Pretentious Crap

[mixed_biscuits]

BPPI - Biscuit's Perceived Pretension Index:

a = subject's social capital, as perceived by you
b = your social capital, as objectively speaking as possible
c = subject's pretended social capital
d = subject's actual social capital, seen objectively as possible
e = subject's use of unjust reflexivity (eg. false modesty)
f = subject's use of just reflexivity (eg. sincere self-deprecation)
g = hrs display of pretension
h = hrs visibility

e:f and g:h should be treated as ratios when coming up with your figures.

Enter a, b, c, d, e, f, h as values 1-10 (10 is high)

Enter g using values 0-10

You will get an entirely objective, foolproof reading of the subject's pretentiousness (presented as a % of absolute pretentiousness).

The formula is VERY sensitive. Bear in mind that in calibration tests, Stephen Fry received a reading of 0.1% pretentious and Dissensus only 7%!
The modulus function permits the reading of inverse snobbery.

Interpretation of readings:

0 - unpretentious (probably)
<0.01% - largely unpretentious
0.01-0.9recurring % - pretentious
>1% - highly pretentious

I apologise retrospectively in advance for the quality of my maths.

 

[Sick Boy]

BPPI - Biscuit's Perceived Pretension Index:

a = subject's social capital, as perceived by you
b = your social capital, as objectively speaking as possible
c = subject's pretended social capital
d = subject's actual social capital, seen objectively as possible
e = subject's use of unjust reflexivity (eg. false modesty)
f = subject's use of just reflexivity (eg. sincere self-deprecation)
g = hrs display of pretension
h = hrs visibility

e:f and g:h should be treated as ratios when coming up with your figures.

Enter a, b, c, d, e, f, h as values 1-10 (10 is high)

Enter g using values 0-10

You will get an entirely objective, foolproof reading of the subject's pretentiousness (presented as a % of absolute pretentiousness).

The formula is VERY sensitive. Bear in mind that in calibration tests, Stephen Fry received a reading of 0.1% pretentious and Dissensus only 7%!
The modulus function permits the reading of inverse snobbery.

Interpretation of readings:

0 - unpretentious (probably)
<0.01% - largely unpretentious
0.01-0.9recurring % - pretentious
>1% - highly pretentious

I apologise retrospectively in advance for the quality of my maths.

This right here is one of Dissensus' better moments.

 

[nomadthethird]

Edit: Most people are narcissistic to some degree, yes. But I'm not sure that most people suffer from "intense feelings of guilt, shame, and emotional pain," to the extent they hate themselves. This kind of condition seems quite malignant to me. Quite pathological. Wouldn't you agree?

It's funny, Josef, because you talk about someone have intense feelings of "guilt, shame, and emotional pain" as if that is somehow pathological in and of itself.

It is annoying that you always seem compelled to put words in my mouth.

Words into your mouth?

 

[nomadthethird]

this is a bit creepy, is it a weird roundabout seduction gambit?

Definitely not. Not trying to be creepy, sorry if I was somehow (?)

Luka, you may not have noticed, but I'm very interested in a) psychoanalysis, and b) narcissism. I've talked about both in several discussions in several different places.

My interest in these things has led me to try to understand them more fully, and in general I see quite a lot of bullshit conventional wisdom masquerading as knowledge, especially when it comes to psychological disorders of all kinds, and frankly this really bothers me.

No one is bad because they have a psychological disorder, just like no one is bad who has Parkinson's Disease, or because they have Down Syndrome. The attitude that people with psychological disorders don't have anything physiological wrong, and can just buck up and change themselves, otherwise they're just bad eggs, is right up there with the burn the witch scene from Monty Python in ignorance level.

I have absolutely no interest in discussing my own personal life in detail or what ultimately led me to have narcissistic tendencies--I only brought this up because I think it actually is relevant to this discussion of pretentious behavior.

I really think that narcissism is a characteristic of the myspace generation, it's a default mode.

 

[luka]

not sure you've interpreted that comment in the way it was intended

 

[luka]

but it was essentially just a bit of mischief

 

[nomadthethird]

Ugh maybe I have no idea. I read that thing Mixed Biscuits posted and it was all over from there.

