Who Killed the American Demoscene?

Jason Koebler writes: Every year, a few dozen coders ride an Amtrak train from New York City to Montreal as part of Synchrony, one of the only annual demoparties in the United States. The lack of demoparties is conspicuous and in stark contrast to the European demoscene, which boasts dozens of annual demoparties, some of which attract thousands of participants. With this discrepancy in mind, I tagged along with the Synchrony crew this year in pursuit of an answer to a deceptively simple question—who killed the American demoscene?