Digital Tribalism and Nostalgic Regression: A Case Study of "Proto-Cancellation" within the Personal Profiles of 1970s Rock Musicians (2010–2014)

This paper examines the transformation of parasocial interactions, digital authority, and aggregate conformity within the early Web 2.0 platform ecosystem (2010–2014). Utilizing the framework of media archaeology and cyberculture studies, the study analyzes an anonymized case study of two 1970s British rock industry veterans operating via personal social media profiles on Facebook and VK. The paper deconstructs a core socio-psychological paradox: the profound critical and emotional regression of a socially mature, adult audience (aged 35–55) who voluntarily surrendered their cognitive autonomy to preserve a nostalgic "time capsule" myth. Through the lens of interface determinism, the study contrasts a "networked hub" strategy based on radical relational labor with a "Digital Fortress" model driven by an authoritarian psychotype. The paper reconstructs a pre-dawn incident of signaling bullying and "proto-cancellation" directed against an independent subcultural biographer. Ultimately, the study explicates the dynamics of blind collective obedience (the delegation of epistemic trust) and maps the fragility of digital tyranny, demonstrating how a single rhetorical intervention by an actor possessing intra-subcultural factional immunity shatters the totalitarian echo chamber, forcing the leader into immediate self-censorship and content deletion.