As I have discussed in my sections on race, class and language, the ability of the internet to transcend these identifications is contradictory to the role of these markers in the street. Hip-hop is grounded in the physical body. Every pillar of the culture is founded in the black, working-class male body and his struggles to express the oppressions related to his corporeal experience. Graffiti, Breakdancing, MCing and Rapping are all about taking limited resources and recreating them to express personal identity in a way that is resistant to the dominating social hierarchy (and its white, middle, upper-class body).

Thus, now that our popular culture has inverted this hierarchy, many of these white, middle-class bodies want entrance into this subculture. But, because of the street societies emphasis on the physical body, these hip-hop fans are not so easily accepted. Much like blacks entering a white system, whites are made to prove themselves and must earn a way into the culture.

This challenge is lost in the internet. It is non-physical and members are at liberty to reveal their race and class, and thus the body is de-emphasized. What is more, there is a voyeuristic quality to the internet that allows members to learn the rules before they enter. Sure, merely listening to the music and buying the magazines could be considered a voyeuristic way of preparing for the street, but it would not help one enter a community. On the internet, a weeks reading would allow one to learn the rules and expectations, after which one can easily enter, and then move at their own rate of self-disclosure. And because it is not a physical space, one can largely avoid the physical repercussions that one of their statements might provoke. Posting messages is more calculating and less threatening than street conversations and a newcomer can usually explain their way out of an embarrassment, a liberty street societies might not allow. All of these disembodied cyberspace dynamics make internet hip-hop communities much more accessible and although there are rules that have developed, they are voyeuristically available so that one can be self-protecting before the put themselves on (the) line.

Another important aspect of cyberspace is that it is non-local. Rappers' constant refernces to places and spaces that define their community make hip-hop in the street extremely localized. As Tricia Rose said in Black Noise, "The ghetto exists for millions of young black and other people of color- it is a profoundly significant social location... rap's ghetto imagery is too often intensely specific and locally significant, making its prefferred viewer someone who can read ghetto centricity with ghetto sensitivity" (pg.11) Whether it be due to lack of social and spatial mobility, personal and communal growth in a specific area, or as a response to the dominant society's stigmitization of that space, there is a definate loyaly and pride in hip-hop's inner city locations.

Cyberspace, however, is everywhere and nowhere. It brings together people from not only the United States, but also from across the world. This means that instead of a community being raised in a common culture, the internet community gathers around it. So instead of discussing local-specific themes, the internet headz must revolve around universal ones. Hip-hop's music and lyrics are generally enough to provide this territory, especially because it is an audio medium which one cannot discuss without removing it from its original form. And since it is the main meeting point for these groups, the members tend to be extremely specific in their discussion of this aspect of hip-hop culture, creating an environment where others can play back tracks and experience the referent in their own space. Beyond the normal threads that concern music and lyrics, alt.rap and rec.music.hip-hop also find popular culture material that brings them together. One of the more popular recent threads revolved around "Old School". On this thread, members posted different TV shows, commercials and consumer items from their youth. Being that most all of the members are in college, they found common territory in their popular culturally defined childhood. This provided a tangible referent for this otherwise dislocated and intangible space.

This debate on space raises some important questions. Because it formed around a culture from people who are spatially and racially alienated from its original community, and because it can neither engage in hip-hop's forms nor represent its foundations in space and body, is this really a hip-hop community? Most hip-hop headz say that hip-hop is not just music, but a way of life, and if this is the case, then what are these internet newsgroups? They are obviously not hip-hop communities in the conventional sense, but I do not think they can be dismissed as fake. With this question in mind, I lead you to an examination of hip-hop's use of the ideology around words like "fake" and "real" and how it manifests itself on the internet. I think this will allow us a foundation to explore the ways in which these newsgroups do re-create community by maintaining tensions between the way body and space are used in the cyber and street space.

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