“A world of fetishised objects populated by weird obsessives.” Well, haven’t read a better description of our current era. And the people are now objects to be fetishised too.
Anything threatening to be a subculture is commodified before it can walk (2014)
201–210 of 273 posts
Re: Anything threatening to be a subculture is commodified before it can walk (2014)
#202Steve Albini captured this perfectly in an essay to The Baffler called "Commodify your Dissent". I highly recommend it, as it described the commodification of subculture that started in the 80's and really swallowed everything in the 1990's (in the USA at least); Here's the book: https://store.thebaffler.com/products/commodify-your-dissent One of his examples is that music and clothing companies realized there was a…
Wearing a t-shirt with a prefabricated group identity marker, whether purchased or self-manufactured, makes one a curious sort of "non-conformist".
In the context of a bunch of social animals wearing t-shirts, what exactly is curious about it?
Re: Anything threatening to be a subculture is commodified before it can walk (2014)
#203Steve Albini captured this perfectly in an essay to The Baffler called "Commodify your Dissent". I highly recommend it, as it described the commodification of subculture that started in the 80's and really swallowed everything in the 1990's (in the USA at least); Here's the book: https://store.thebaffler.com/products/commodify-your-dissent One of his examples is that music and clothing companies realized there was a…
Cultures evolve and signs change meaning
Not much news herw
Re: Anything threatening to be a subculture is commodified before it can walk (2014)
#204Steve Albini captured this perfectly in an essay to The Baffler called "Commodify your Dissent". I highly recommend it, as it described the commodification of subculture that started in the 80's and really swallowed everything in the 1990's (in the USA at least); Here's the book: https://store.thebaffler.com/products/commodify-your-dissent One of his examples is that music and clothing companies realized there was a…
Wearing a t-shirt with a prefabricated group identity marker, whether purchased or self-manufactured, makes one a curious sort of "non-conformist".
My style might be plain shirts, yet I can never find those, they just aren't a stable configuration of atoms.
Re: Anything threatening to be a subculture is commodified before it can walk (2014)
#205Edward Abbey and his desert-austerity is so far gone it's bizzare. The denizens of his legacy went on to demand organic coffee shops, free-trade twine-made boho jewelry, and the worst, interpersonal soap opera instead of beautiful silence.
The commodity in this case is real estate.
Re: Anything threatening to be a subculture is commodified before it can walk (2014)
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "What? Where's the trick? He just bounced on his board" That's the natural state of innocence - their reference frame is how the experience feels (I'm going fast and almost falling over!). When the scene takes over, the reference point shifts to how it looks - the raw experience is overtaken in importance by progress and status and comparison.
> When the scene takes over, the reference point shifts to how it looks I accept this valid criticism of "posers" but I'd like to add that there's a strange loop here. It feels alien to me, but lots of people I know like to watch videos of themselves doing things (e.g. choreographed dances). It certainly does help to see how to improve, but also they get satisfaction from seeing themselves do the thing.
Many people re-read their daily. Maybe there are some similar attributes?
Re: Anything threatening to be a subculture is commodified before it can walk (2014)
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you were punk you wouldn't give a fuck what I think and wouldn't have wasted your breath on me getting defensive. Just sayin'.
GP didn't say he was a punk, he said he had long hair. I think you're reading defensiveness into it, all I saw was a reasonably interesting point.
Let's look at the reply:
"It's not just commodification. If you were a punk in the 80s with a green mohawk, you might find it cute to put one on your kid in the 2000s. I have long hair, my son has long hair. This isn't a commodification of a culture, it's me, like every parent ever, using my culture to inform how I raise my kids. What am I going to do? Not dress and present my kid how I want to and how I identify?"
He is literally defending his decisions to "dress and present" his kid against my comment about commodification, as if I'm attacking his decisions. He didn't even understand my point: in the 1970's you would have been ostracized (or arrested) for having a green mohawk. In the 2010's, kindergarten teachers ooh-and-ahh over it.
That's the DIRECT result of the commodification: it became mainstream because people spend decades diffusing it into normality. He totally missed the point, and then got defensive.
Actually, in the context of today's internet discourse, the reply is defensively invoking both the "appropriation" and "not-all-men" tone in the same reply. Impressive.
Re: Anything threatening to be a subculture is commodified before it can walk (2014)
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wearing a t-shirt with a prefabricated group identity marker, whether purchased or self-manufactured, makes one a curious sort of "non-conformist".
It is pretty cute. People want desperately to conform, and they know the non-conformists are cool. So they do the logical thing and conform with the non-conformists. Heart in the right spot. Execution has room to improve.
> Heart in the right spot.
In what way? Seriously.
Re: Anything threatening to be a subculture is commodified before it can walk (2014)
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wearing a t-shirt with a prefabricated group identity marker, whether purchased or self-manufactured, makes one a curious sort of "non-conformist".
My style might be plain shirts, yet I can never find those, they just aren't a stable configuration of atoms.
Hanes 3 packs at Target. $17.99.
Re: Anything threatening to be a subculture is commodified before it can walk (2014)
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that just covers maybe the first dip of the toe into a niche being commodified. For a skateboarder there are signs that kind of show if you really are a hardcore skateboarder or have just bought a board at zumies and don’t really ride it much. Is the board graphic damaged from rails? Are the shoes torn apart? The skaters I see hitting a waxed public cement bench without a shirt on during the work day probably…
No offence, but fuck the true in groups and you sound pretentious. True in groups are always just 'cool kids' who happen to micro focus on XYZ. Skaters skate not gatekeep people, and were just hyped to skate with anyone (at least in Santa Cruz). 'Oh you got a Nash board, cool. We should probably check if your trucks need tightening.' is the only normal response, not 'we should probably check how ground your trucks ar…
> Skaters skate not gatekeep people, and were just hyped to skate with anyone
Is that not what makes them the true in-group? Especially the first two words. You can be "in" and not be a jerk, even eager to bring others in. In fact I'd recommend it.