robotsintrouble
Continuously Cromulent
double reverse racism!!
What the blinkers is wrong with being a hipster?
- Thread starter Woebot
- Start date
seriously:
come to think of it... what kind of modern western popular music ISN'T black music?????
Rock'n'Roll comes from Blues and Gospel and R'n'B, Latin music (Samba, Bossa Nova, etc) is largely derived from African rhythms, house and techno comes from disco which came from funk, drum'n'bass came from hiphop and reggae...
come to think of it... what kind of modern western popular music ISN'T black music?????
Rock'n'Roll comes from Blues and Gospel and R'n'B, Latin music (Samba, Bossa Nova, etc) is largely derived from African rhythms, house and techno comes from disco which came from funk, drum'n'bass came from hiphop and reggae...
Rachel Verinder
Well-known member
Country music (mainly Scotland's fault).
don't know about scottish country and western music, but american country and western music has it's roots in black music: the majority of the "cowboys" in the "wild wild west" were africans. and "country music" as we know it is a derivation from the Mississippi Delta Blues and Gospel tradition, which is a music made by African Americans.
Rachel Verinder
Well-known member
actually inaccurate. mongrelisation of elements of gospel plus huge rhythmic/melodic influence from scottish country dancing music (caledonian -> appalachian diaspora c. 1750).
no such thing as african-americans, except in science fiction books.
no such thing as african-americans, except in science fiction books.
henrymiller
Well-known member
oh jesus, better the 'omigod the osmonds are the BEST' mentality than this closet stalinism. reynolds is right to point to the gap between popism and populism, but i don't think the neo-rockist position does much better on this score.
i might need to dig into the archives to check but... i don't think life in the soviet union really did involve all that much opera-going among the proles.
and obviously it's from the SU that the crude base/superstructure mentality which says 'of course, rachel stevens is really a servant of kapital', fed into european marxism.
well all the people close to me are more like myself and the people on this board. but seriously, what percentage of the population do you think are like the people on this board?
I know I sound elitist or exclusionary or snobish, and at the risk of being very un-PC, but it's a fact: most people are sheep.
I know I sound elitist or exclusionary or snobish, and at the risk of being very un-PC, but it's a fact: most people are sheep.
and I'm not saying that I am free of conditioning or being effected by advertising, but it's a matter of degrees: some are a little bit less brainwashed than others.
I know that people are complex and broad generalizations are rarely useful, but seriously... most people subscribe to a set of fundamental assumptions about their own lives instilled by the world they live in, such as particular ideas about happiness or "success", without ever questioning them. and all they know is top 40 crap on the radio.
take for instance the phenonmenon of "classic rock". in every city in America there are "classic rock" stations that, without exception, all play the same songs over and over, 24-7-365. these include a few songs by Led Zepplin, a few songs by the Doors, a few songs by the Rolling Stones. they never EVER play other songs by these groups, not to mention Captain Beefheart or Can or the thousands of great bands from the 60s and 70s that they never ever touch upon.
I would say less than 2 percent of "classic rock" fans in America have ever heard of Captain Beefheart or Can, both being very important and influential bands from that era.
I have limited time to post here at the office, and this is not the best example, but it will have to suffice for now in demenstrating my point that most people do not have time to seek out more than what is made readily available to them. and what is made available to them is determined by the ideology of the system that they live in, whether these ideological constructs are visible or not.
I know that people are complex and broad generalizations are rarely useful, but seriously... most people subscribe to a set of fundamental assumptions about their own lives instilled by the world they live in, such as particular ideas about happiness or "success", without ever questioning them. and all they know is top 40 crap on the radio.
take for instance the phenonmenon of "classic rock". in every city in America there are "classic rock" stations that, without exception, all play the same songs over and over, 24-7-365. these include a few songs by Led Zepplin, a few songs by the Doors, a few songs by the Rolling Stones. they never EVER play other songs by these groups, not to mention Captain Beefheart or Can or the thousands of great bands from the 60s and 70s that they never ever touch upon.
I would say less than 2 percent of "classic rock" fans in America have ever heard of Captain Beefheart or Can, both being very important and influential bands from that era.
I have limited time to post here at the office, and this is not the best example, but it will have to suffice for now in demenstrating my point that most people do not have time to seek out more than what is made readily available to them. and what is made available to them is determined by the ideology of the system that they live in, whether these ideological constructs are visible or not.
Rachel Verinder
Well-known member
stop talking like a robot and people might take you seriously
john eden
male pale and stale
confucius, I think you are still making a fundamental assumption in all this, which is that everyones sees music as being as important as you do.
Clearly there are at least two possibilities here:
a) People consume pop music because they are hugely conformist in every area of their lives
b) People consume pop music because it's a convenient soundtrack to other things in their lives.
If you stopped judging people by your seemingly very narrow criteria for what constitutes being progressive then maybe you find out that people do actually question quite a lot of things on a daily basis and even if they don't embrace the different they can, after some discussion and experience at least accept that it is valid, if not to their taste.
You are also generalising from your experience in the US, I think, where it seems to me that media and culture is a bit more sewn up than elsewhere.
