Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 97 posts

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#31

Post by mombul »

This article misses the point. The point is that at a time where teenagers' finances (= their parents') are not at their best (COVID), where theaters and libraries are closed-ish (COVID), where you can't just hang out freely at a coffee shop that offers free comics to read (COVID), where you can't side down in the aisles of the comic book store (COVID), they decided to give them $350. Nobody believed they'd use it to go see some Shakespeare, and nobody should. It's just dumb classicism.

Good on them to use it for something they LIKE instead of something someome else deems better for them.

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#32

Post by arp242 »

jacquesm wrote: post #3

Comic books are culture. Whether you like that or not is a matter of taste. Personally I absolutely love 'Gaston' and 'Asterix', but also like some other old school ones. The newer stuff I don't feel much connection with.

And a lot of things we now consider high-brow culture were really just the comic books of the past.

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#33

Post by Hamuko »

I get cultural allowance from my workplace and it's very limited as to what I can actually use it. I can't actually buy any things with it - no books, no comic books, no music, no games, nothing. It's mainly for movie and concert tickets - which has made this benefit rather useless for the past year and a half. I'd much prefer this system where I can actually buy cultural stuff to keep.

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#34

Post by zepto »

cwizou wrote: post #25

As an aside, it's been a bit surprising to see the disconnect on so many topics regarding France in the NYT in the last few months. This seems like just the latest (and fairly mild) episode of this, but it's still a bit puzzling to me as a former (sort of) journalist to see so much editorialising, and in this case, an utter lack of facts and context. There's not much on the goals behind that pass, the impact of covid…

> the fact to editorialising ratio in the NYT seem to have shifted to, at least to me, a fairly uncomfortable level pretty much every time I stumble onto one of their articles

It’s not just you. You are waking up from the gell-mann amnesia.

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#35

Post by arrrg »

jacquesm wrote: post #3

Comic books are culture. Whether you like that or not is a matter of taste. Personally I absolutely love 'Gaston' and 'Asterix', but also like some other old school ones. The newer stuff I don't feel much connection with.

Does the article claim something else?

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#36

Post by arcturus17 »

jacquesm wrote: post #3

Comic books are culture. Whether you like that or not is a matter of taste. Personally I absolutely love 'Gaston' and 'Asterix', but also like some other old school ones. The newer stuff I don't feel much connection with.

Gaston is possibly some of the best humor I've ever seen in any cultural medium.

Tintin was gripping too, and arguably the greatest cultural icon to come from European comics.

In Spain we had a good comic culture from the 50s onwards, with perhaps one of the greatest exponents being Mortadelo y Filemón which had was hilarious and had some international exposure (I've seen it in German flea markets as Clever & Smart)

I agree that comics are culture too, but I can see how this will ruffle some feathers among people expecting that young kids would be buying thick tomes by Chateaubriand or attending Racine plays in droves.

This is a model of subsidy (vouchers, in essence) which some free-market economists can get behind as it still allows agency from individuals or markets. However what we're seeing is the very reason why others would staunchly oppose this kind of model...

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#37

Post by AutumnCurtain »

arrrg wrote: post #35
jacquesm wrote: post #3

Comic books are culture. Whether you like that or not is a matter of taste. Personally I absolutely love 'Gaston' and 'Asterix', but also like some other old school ones. The newer stuff I don't feel much connection with.

Does the article claim something else?

Nope. It shares the perspectives of some people who do but the author does not take a stance. Shocking to see so many comments here acting like that's the case.

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#38

Post by jacquesm »

yumraj wrote: post #21
jacquesm wrote: post #3

Comic books are culture. Whether you like that or not is a matter of taste. Personally I absolutely love 'Gaston' and 'Asterix', but also like some other old school ones. The newer stuff I don't feel much connection with.

Never read Gaston, might have to look it up. But I love Asterix and Tintin, which I read while growing up in India. Interestingly the other comics I read were Phantom, Mandrake, Rip Kirby, Flash Gordon - available via a local publisher, Indrajal Comics [0], that were sent to us monthly (or was it weekly) via a subscription. Got introduced to all the *men much later. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indrajal_Comics

Gaston is very funny, don't miss the signatures, which are always a little gag by themselves.

Here is a (French, I hope you can read it, if not you'll have to scrounge for a translated version) sample:

https://imgur.com/gallery/oTnED

Re: France Gave Teenagers $350 for Culture. They’re Buying Comic Books

#39

Post by vkou »

walterbell wrote: post #13

Secondary purpose: CBDC / digital euro training wheels for policy-gated currencies with No Buy lists.

That's a silly thing to worry about. Businesses would scream bloody murder if their industry ended up on a no-buy list, and given a choice, governments kowtow to their interests.

Cui bono?

Governments also have far more effective, simpler-to-implement instruments for stopping the operation of undesirable businesses. Tariffs, taxes, and bans.

Post reply on HN