Twees're Good (except they're not)

[hucks]

Wes Craven

Nightmare on Twee Street! Don't fall asleep cos someone in a charity shop suit will invade your dreams and start playing an acoustic cover version of Let me Be Your Fantasy...

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

lol im sure/hoping he meant wes anderson. unless i missed some subliminal twee manifesto in scream. or maybe the mumford groups have made stripey jumpers cool again. then again, i would like to see twee horror as a genre.

 

[computer_rock]

lol im sure/hoping he meant wes anderson. unless i missed some subliminal twee manifesto in scream. or maybe the mumford groups have made stripey jumpers cool again. then again, i would like to see twee horror as a genre.

freddy's always been a baller (never twee tho)


i think twee horror would be a necessary contradiction but yea i'd like to see someone have a go

 

[Slothrop]

lol im sure/hoping he meant wes anderson. unless i missed some subliminal twee manifesto in scream. or maybe the mumford groups have made stripey jumpers cool again. then again, i would like to see twee horror as a genre.

 

[Slothrop]

ahem. i should have said i think post modernism is the most elusive of concepts, but i do think you have a point in that, especially nowadays (postmodernism, hyperconsumerism or whatever), it's possible to pick select a culture off the shelf and 'just consume'.

Could you elaborate on this, give examples etc? I'm not convinced that it bears close inspection, particularly if you're saying it's somehow a new thing...

 

[Mr. Tea]

Nightmare on Twee Street! Don't fall asleep cos someone in a charity shop suit will invade your dreams and start playing an acoustic cover version of Let me Be Your Fantasy...

Haha, those are two names I am guaranteed to get wrong almost every time. The other pair I do this with is Paxman/Clarkson. With hilarious results.

 

[Mr. Tea]

i think twee horror would be a necessary contradiction but yea i'd like to see someone have a go

http://www.hello-cthulhu.com/

 

[baboon2004]

Not sure about twee horror.

Thinking about all this anew through less coffee-addled glasses, I think the annoyance is those who cling to group identities overly when they have passed their 'teenage phase', without trying to create their own hybrid (adult, as far as I'm concerned) identities. Obviously we all cling to a certain extent to cultural surety, but where this becomes annoying - to me - is where this clinging seems excessive, and is both exclusionary and doesnt' admit of outside/new influence without it being decided by committee.

I've met too many people who I've been able to guess their cultural influences, as if it were a pre-packaged thing, is the best way to put it. I'm delighted when I'm surprised by people and what they like/think. Which always makes me think of Chad Hugo wearing a Stereolab T-shirt, thus establishing the connection betwen the Neptunes and McCarthy. He likes a bit of twee, does Chad.

Edit: This all has other connections in my mind in fact, thinking about it, particularly with the lack of inter-disciplinary thought that drives me nuts. It tends to be those interested in several different areas, and able to draw connections between them, who produce radically interesting thought (and maybe radically interesting culture, who knows). But I'm not sure about that. Discuss.

 

[computer_rock]

Could you elaborate on this, give examples etc? I'm not convinced that it bears close inspection, particularly if you're saying it's somehow a new thing...

my main point (probably not very clear in that sentence) is that people are less conditioned in their cultural choices by their environment - that they select an identity rather than inherent it. off the top of my head football supporters might be a good example of this. it used to be absurd to think that someone from croydon would support ie chelsea/arsenal and not palace. you supported the team where you were from because you actually went to see the games etc. this all went out the window presumably with television/mass media which allowed people to follow a team without actually going to the matches. greater exposure to diversity enables a greater degree of choice which leads to less (environmentally) determined cultural choices. it is, in other words, easier to just pick a culture/subculture/football team/whatever 'off the shelf'.

 

[Slothrop]

my main point (probably not very clear in that sentence) is that people are less conditioned in their cultural choices by their environment - that they select an identity rather than inherent it. off the top of my head football supporters might be a good example of this. it used to be absurd to think that someone from croydon would support ie chelsea/arsenal and not palace. you supported the team where you were from because you actually went to see the games etc. this all went out the window presumably with television/mass media which allowed people to follow a team without actually going to the matches. greater exposure to diversity enables a greater degree of choice which leads to less (environmentally) determined cultural choices. it is, in other words, easier to just pick a culture/subculture/football team/whatever 'off the shelf'.

That seems like a rather contrived example, to be honest. People may be able to pick their football team remotely, but you don't get punk kids waking up one morning and thinking "hey, you know what, I'm going to be a football fan - let's get on the internet and find out what I need to buy to do it..." Maybe the way that you find out what the parameters of your subcultural style and taste should be has changed (a bit), but I think people still basically follow their noses. The only counterexample is postmodern hipsterish appropriation, but that's never been about getting an off the shelf replica of the right stuff for whatever style it is you're appropriating, but more about developing a sort of hipsterish version of it.

