Twees're Good (except they're not)
- Thread starter Ulala
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- big chill forum 2004
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
I agree this is a fantastic thread. I've particularly enjoyed Mistersloane and Ulala's bile-filled posts. More of that please! Zhao's always had a good line in this kind of invective, wheres he?
It seems to me that twee has many faces. Someone mentioned VU's 'I'm Sticking with you' as starting it all and thats a good reference (Moldy peaches seemed to base their entire career around that one song). I would also lay the blame on british 60s psychedelia...stuff like Donovan and early Marc Bolan spring to mind. At least they had acid as an excuse, but the sort of twee twats discussed in this thread look like they've never taken a drug in their life.
The other culprit in all this, like in so many other parts of culture over the last decade or so, is irony...its like a fucking disease.
I completely gave up interest in going to watch local bands (in Newcastle) years ago because every other group thought it was a good idea to play glockenspiels, ukeleles and casio keyboards. one supposedly 'legendary' local twee-punk band were called 'Milky Wimpshake' ffs.
Death to them all I say
It seems to me that twee has many faces. Someone mentioned VU's 'I'm Sticking with you' as starting it all and thats a good reference (Moldy peaches seemed to base their entire career around that one song). I would also lay the blame on british 60s psychedelia...stuff like Donovan and early Marc Bolan spring to mind. At least they had acid as an excuse, but the sort of twee twats discussed in this thread look like they've never taken a drug in their life.
The other culprit in all this, like in so many other parts of culture over the last decade or so, is irony...its like a fucking disease.
I completely gave up interest in going to watch local bands (in Newcastle) years ago because every other group thought it was a good idea to play glockenspiels, ukeleles and casio keyboards. one supposedly 'legendary' local twee-punk band were called 'Milky Wimpshake' ffs.
Death to them all I say
connect_icut
Well-known member
See hate-speak. Some of my best friends are twee. Never had much time for it myself but...
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
sudden brainflash while reading a youtube comment where someone had supplied a 'punchline' about muffins.
Eddie Izzard. I reckon he's had more of an influence than most on twee in recent years, with his jokes about jam and so forth. I liked him for about two years (I was a teenager, goddamit), cos he started with some wit at least, then grew to hate him and (especially) anyone who repeated his especially twee 'surrealisms'.
Eddie Izzard. I reckon he's had more of an influence than most on twee in recent years, with his jokes about jam and so forth. I liked him for about two years (I was a teenager, goddamit), cos he started with some wit at least, then grew to hate him and (especially) anyone who repeated his especially twee 'surrealisms'.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Why is he 'twee', though? Again, are we just saying that anything not explicitly edgy and dangerous is 'twee'?
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Izzard is not twee, he's much too clever and suggestive for that. He has jokes about Hitler. And I still think he's great, although in fairness I haven't seen any of the stuff he's done in the last couple of years.
If we're talking light-hearted whimsy then surely the acme of that is Harry Hill? But again, he's great (IMO) and not in the least bit twee. Slothrop's right, it's not simply synonymous with anything that's not explicitly sexual, threatening or gritty.
If we're talking light-hearted whimsy then surely the acme of that is Harry Hill? But again, he's great (IMO) and not in the least bit twee. Slothrop's right, it's not simply synonymous with anything that's not explicitly sexual, threatening or gritty.
connect_icut
Well-known member
And from my perspective, Beat Happening is pretty much twee rock ground zero and half their songs are about sex or the sexy allure of danger/darkness (epitomized by "Black Candy").
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Nonono, because he explicitly indulges a twee sensibility of not looking at the world, but rather at jam and tea. It's wanton juvenilia.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
He's a class A twat, and I speak as someone who was a fan for a while. Definitely twee (but then this word has been quite stretched over 15 pages, so who knows what the fuck it means any more. Anyways, he's way more properly twee than B&S to me, even though thteir respective images suggest the opposite, I guess).
Trillhouse
Well-known member
Izzard is definitely not twee, I think you're just making the association because you don't like him.
He does stand up as a transvestite, now that takes balls. Not something you'd associate with twee.
If you needed to label any comedians as twee (twee in the more traditional B&S sense) I'd say Josie Long or David O'Doherty are definitely twee.