Clearly there are at least two possibilities here:
a) People consume pop music because they are hugely conformist in every area of their lives
b) People consume pop music because it's a convenient soundtrack to other things in their lives.
If you stopped judging people by your seemingly very narrow criteria for what constitutes being progressive then maybe you find out that people do actually question quite a lot of things on a daily basis and even if they don't embrace the different they can, after some discussion and experience at least accept that it is valid, if not to their taste.
You are also generalising from your experience in the US, I think, where it seems to me that media and culture is a bit more sewn up than elsewhere.
rather I think the fact that people do not have time to develop individual tastes in music is but one tiny example of the over all ways in which the average person is marginalized and deprived...
but I digress. (before going into a full on anti-work, anti-civilization anarchist rant)
however I do think real life is scarier than the Matrix. and that the first step toward freedom is the realization that one is a slave.
but I digress. (before going into a full on anti-work, anti-civilization anarchist rant)
however I do think real life is scarier than the Matrix. and that the first step toward freedom is the realization that one is a slave.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Reviving this thread...
Hipsterism is/was interesting cos it's hard to define and constantly mutating. But hasn't that stopped happening now? There are a number of things (organic coffee, silly glasses, vintage stores etc etc) that are irrevocably associated with hipsterdom and it can't escape it. The next thing that comes along won't be a mutation of hip but something totally different. It might still be hipster in the way that the word was used a few years ago but it won't be what it has come to mean now. Which is something that no-one thought would happen.
Does that make sense?
Hipsterism is/was interesting cos it's hard to define and constantly mutating. But hasn't that stopped happening now? There are a number of things (organic coffee, silly glasses, vintage stores etc etc) that are irrevocably associated with hipsterdom and it can't escape it. The next thing that comes along won't be a mutation of hip but something totally different. It might still be hipster in the way that the word was used a few years ago but it won't be what it has come to mean now. Which is something that no-one thought would happen.
Does that make sense?
I'm not quite sure I get what you mean Rich.
I've been thinking about this for a couple of days (due to reading a Facebook rant about it by someone we know) - my conclusion is that there's nothing more boring than people who bang on about hipsters in the negative sense, but it's weird and (slightly) interesting that the concept exists at all. The way it's used as a pejorative, the way no one identifies with it positively, all the kind of ironic distance around the use of the term - it's like it's a signifier of our media cultures intense self-awareness. There's a self-consciouness around the way the term is employed that just wasn't there with earlier in earlier discourses about youth and fashion. It's kind of decadent in a way. I don't have any sort of conclusion about this, just thinking out loud. William Gibson wrote somewhere that youth cultures can't exists anymore in the way they used to - because our media has this voracious appetite for content, it'll just hoover them up and regurgitate in their nascent stages, before they've had a chance to develop. "Hipster" seems related to this - this tribe of people/grouping of trends that everyone can point to but no one likes, that arguably doesn't exist. It's like a side effect of our culture's discussion with itself.
Forgive me if it repeats earlier points, not read the thread.
I've been thinking about this for a couple of days (due to reading a Facebook rant about it by someone we know) - my conclusion is that there's nothing more boring than people who bang on about hipsters in the negative sense, but it's weird and (slightly) interesting that the concept exists at all. The way it's used as a pejorative, the way no one identifies with it positively, all the kind of ironic distance around the use of the term - it's like it's a signifier of our media cultures intense self-awareness. There's a self-consciouness around the way the term is employed that just wasn't there with earlier in earlier discourses about youth and fashion. It's kind of decadent in a way. I don't have any sort of conclusion about this, just thinking out loud. William Gibson wrote somewhere that youth cultures can't exists anymore in the way they used to - because our media has this voracious appetite for content, it'll just hoover them up and regurgitate in their nascent stages, before they've had a chance to develop. "Hipster" seems related to this - this tribe of people/grouping of trends that everyone can point to but no one likes, that arguably doesn't exist. It's like a side effect of our culture's discussion with itself.
Forgive me if it repeats earlier points, not read the thread.
hipster is a funny old word. used to apply to people that were into clicking their fingers, wearing berets and coltrane, then people that were into replacements, rem, college rock, and not drinking starbucks. now in 2014 london it's people that wear boy london and collect hurraches.
i remember when it was actually a good look being a hipster. listening to bands like jay reatard, waves etc
football hipsterism is my favourite recent use of the word.
/rambling post.
i remember when it was actually a good look being a hipster. listening to bands like jay reatard, waves etc
football hipsterism is my favourite recent use of the word.
/rambling post.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Yeah sorry, was a bit tired and emotional when I wrote that. What I mean is that the word hipster has recently been used to describe someone who is at the forefront of any new trend, for better or worse (usually for worse), but now hipster has become fixed in meaning someone who has a certain look, lives in a certain place and eats and drinks certain things. When the next trend comes along it will be impossible to call the people who embody it hipsters cos that will instantly call to mind the organic vinyl riding denizens of East London. So the word which was supposed to be all purpose for cutting edges is getting stuck in one place and will, much to everyone's surprise(?), soon be out of date.
That's distinct from (if related to) the backlash against the use of hipster as an insult which we've all seen as well.
