How do you determine when people "happen to just like it" and when they like it "because it's vintage"? I mean, can we include quite a lot of hip hop culture, analogue synth fetishism and so on in here? Is Ekoplekz twee? Vintage Air Force Ones?
If we're just generally listing stuff that annoys us now then I think cycling very slowly but not stopping at red lights is pretty twee.
I wasnt' doing that. I said vintage specifically because I think a lot of people into the twee aesthetic tend to venerate vintage clothes too (just as with the tea/cakes/knitting thing) - that's an arguable point, but it's what I've observed personally. However, you're right that I should have specified a certain kind of vintage - sort of 20s - 50s stuff, rather than 70s or 80s - and that I should have said vintage clothes, which is what I meant. Oh, I kind of did... but anyways, to clarify, I didn't mean synths, but clothes.
And in terms of annoyingness, I dont' class it as 'twee' (for reasons above of my own definition of twee), but I do find people who venerate 90ship hop but refuse to listen to modern hip hop at all, for example (and they definitely exist), a bit annoying. Or people who love reggae but would never listen to dancehall, like, ever. But, as said, not twee.
As to whether people happen to like it or like it because it's vintage and they're showing off/belonging to a certain group, you're right that of course no-one can ever tell someone else's motivations for sure, but I think all of us make judgments about other people to that effect (whether we intend to or not) all the time, no?
As far as I can tell, what's annoying everyone here about what they see as 'twee', is that it somehow comes from somewhere not 'real'; in this case, as John said, it pretends puberty never happened.