 

[nomadthethird]

What if you're black, dress like someone's dad in 1978 and listen to Stockhausen? Assuming there is at least one person in the world who fits that description...

You mean, if you're the coolest guy of all time?

 

[nomadthethird]

who gets to decide which "image" or "self" a person has is the real one? psychologists? professors or intellectuals with prestige? assholes on the internet?


Gotta agree with Zhao here, on letting people "become" and "fake it". Personally, I don't believe there is a 'faking it'. Even if something someone says is wrong or idealistic or perhaps pseudy, it still might come from true feelings, so it's ok with me. I mean, as far as our "real" selves, isn't that which someone invests themselves in, which becomes from their desires and passions and beliefs, as much their real self as the "reality" of whatever mundane or traumatizing experiences they inevitably had to endure at whichever point like we all have? Why should they be tethered to that, if they see life as more than the most dull, reductive facts, having to take a shit, limitations (however temporal), mechanistic processes, bills, etc? It's like some materialist, Darwinist, logical-positivist types have to suck the LIFE out of everything, force a cold, dead, fatalistic reality on everyone. "No, you're not not educated enough; no, you're not 'properly' creative, no, your happiness doesn't reflect this bland reality, you're a FRAUD". Everyone I've personally ever respected would probably be considered pretentious, narcissistic, and I'm sure riddled with (pharamaceutical company perpetuated) "disorders". People of creativity and imagination and faith. Should these people just resign to depression and never try, never grow, never express themselves because they MIGHT BE WRONG or look foolish? Of course, that's not to say there aren't a lot of things I've heard that make cringe, art that makes me gag (this includes things I've said, old high school art I dig up), so I can't fault anyone's opinions in here either. And of course, if people are going to take the risk of expressing themselves, they have to accept the fact that not everyone will approve or agree, and that's okay.


Reality is what we agree on, and I resent that.

Yeah, I feel you Chris.

I think the point of the narcissistic "self" not being entirely "real" is less in the sense of being "fake" and more in the sense of being partial, and pieced together or constructed in such a way that it is meant to project an image that the narcissist can admire. There's nothing inherently bad or dysfunctional about this, but it can become pathological if the narcissist becomes so numb to everything but his own gratification that he doesn't mind hurting others to get his way. When it comes to the psychoanalytical point of view, and certain traits it discovered like narcissism, these pre-date the pharmaceutical industry by quite a few years. (I disagree strongly with people who believe that mental illness is not real, and only a conspiracy that is perpetuated by big pharma to make money. There is plenty of evidence that mental illness is a) genetic, and b) probably at least in part exascerbated by the sorts of living conditions/lifestyles that have resulted from industrialization. Unforunately, many medications that are not optimal treatments get pushed on patients who do not need them, or who react badly to them, because of the pharmaceutical industry. But this is another thread...)

What I really like in your post is this:

It's like some materialist, Darwinist, logical-positivist types have to suck the LIFE out of everything, force a cold, dead, fatalistic reality on everyone. "No, you're not not educated enough; no, you're not 'properly' creative, no, your happiness doesn't reflect this bland reality, you're a FRAUD".

I'm soo soo fucking sick of the "this person is too much of a hipster, this person has false consciousness but (of COURSE) I don't, this scene is lame but mine isn't, everyone else is inauthentic but not meee!!!!" game. It's interesting to hear someone frame [here's that awful word] it in the completely opposite ideological terms using social Darwinism.

 

[nomadthethird]

Oh, and here's an example I wonder if we can agree on: when Prince (surely a pretentious enough name to start with?) decided he wanted us to call him

- that was pretty pretentious, no?

You do realize Prince used this symbol to circumvent a contract dispute he was having with his label so he could continue releasing albums and making money on other labels right?

It was very crafty. I'm pretty sure the contract he wanted to get out of disallowed Prince from recording albums with other labels under another name. So instead of using a name, he used a symbol. This of course tied up litigation for a good long time and he was able to make money and get the albums out in the meantime.