Then in the more recent version of twee, which seems to be much more about a vapid style, than actual content, you get people like Russell Kane.
He does stand up as a transvestite, now that takes balls. Not something you'd associate with twee.
If you needed to label any comedians as twee (twee in the more traditional B&S sense) I'd say Josie Long or David O'Doherty are definitely twee.
Then in the more recent version of twee, which seems to be much more about a vapid style, than actual content, you get people like Russell Kane.
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
don't see what the transvestism/stick he no doubt gets for it has to do with it really. I dont' think people dressing in cardigans (at least before they became trendy a few years back) exactly get in easy at night in town centres either...his comedy is excessively cutesy in the most part, i think he counts - it's the way he talks about things. he's responsible more than anyone (possibly not that far, but he's a factor) for the prevalence of twee facebook updates about muffins and tea and jam.
I dont' see for the life of me that he's more twee than B&S, except if we're explicitly taking twee=cardigans, rather than twee=an attitude that makes things unnecessarily cutesy and removed from the real world.
anyways, doesn't really matter if he is or not because, as you rightly point out, i hate him and his effect upon popular culture. And that is the important thing.
I dont' see for the life of me that he's more twee than B&S, except if we're explicitly taking twee=cardigans, rather than twee=an attitude that makes things unnecessarily cutesy and removed from the real world.
anyways, doesn't really matter if he is or not because, as you rightly point out, i hate him and his effect upon popular culture. And that is the important thing.
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bob effect
somnambulist
But that's the point. The don't want to go and live in the country, not really. They don't want to go and live somewhere with shit/ no public transport and a 20 mile round trip to go to the supermarket. They like the idea of it for sure, but when the grim reality of Ocado not delivering to their postcode sinks in they'll be running back to the city.
And they wear fucking cardigans. Sensible fucking CARDIGANS. And they have SIDE PARTINGS. When I'm benevolent dictator, the only people who will be allowed to have side partings will be people who lived in the 1940s, for everyone else it'll be a shootable offence.
hucks
Your Message Here
Was about to say "Yes! That's exactly right!" Then I realised I think you've left a negative out somehwere....
Anyway, B&S are twee, even if you like them (which you are perfectly within your rights and utterly incorrect to do) but Izzard is not. He's surreal and whimsical and annoying and, I dunno, zany or wacky but he's not twee. And yeah, wearing a cardigan might have got you beaten up a few years ago but it won't now and that is because of the rise of all things twee which this thread is about.
AMEN MY BROTHER
Re: Josie Long. She's less twee than she was. Which is my way of trying to justify to myself that I like her.
Anyway, Slothrop is doing a sterling job of sorting out the true twee from the simply annoying and I shall let him get on with it.
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pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
keep thinking about this thread. few things that came to mind -
the kids who were once background characters/bully-bait at school have landed themselves in a new-found position of power and influence. with their collective feelings of isolation and frustration at how unfair it all is, they've used the internet's various media channels to create a cultural safe zone where behavior that previously would have landed them with a dead arm is now applauded by other like minded twits. and these twits are desperate to warp themselves back in time to re-live their youth, but instead of being the marginalized nobody they once were, they've found a new social currency - overt sensitivity. it's like all the frustrated male characters in all the smiths' songs have come to life and women suddenly find them irresistible
fuck
the kids who were once background characters/bully-bait at school have landed themselves in a new-found position of power and influence. with their collective feelings of isolation and frustration at how unfair it all is, they've used the internet's various media channels to create a cultural safe zone where behavior that previously would have landed them with a dead arm is now applauded by other like minded twits. and these twits are desperate to warp themselves back in time to re-live their youth, but instead of being the marginalized nobody they once were, they've found a new social currency - overt sensitivity. it's like all the frustrated male characters in all the smiths' songs have come to life and women suddenly find them irresistible
fuck
SecondLine
Well-known member
Yes, culture won't be great until the power dynamics of the playground are extended to every sphere of life.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
So is there a way to criticize tweedom without just sounding like we're saying that these softies should know their place and get back to their Belle & Sebastian records and quiet weeping while us real men get on with running the show?
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