Twees're Good (except they're not)

[computer_rock]

re: secondline
yea i think you're bang on with that. it is/was a subculture which has been co opted by the mainstream and we should make that distinction - looking at waitrose adverts to define twee is looking looking at skrillex to define dubstep. if definitions are to be found at all then they won't be found in the mainstream?

 

[Slothrop]

I think the John Lewis adverts etc have got a lot more to do with Laura Ashley than with Not Not Fun tbh...

 

[baboon2004]

Also has anyone complaining in this thread about middle class consumerism looked in the middle class consumerism sorry I mean 'miscellaneous' subforum of dissensus recently?

Although obviously our interest in obscure American designers and random foodie stuff is genuine and authentic whereas via our hipster-ESP we can tell that the people we look down on only like vintage stuff "because it's cool".

I understand your point, but it's also a bit reductive and frustrating because by this logic you can't criticise anything until you have 100 per cent integrity yourself - which no-one has; as a very simple example, I can't remember the last time I met someone who has no clothes in their wardrobe that have involved any exploitation in their making. But if we can't discuss anything and explore why we dislike it, without being told that we're being hypocrites immediately, then it doesn't lead to very interesting discussion. Everyone is a hypocrtie at some stage and to some degree.

BUT, I would say that there are different levels of hypocrisy. To take an example from what I have seen, I knew plenty of people at the university I went to who were very active in student politics, very lefty types. Those people, pretty much immediately after university, went to work in a bank, don't seem to go on protests (they've 'done that'), and now live to all intents and purposes, very normative lives.

To me, it's all about some consistency in what one likes, some genuine passion for it. And it's hard to believe in people's genuine passion for things if it is utterly fleeting and beholden to circumstances, that's all. We are all guilty of this to some degree, but some are clearly more guilty than others.

Btw, I don't think liking good food is a middle class consumerist thing (obv it involves consumption, blah blah) - the idea drives me nuts. I guess I'm very European-minded in that way. French people, for example, would be perplexed by this very British notion, and that's where I 'learned' to love food.

 

[baboon2004]

Nice rant but it's all rather myopic. Like there aren't white middle class people, born and bread in the city, who just eat this shit up. Or people of all classes, from anywhere in the country, who'll hate twee for the exact same reasons. Or middle class white boys who get overly angry about such things in an attempt to rebel.

But Sloane neevr said there weren't white middle class people in the city who are like this, rather that they should move to the country! You're confusing descriptive and prescriptive there, to be fair.

As to the 'white middle class boys who rebel' thing, it reminds me of nothing more than the language of the Daily Mail criticising the Occupy camp! Because:

(1) you're making assumptions about people without knowing them (not everyone on here is middle clas and white, believe it or not. Obviously maybe you aren't - how could I possibly know? I am, to out myself now!), and (2) what's wrong with white middle class boys/men having opinions about things anyways? Are they uniquely faux-rebellious by their genetic and social make-up, or can they be sincere in any degree when they're pissed off about something that some white middle class people do?

 

[baboon2004]

Also, loving Baboon's comments here, even if I don't agree with all of them. He's on a magnificent, angry roll at the moment.

ha, cheers. Thinking about Amelie always get me mad.

I'm tired now.

 

[STN]

when I was at sixth-form college (admittedly fifteen years ago), some of the biggest plastic-jewellery, duffel-coat and Belle and Sebastian merchants in my friendship group were from the rough estates, while hip-hop, jungle and other dissensus-approved music seemed to be the preserve of the posher wing, which included me.

 

[baboon2004]

sounds like you went a fairly cool college, where people at least deviated a bit from what they were 'supposed' to like. In my sixth form common room (also 15 yearsish back), only about two people had heard of jungle. Oasis and Nirvana were universally liked, and it was so reactionary that I was once lambasted for putting the La's on (by people who liked Oasis).

B&S and jungle are both brilliant. Has anyone ever done a jungle remix of Judy and the Dream of Horses, or might B&S one day cover Champion of Champions?

 

[Mr. Tea]

At my high school there was basically a three-way division between the 'punks' (mixed working- and middle-class, I guess), who apart from punk also liked metal and the odd bit of hip-hop; the 'townies' (again, w/c and m/c), who listened mainly to Oasis and the most moronic kind of Ministry Of Sound house/trance shit - probably some of the naffer sort of r'n'b too - that prejudiced me against dance music generally for a long time; and the 'others' (mostly middle-class), who listened to (amongst other things) Belle and Sebastian.

There was a certain twee tendency in the latter group but I think it's been in the last ten years or so that the whole soft-focus phone-advert aesthetic has really taken off. It's been doing my head in for a long time (and I say that as a white middle-class cunt who likes his family ).

