What do we do? When second-hand and third-hand sources debate historical anecdotes, we often see the discussion get heated. And there's little fact-checking and quoting viable references that can be publicly checked and accessed by everyone. If we applied the Scientific Method to this problem, we would need to have a hypothesis and check it against the results of our experiment. Here, we can develop a sense of our history based on initial research and first impressions. Then, we can cross-check our narrative with eyewitness accounts and any available physical evidence.
Maybe that's why videos depicting street dance culture in its early years are so coveted. They are our only undisputable source of documentation, especially in raw form. Unless they're edited or narrated, they represent the closest we can get to experiencing that time period through one defined lens. But there seems to be a lot of historical footage that isn't available on Youtube. In fact, they probably still reside with private owners who aren't willing to make them public for different reasons.
We need to push for authenticity in how we understand our history. If not, we'll lose the forest for the trees. Online discussions are plagued by the fact that it's hard to tell who you can trust as a reliable source when most users have anonymous handles. Unless you know someone personally, it's hard to trust their words. So second-hand and third-hand sources start on equal footing in an online debate, by default. These discussions get heated and we don't know where to turn. Is there a way to check this? Ebay has its users rate other users based on the helpfulness and reliability of their reviews. If we used something like this in online historical discussions, we would be using crowd-sourcing to help us traffic the information flow.
Another solution is to gather the most reliable and articulate voices on street dance culture in a conference setting. Then, encourage them to debate and create a narrative together for our history. Perhaps there is no endgame to this strategy. We may still get a handful of histories. But the practice of regularly debating and discussing history in the pursuit of plausible accounts brings a little more clarity. However, there's very little financial incentive these days to do something like this so perhaps this is why we haven't seen it done on a large scale.
Is an endgame possible? Can we create one authoritative narrative for the many styles within street dance culture that becomes the historical foundation for future generations? That's a difficult task. But seeking authenticity is necessary. We need it in order to empower the future generation with knowledge so they can take the dance further.
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