The de-obscurification of subculture via the internet is an interesting thing, but I'm not sure thta's what you're on about.

And why does this suddenly lead to "just consuming", where having your subculture determined by the people you grew up with doesn't?

And what does it have to do with tweeness? Presumably it affects edgy modern subcultures just as much, and doesn't make a particular case for the postmodernness of twee....

 

[baboon2004]

The only counterexample is postmodern hipsterish appropriation, but that's never been about getting an off the shelf replica of the right stuff for whatever style it is you're appropriating, but more about developing a sort of hipsterish version of it.
.

What would you say are the differences between the hipster version and the other version?

 

[computer_rock]

That seems like a rather contrived example, to be honest. People may be able to pick their football team remotely, but you don't get punk kids waking up one morning and thinking "hey, you know what, I'm going to be a football fan - let's get on the internet and find out what I need to buy to do it..." Maybe the way that you find out what the parameters of your subcultural style and taste should be has changed (a bit), but I think people still basically follow their noses. The only counterexample is postmodern hipsterish appropriation, but that's never been about getting an off the shelf replica of the right stuff for whatever style it is you're appropriating, but more about developing a sort of hipsterish version of it.

The de-obscurification of subculture via the internet is an interesting thing, but I'm not sure thta's what you're on about.

And why does this suddenly lead to "just consuming", where having your subculture determined by the people you grew up with doesn't?

And what does it have to do with tweeness? Presumably it affects edgy modern subcultures just as much, and doesn't make a particular case for the postmodernness of twee....

i don't really understand what you're saying. do you mean that people don't make a concious choice at all to be part of a certain subculture? you've seriously never met someone who was into this one week and that the next? and to be clear i'm not saying this is particularly new (well as new as postmodernism/globalisation/mass mediafictation) - it certainly has nothing to do with the internet. and, yes, little to do with twee also which is just a single example of a subculture.

regarding 'just consume' - i don't agree with this term either, which is why i left it in inverted commas - the questions of autonomy which i'm raising were supposed to highlight the problems with the notion of in/authentic consumerism.

 

[paolo]

Things I like that twee people don't:

- Drunkenness
- Premiership football
- Grime/hiphop/electronic music
- Unironic trainers and sportswear
- Enjoying computer games unironically
- The Wire

Things I like that twee people like:

- Organic food
- Tea
- Little Miss Sunshine (and I don't care who knows it)
- Charity shops

 

[Leo]

tweeness is like pornography: not easy to define, but i know it when i see it.

 

[Slothrop]

What would you say are the differences between the hipster version and the other version?

It's not really about specific differences so much as the fact that appropriating a style involves a whole bunch of stylistic decisions and knowledge beyond just picking up a perfect replica of the subculture you're 'doing' at the time.

 

[Slothrop]

i don't really understand what you're saying. do you mean that people don't make a concious choice at all to be part of a certain subculture? you've seriously never met someone who was into this one week and that the next? and to be clear i'm not saying this is particularly new (well as new as postmodernism/globalisation/mass mediafictation) - it certainly has nothing to do with the internet. and, yes, little to do with twee also which is just a single example of a subculture.

regarding 'just consume' - i don't agree with this term either, which is why i left it in inverted commas - the questions of autonomy which i'm raising were supposed to highlight the problems with the notion of in/authentic consumerism.

Oh, okay. I think we're mostly in agreement apart from the fact that we're veering off rather into a free will versus predetermination argument.

Having said that, the existence of people who bounce around subcultures doesn't necessarily imply that they're making a conscious decision, it could be that they're more susceptible to environmental influence in the short term or just exposed to rapidly changing environmental influence.

But yeah, my big issue with the notion of an 'authentic' consumer versus an 'inauthentic' consumer is that it basically relies on some sort of ESP to determine whether people really like what they're consuming. Or in the absence of ESP, prejudice and self-justification.

 

[baboon2004]

Things I like that twee people don't:

- Drunkenness
- Premiership football
- Grime/hiphop/electronic music
- Unironic trainers and sportswear
- Enjoying computer games unironically
- The Wire

Things I like that twee people like:

- Organic food
- Tea
- Little Miss Sunshine (and I don't care who knows it)
- Charity shops

LMS is a good film. I quite like that twe people don't go on about the Wire though. In thier favour.

 

[Mr. Tea]

LMS is ultimately a 'feel-good film', I guess, but I'm not sure I'd call it 'twee' as such. It features paedophiles and a fatal heroin overdose, remember.

 

[baboon2004]

did the paedophile have an acoustic guitar though?

 

[rubberdingyrapids]

still not seen LMS so i prob shouldnt comment thoughi imagine the peado and the drug use are sort of made nice and fluffy to make sure no one gets too distraught? like a twee todd solondz.