 

[nomadthethird]

Yeah, as I mentioned earlier on in this thread this defines for me what hipsterism is.
A youth culture based mostly on ostentation rather than actual value of product.

What is actual value?

Look at any culture.

Look at any still existing tribe. There's a uniform or costume. They're all wearing it. No one is "different" no one is an "individual." It's brightly colored, ostentatious, usually psychedelic and cool, sometimes warrior-like. Face paint. Attention grabbing.

Rituals. Dancing. Loud yelping.

 

[nomadthethird]

I'm reading a book on the history and current state of the journalism industry and the last section talked a bit about globalization of information and that sort of thing. One point the author made was that journalists didn't only become threatened by all this citizen journalism that was pouring onto the web, but the quality of their own journalism started to falter as it became less geographically-centred, less community relevent, and more subjective and opinionated.

The author offers the reason that this is because with a wider access to all information, the substance gets spread thin. It is possible now to know just enough stuff about a great many things, so journalists and editors lose a lot of the benefits and good habits of being focused.

I think a lot of people have been talking about hipsters in recent years because of just how easy it is now to be pretentious and get away with it. It's very possible our hypothetical constipated hookah-huffing interrlectual didn't even read that book. He could very well have just wikipedia'd the synopsis.

This is interesting...

I really do think this is happening now. Like blogs wouldn't be a problem, and wouldn't be some sort of "threat" to "discourse" or print media, if there weren't this big sort of influx of information that came along with them, and if the trad print media didn't suddenly begin lowering their standards for content in order to make room for the sorts of stuff that passes on blogs (the stuff that's popular, the stuff they need to try to compete with to keep up in the new media marketplace)...

Honestly I do think we'll hit a point in market equilibrium where there's a place for both/and, where print journalism de-tabloidifies itself a little.

The first step might just be the cultural death of irony a la the election of Obama, the economic crisis, the global warming crisis and the hipping of "green living"...

(Remember during the election when Hucks declared the death of irony with all of those youtube videos with right wing nutcases saying the most ridiculous things and really, truly meaning it?)

 

[nomadthethird]

hipsters are suburban kids from Williamsburg, VA who move to New York

Bethesda, MD
Brookline, MA
Montclair, NJ
Scarsdale, NY

 

[Agent]

not to over-generalize but that is the consensus definition. i don't like to get involved in the debate about hipsters. most of my friends (postgrad students etc) partially fall into that category, i fall into that category and i have for a long time; except when i go out, i'm usually alone, on drugs, and more or less dying physically, psychologically, intellectually and so on.

by request:

 

[zhao]

I occasionally think that we're disposed to imagine in some abstract and non-conscious way that some Other is watching us at all times,

enter foucault's interiorized panopticon...

its the reverse of the voyeuristic culture we live in... a side effect of the fetishising of the gaze?

i dont get those pictures? ^^^

 

[Mr. Tea]

You mean, if you're the coolest guy of all time?

For a given value of "someone's dad", I suppose...

I didn't know about Prince's contract dispute, that quite interesting. Presumably he could have used a different name rather than a symbol, but I guess that just wouldn't have been very Prince.

 

[zhao]

so what IF i made a conceptual dj mix in the appropriation style of sherrie levine's photos of famous photos --- and re-recorded the entirety of a new order record or something. that would be on the mark pretentious wise ja?

 

[zhao]

and that after dropping the panopticon casually upthread... i'm on a roll today

 

[Agent]

so what IF i made a conceptual dj mix in the appropriation style of sherrie levine's photos of famous photos --- and re-recorded the entirety of a new order record or something. that would be on the mark pretentious wise ja?

that's nothing man. i have homemade serialist compositions that sound horrible, and some guitar feedback fed into an audio editor that goes on for 2-3 hours

 

[nomadthethird]

For a given value of "someone's dad", I suppose...

I didn't know about Prince's contract dispute, that quite interesting. Presumably he could have used a different name rather than a symbol, but I guess that just wouldn't have been very Prince.

No, he couldn't use any other name that was why he used a symbol...

But James Lipton, now that guy is hilariously pretentious.