 

[Mr. Tea]

This would seem to belong here:

On an overcast Tuesday afternoon, a commotion is taking place on the roof of a terraced house in south-east London. Circulus, a septet who can lay claim to being Britain's foremost medieval-influenced progressive psychedelic folk band, are having their photograph taken. This is proving to be a complicated and noisy process.

Firstly, one has to contend with what multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and band "auteur" Michael Tyack refers to as the group's "cozzies", a selection of capes, floppy hats and flares that he has spent years painstakingly sourcing from charity shops. Tyack himself is resplendent in an outfit he announces has been "pretty much modelled" on his favourite style icon: Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy between 1419 and 1467.

Indeed, with his cozzie on, some of the spirit of medieval Europe's most extravagant monarch does seem to have settled on Tyack. As he marshals his bandmates into position, and puts me in charge of a dry ice machine deemed necessary for the all-important "magical" vibe, he certainly commands more respect than you might expect of a man wearing glittery black tights.

Unfortunately, not all of his bandmates are present. One, Mexican percussionist Victor Hugo, is swiftly replaced by Circulus's press officer, who after some cajoling agrees to wear a large rubber horse's head. More difficult to substitute is singer Lo Polidoro, who, judging by other photographs, is the kind of lady the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood would have done their collective nut for: a vision of tumbling, ivy-garlanded tresses.

Demonstrating the kind of initiative that has seen Circulus through eight years without a record deal, and the kind of personnel upheavals that would cause most bands to give up - at one point, all but three members left, refusing to "go the full hog with the medieval thing" - Tyack suggests her place be taken by his housemate Kevin.

A skinny, bearded man with an encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure early-70s rock, Kevin has been around all afternoon, offering the occasional laconic interjection into some of Tyack's more fanciful speeches (when Tyack announces "my dream is to be able to live in a progressive folk psychedelic fantasy world 24-7", Kevin interrupts with "so you take a lot of drugs"). He used to be in Circulus, but was, he claims, ejected for failing to believe in fairies - a problem in a band whose big number is called Power to the Pixies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2005/jun/17/worldmusic.folk?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

 

[baboon2004]

At my high school there was basically a three-way division between the 'punks', who apart from punk also liked metal and the odd bit of hip-hop; the 'townies', who listened mainly to Oasis and the most moronic kind of Ministry Of Sound house/trance shit that prejudiced me against dance music generally for a long time; and the 'others', who listened to (amongst other things) Belle and Sebastian.

There was a certain twee tendency in the latter group but I think it's been in the last ten years or so that the whole soft-focus phone-advert aesthetic has really taken off. It's been doing my head in for a long time (and I say that as a white middle-class cunt who likes his family ).

Quick thought - not sure if this is what Sloane was getting at, but to me the noxious thing is people who blithely assume that everyone else likes their families (and if they don't, that there's something wrong with them, and it's not that their family are either intensely problematic or outright cunts. There's something very Melanie Klein x David Cameron and child-hating about this way of thinking), and upholds the family as the primary unit of social interaction, that is the problem, not people who happen to like their families whilst also appreciating they are not some kind of perfect unit.

You went to a school where people could like both punk AND hip-hop? You were blessed. I only heard Illmatic when I was 20...

Yeah, I couldn't listen to Livin' Joy's Dreamer for a long time, although I like it now.

 

[Slothrop]

I understand your point, but it's also a bit reductive and frustrating because by this logic you can't criticise anything until you have 100 per cent integrity yourself - which no-one has; as a very simple example, I can't remember the last time I met someone who has no clothes in their wardrobe that have involved any exploitation in their making. But if we can't discuss anything and explore why we dislike it, without being told that we're being hypocrites immediately, then it doesn't lead to very interesting discussion. Everyone is a hypocrtie at some stage and to some degree.

I don't think you need to be perfect to criticise stuff, but the overwhelming vibe of this thread is of people creating a mass market consumerist Other so they can feel smug and superior that they haven't fallen for it, which is precisely what they're accusing said mass market consumerist Other of doing...

Also I have a natural reaction to twitch whenever arguments start being based on an assessment of the 'authenticity' of other people's preferences. Again, Dissensus is flighty and temporal enough in its collective taste that we're treading on thin ice there - you don't have to look far to find people who're adamant that anyone who likes dubstep or funky or juke or whatever are just bandwaggon jumping hipsters who're hopping on the newest cool sound for five minutes before they abandon it for the next thing...

