a matter of criticism themselves, sometimes an argument of authority, sometimes a laughing stock.

In this article, Santiago Fernández Sánchez draws on his memories of belonging to Spanish music-related internet communities, such as message boards, during the noughties. He considers how these living entities that are forums reproduce or rebel against the discourse of the mainstream critics, how they shape tastes, how its members became what they (we) are as music fans, and how the fragility of internet servers erase the memories of a collective virtual experience.

Read Santiago’s piece below, or download the PDF

RiffsSantiago