THE GATEKEEPER

luka said:

im preoccupied by the idea of the gatekeeper at the moment. how do scenes mirror society? what is the relationship between merit and attainment? to what extent is a scene merely a social circle? why meridian over total package?

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It's usually just people who

a) are weirdly driven and have no friends
b) then make a scene with people they pretend are their friends
c) fuck over their friends

coupled with some kinda alpha male/alpha female business. The people I know who have been the most successful have been the ones who've been most together/focussed and who shout loudest in groups.

or, put it another way, it's all some Charlie Sloth business, man.

Do those people not have friends though?

Look at it this way, Lucien Carr is generally the guy credited with introducing all of the beats to each other, and everyone generally thought amongst their ranks he'd be the big success b/c he was handsome, good writer, and a socialite (unless you were Keroac, who apparently told people in high-school he was the best writer since Shakespeare, whilst being the most garbage writer/human combo of the 20th century. Top 5 minimum). So he sort of determined "Oh no, we totally have to let old ass William S. Burroughs hang around with us." whereas other scenes might be ageist against a figure like that. He didn't succeed in the same way of the 'stars' of the scene, but he sort of created it before having to go to jail. Is he less a gatekeeper because he both A) failed to live within the scene he built and B) didn't reap the benefits?

https://www.redbull.com/uk/en/music/stories/1331705637094/future-brown-arent-as-future-as-you-think

Ties into a lot of the gatekeeping thing.

I mean, not for nothing... It IS a bit sad that neither of the individual members were enough to garner Warp's interest. Rather, its them playing up their rolodex as a combined effort that does it. Dissatisfying.

luka said:

Redbull is threatening to become a gatekeeper itself. Weird situation. Like, dystopian etc

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There's nothing but gates these days. Like, you live in a cultural wasteland and you see this gilded ass gate and think "Oh man, the other end has to be amazing". And then you find out that place is ravaged too, because the people who run the gate made it inhospitable too.