 

[SecondLine]

Also I have a natural reaction to twitch whenever arguments start being based on an assessment of the 'authenticity' of other people's preferences.

Had a very similar argument with a friend recently about 'affectation' in singing - the whole faux-West Country thing that Mumford & Sons do came up. It's just such treacherous ground because ultimately all singing is affected (because you are in some way manipulating your vocal chords to do something they wouldn't 'naturally' do in order to make a sound which you perceive as acceptably 'musical/good'), just as all stylistic and aesthetic choices are 'inauthentic' in that they involve, to some degree, a modulation of your own identity in relation to how other people behave. Everybody draws their own line between what is acceptable and what is not.

 

[baboon2004]

I'm enjoying the discussion, it's very interesting - trying to work out exactly what I think myself, and there's a kinda dialectical (?) thing going on here which is helping.

I agree about authenticity - it's such a problematic concept, but also a fantastically complicated one. But at the same time I instinctively feel that disingenousness on a cultural level is something that is problematic (the irritation with twee came from a sense of it disingenousness, for most people here, if I understood correctly?), partly because it so often goes along with exclusionary and up-one's-own-arse attitudes that I do think are objectively negative.

For me consistency and open-mindedness seems to be key, and also not using culture as just another tool to exclude/judge people or to prop up 'coolness', but as something that has value in itself, and can if anything bring you into contact with people you wouldn't usually meet. But I'll have to think about it more.

In brilliant synchronicity with this thread, I have just received an email offering me a 3-hour cake decorating class.

I don't think you need to be perfect to criticise stuff, but the overwhelming vibe of this thread is of people creating a mass market consumerist Other so they can feel smug and superior that they haven't fallen for it, which is precisely what they're accusing said mass market consumerist Other of doing...

Also I have a natural reaction to twitch whenever arguments start being based on an assessment of the 'authenticity' of other people's preferences. Again, Dissensus is flighty and temporal enough in its collective taste that we're treading on thin ice there - you don't have to look far to find people who're adamant that anyone who likes dubstep or funky or juke or whatever are just bandwaggon jumping hipsters who're hopping on the newest cool sound for five minutes before they abandon it for the next thing...

 

[baboon2004]

Had a very similar argument with a friend recently about 'affectation' in singing - the whole faux-West Country thing that Mumford & Sons do came up. It's just such treacherous ground because ultimately all singing is affected (because you are in some way manipulating your vocal chords to do something they wouldn't 'naturally' do in order to make a sound which you perceive as acceptably 'musical/good'), just as all stylistic and aesthetic choices are 'inauthentic' in that they involve, to some degree, a modulation of your own identity in relation to how other people behave. Everybody draws their own line between what is acceptable and what is not.

That's a great way of putting it. But nothing is absolute - no-one is authentically 100 per cent against fascist behaviour, broadly conceived, for example (they may lie to themselves that they are), but where you draw the line is massively important! Chose this example for emphasis more than anything else, although I do think a lack of consistency in some areas of one's life is a bad sign of a potential lack of consistency in other areas: ie if your behaviour is TOO modulated by other people's, then in certain situations you would be capable of doing anything. I think people's minds, in how they relate to different areas of life, can operate in similar ways - it's the way of thinking, more than the specifics of culture, that I find most unnerving.

 

[Slothrop]

For me consistency and open-mindedness seems to be key, and also not using culture as just another tool to exclude/judge people or to prop up 'coolness', but as something that has value in itself, and can if anything bring you into contact with people you wouldn't usually meet. But I'll have to think about it more.

But do you not think that "using culture as just another tool to exclude/judge people or to prop up 'coolness'" is exactly what a lot of people have been doing in this thread?

 

[baboon2004]

Had a very similar argument with a friend recently about 'affectation' in singing - the whole faux-West Country thing that Mumford & Sons do came up. It's just such treacherous ground because ultimately all singing is affected (because you are in some way manipulating your vocal chords to do something they wouldn't 'naturally' do in order to make a sound which you perceive as acceptably 'musical/good'), just as all stylistic and aesthetic choices are 'inauthentic' in that they involve, to some degree, a modulation of your own identity in relation to how other people behave. Everybody draws their own line between what is acceptable and what is not.

That's a great way of putting it. But nothing is absolute - no-one is actively 100 per cent against fascist behaviour all the time, broadly conceived, for example (they may lie to themselves that they are), but where you draw the line in what you accept is massively important! Chose this example for emphasis more than anything else, although I do think a lack of consistency in some areas of one's life is a bad sign of a potential lack of consistency in other areas: ie if your behaviour is TOO modulated by other people's, then in certain situations you would be capable of doing anything.

