Did the Internet Kill Music Scenes or Just Make Them Digital?

Photo by Czapp Árpád

Once upon a time, a music scene meant something physical. It meant sweaty all-ages venues, borrowed PAs, sticker-covered bass guitars, and getting handed a burned CD at the back of a show. It was geographic, gritty, and gloriously in-person. You weren’t just into music, you were literally in it. You showed up. You knew the bands. You recognized everyone by the third gig.

Fast forward to 2025: the scene is still here. Sort of. But it’s floating in group chats, playlists, FYPs, and subreddits. You don’t go to the venue, you go to the comment section.

So did the internet kill the music scene… or just teleport it into the cloud?

What We Lost: Local Legends, IRL Magic, and Belonging You Could Touch

The old-school music scene gave birth to subcultures. Punk wasn’t a trend, it was a community. Emo wasn’t a Spotify genre, it was something you lived and bled and moshed through. The physical space shaped the sound, and the sound shaped the people.

If you weren’t there, you missed it. And that exclusivity? It made it matter.

Now? There’s no gate at the front of the show. Just an endless scroll. And while that makes things more accessible, it also means there’s no longer a sense of place. No singular energy tying fans together. No musty, beer-soaked venue acting as the heartbeat of a movement. Just pixels.

What We Gained: Access, Diversity, and Global DIY

Photo by Sergei Bezborodov

But to say the internet “killed” scenes is too simple. The truth? It also democratized them.

Now a kid in a small town in Alberta can discover Brazilian shoegaze in seconds. An 18-year-old can drop an EP from their bedroom in Manila and get fans in London, LA, and Berlin without ever leaving their house. You don’t need to live in a “music city” to build a following. You just need WiFi. And that’s huge.

The internet also gave rise to genre-fluid artists, micro-scenes, and new platforms for collaboration. Bandcamp became the new basement. Discord servers replaced backstage hangs. TikTok comments replaced zine reviews. It’s not better or worse, it’s just different.

Are Digital Scenes Still... Scenes?

Photo by Sergei Bezborodov

It depends on what you’re looking for.

If you want to feel sweaty bodies scream lyrics back at you in a 150-cap venue? Yeah, you might miss what was. But if you want community, curation, and weirdly specific niche rabbit holes? They’re alive and thriving online.

There are entire internet-based communities built around hyperpop, alt-R&B, SoundCloud rap, and queer electronic collectives. They may not share geography, but they share culture, taste, and intent. And that’s still a scene, just digitized.

So did the internet kill the music scene? No. It changed it. It fragmented it. It moved it from the garage to the server. From the mosh pit to the DMs. From a city block to a global broadband cable.