211–220 of 273 posts
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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?
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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…
That's the overstatement of the century. In group / out group always has gatekeepers by definition.
Not sure where you grew up, but I sold skateboards at a bike & ski store for a while in the early 80's and skaters were absolute dicks about their self-enforced hierarchy. Skater culture claims to be inclusive but holy fuck that's a lie if you accidentally buy equipment just a tiny bit above your skill level.
I got to see this first hand: as the point of retail sale for their replacement parts, they confided in me because they needed to buy things from me, so they would tell me who the posers were and rip on them mercilessly. Just like any other ingroup.
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They are still consuming less natural resources and someone is sharing in their wealth. I don't see the problem here.
Any demand pull will ultimately increase consumption of resources at the end. There's no ethical consumption under capitalism. The only thing that works is consuming less. Pretending like there is a way to do it only opens up avenues for guilty-free consuming.
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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" That's the overstatement of the century. In group / out group always has gatekeepers by definition. Not sure where you grew up, but I sold skateboards at a bike & ski store for a while in the early 80's and skaters were absolute dicks about their self-enforced hierarchy. Skater culture claims to be inclusive but holy fuck that's a lie if you accidentally buy equipment just a tiny b…
there are still subcultures: the ones unpalatable to corporate interests; ones around topics that are illegal, very politically fringe, or centered on weird sex stuff
They don't need to be obscene - I think a good example would be non-sparring martial arts like Aikido or Tai Chi. There isn't really an incentive to pay to watch top performers in the arts demonstrate technique beyond a handful of people wanting DVDs. There's zero stakes because you aren't competing against another person to be "the best". BUT, the physically can also be a turn off to many people. The joke I was taug…
there are still subcultures: the ones unpalatable to corporate interests; ones around topics that are illegal, very politically fringe, or centered on weird sex stuff
Sam Hyde and his canceled adult swim show World Peace seem to stand out in my mind in that it feels hard to call it “very” politically fringe these days (which is a scary thought from plenty of reasonable perspectives). He’s pretty hugely popular on the internet, could almost certainly be swallowed up by standard old corporatism, but has so far been spit back out for the most part. Perhaps a sign of just how dominant…
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> 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?
Steve 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…
Proclaiming "I believe in anarchy" is childish cute nowadays not because of an evil capitalist plot, but because it is out-of-place retro to a different time. Also it was always childish, but back then it was segregated only inside a community of adolescence, so no one noticed
Firstly, there are many tiny subcultures that by definition you will not know about if you are not part of them. Secondly, I think that there is a hidden assumption in western audience that sub\counter culture are universally good, So when we see negative ones they do not register as counter cultures. The Man-o-sphere, N-th level gender advocates, Fascists, National Purity, Marxists, Libertarians. If anything there i…
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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.