Weakness is weakness, is weakness. Goes back to what I was saying about trendy people I knew at uni before. Inconsistency is a bad sign...

 

[baboon2004]

But do you not think that "using culture as just another tool to exclude/judge people or to prop up 'coolness'" is exactly what a lot of people have been doing in this thread?

genuinely not sure. my instinct is that it's not, or at least that is not a large part of it. Although I can't speak for other people.

I'm not against twee completely anyways - I love some of it! What I am against is the adoption of a specific limited set of 'things you like/do/experience', as a substitute for a (more) rounded view of the world. Especially where that set of things is SO defined by others (as in my experience it almost always is - those who try their hardest not to be caught up in group behaviour, tend to have interests that push in a huge amount of different directions. Which is why I like Dissensus, really - if there's one thing that unites most people on here, it's that.

 

[Slothrop]

That's a great way of putting it. But nothing is absolute - no-one is authentically 100 per cent against fascist behaviour, broadly conceived, for example (they may lie to themselves that they are), but where you draw the line is massively important! Chose this example for emphasis more than anything else, although I do think a lack of consistency in some areas of one's life is a bad sign of a potential lack of consistency in other areas: ie if your behaviour is TOO modulated by other people's, then in certain situations you would be capable of doing anything. I think people's minds, in how they relate to different areas of life, can operate in similar ways - it's the way of thinking, more than the specifics of culture, that I find most unnerving.

Yeah, it is kind of a complex one.

My general view is that in cultural terms (and food, come to that) most people are capable of getting enjoyment out of a much wider range of things than they actually do, and while the process of "liking something because it's cool" does happen, it's a process of discovering / admitting that you can get genuine enjoyment out of it rather than of pretending to get enjoyment out of it while secretly hating it. Obviously there's still a lot of social / cultural baggage goes into this.

I mean, personally I'm quite fllghty because there's a lot more stuff that I want to know about than I have time to, and the decision as to what to check out next is certainly going to be influenced if everyone around me is going on about something specific.

 

[baboon2004]

Yep, I'd agree with that. I'm sure I have started to listen/watch some things because they're 'cool'/covered in particular magazines/websites, which is how i came to know about them. But life is too short, and culturally amazing experiences too many, to continue if I don't like them. And to be hemmed in by notions of where you should go/what you should be doing. I think a healthy person at least tries to hang out in different milieu/is not restricted to getting on with only one 'type' of person. I.e., is a rounded person, not a cliche. Which is why, in my opinion, you should psuh yourself out of your comfort zone (in culture, in life) quite often - somethign I do do more than some, but wish I did more often.

There's also a question of buying into a 'lifestyle' buried under all of this, and I think under the original disgust people had for those twee adverts. It's selling it as a 'whole package', as a personality substitute, in the way being a Shoreditch/Dalston scnee person is sold as a whole package (at least sometimes).

I really like people who have got to middle age and haven't given up/become a cliche/died inside. To me it's commendable. I hope I'm like that. I thnk i can honestly say that I'm never going to start listening solely to classical music and/or traditional jazz ( I always liked bartok and debussy anyways, ain't gonna change), and thinking that living in the suburbs sounds like a great idea (although obv for reasons of necessity, who knows what will happen).

Edit: food is a difficult one. I do fetishise it possibly too much, but simultaneously I still know how to eat very well for very low amounts of money, and havne't started paying silly amounts for average restaurant meals.

My general view is that in cultural terms (and food, come to that) most people are capable of getting enjoyment out of a much wider range of things than they actually do, and while the process of "liking something because it's cool" does happen, it's a process of discovering / admitting that you can get genuine enjoyment out of it rather than of pretending to get enjoyment out of it while secretly hating it. Obviously there's still a lot of social / cultural baggage goes into this.

I mean, personally I'm quite fllghty because there's a lot more stuff that I want to know about than I have time to, and the decision as to what to check out next is certainly going to be influenced if everyone around me is going on about something specific.

 

[computer_rock]

There's also a question of buying into a 'lifestyle' buried under all of this,

Yea, this is precisely what ie John Lewis do. They sell you the whole lot, the same way urban outfitters do. But it's true that whatever culture/subculture you are part of this will happen. like if you 'bought in' to jungle music you'd be buying into a whole lot else, for example certain types of clothes (spliffy jeans? lol i dunno). basically as a consumer you wouldn't be defined by individual choices, you'd be buying the whole lot.

this might be where authenticity comes back into it. there's a certain lack of autonomy in buying in a culture wholesale whether is jungle or bourgeois john lewis liberalism. this basically this leaves us with a clear distinction between authentic and inauthentic consumerism.