Jmeck, I want you to look in the mirror and tell yourself "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me!"

 

 

I think some of the cultural change is happening because these kinds of guys are able to form social networks in ways that this personality type couldn't in the past.  As late as the mid-90s someone could be THE ONLY person at their high school interested in a particular thing.  They had NOBODY to talk to about it on a regular basis.  Now they can be active on forums just like Urban Ohio endlessly. 

 

 

Yes, BUT a lot of them have not become as aware of that yet. So they still get clingy when they find out you played Mario 2 in 1989 just like every single other person between the ages of 4-14 at that time. The alpha nerds know that geeks have become the dominant social archetype and have been for at least five years (these are the ones who find Mario banal), but the other ones still think that they're somehow some kind of underground movement and will blast you with a fast-talking 2-hour one-way conversation if you let them. The alpha nerds hate it too and are wary of these types of conversations, hence the distance.

 

But what nerds can really hate is when you haven't bought into the whole thing of video games plus comic books plus card games plus anime plus tabletop gaming plus online PC RPGs plus sword collecting plus plus. Like if you only do one of those things you're an alien. Alpha nerds know this too becuase it would have been impossible for them to get as good as they are at the STEM stuff while trying keeping track of all those other things.

What I'm amazed by is the way so many people age 20-25 seem to both be ignorant of and hold the American (and British) music of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s in high contempt.  Right now there seems to be zero interest in real blues, and some sort of perverted interest in folk.  When I was a kid I was VERY interested in older music AND hearing older people talk about it.  Now 50 years of American music has been thrown away in favor of guys with laptop computers all playing the same straight-ahead 4/4 beats.  I haven't heard a young group write something in 6/8 or with a blues shuffle or over the Bo Diddley beat in 10 years.   

 

For decades the central sentiment of American music was "I'm a nobody but I live a nobler life than the the Capitalist, the Lumpenproletariat, and the squares".  Now it's no longer Americans having conversations about their mythology (including religion) and class struggle through music, but rather background music has been pushed to the forefront, and real musicians get the butt end of the 2 Minutes of Hate that are the 50-minute DJ instrumentals. 

And that's why I never got into punk or nu-metal. They ain't got the blues! Rock 'n roll isn't itself without it. I let keyboard stuff slide, but nu-metal existed in its own hemisphere ignorant of blues, classical and old country. It came to us from a '90s and 2000s-only land of overfed post-1996 mainstream rap, overly-descriptive nu-country and hippie drum circles (in nu-metal, all the instruments are basically drums). No thanks. Punk had some good songwriting and brought some much-needed attitude back to rock, but its anti-Pink Floyd anti-Clapton stance rubbed me the wrong way.

 

I can tell that most of today's youth don't get metal at all. That wasn't true even seven years ago; in fact, metal made total sense to youth of say 2005. That's why Metallica screwed up so very badly by putting out St. Anger in 2003 and waiting all the way until 2008 to make Death Magnetic until 2008. If they would have put out the real metal DM in 2003 (they had it in them) it would have been the most edgy thing possible to do. But the suits demanded St. Anger because Staind had a really good 1999. By 2008 metal had graduated to Dad Rock status. Was it overdone records such as St. Anger and Chinese Democracy that did it? I think so.

The two strains of American music are blues and folk.  People who start playing music who have an ignorance of one or both end up floundering, mostly because they don't listen to enough of it to where they become aware of the confrontational examples of each.  What I mean by confrontational is that by confronting the medium itself, they create an allegory that goes way beyond what can be broken down by an academic and translated without experiencing the song firsthand.  "Confrontation" doesn't necessary mean "negative" or explicitly political.  A song can be so ridiculous and so celebratory that it nudges past the edges of mere mischief and enters a surreal realm, in which the song bounces off its own mythology, and comes back to affect real life.  Something like "Wild Thing" by The Troggs. 

 

Along with all that, I don't think we have real "entertainers" anymore.  The pop music machine throws clothes on people who are ignorant of folk and the blues (American Idol, etc.) and the girls go crazy and 20 years later people listen to the music only to hear how bad it was.  It's like going around right now taking the most embarrassing photos of yourself so that 20 years from now you can have a laugh.  The thing that's crazy is that it appears to be an effective business model -- record bad music, have it parodied a generation later by South Park, VH1 shows, etc., and you still get to be famous if like a politician you get in on the joke. 

 

Hey, since this can't ever happen again, let's ignore it, and plug a PA system into our laptops, play 3 hours of dub step, and call it a party:

  The thing that's crazy is that it appears to be an effective business model -- record bad music, have it parodied a generation later by South Park, VH1 shows, etc., and you still get to be famous if like a politician you get in on the joke. 

 

Hmmm, is the oldest example of that when Rick Astley "Rick Rolled" the Thanksgiving parade? By oldest I mean is he the oldest act? Perhaps Tiny Tim or Rip Torn, but they never gave off the "I know I suck" vibe that Astley did.

What I'm amazed by is the way so many people age 20-25 seem to both be ignorant of and hold the American (and British) music of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s in high contempt.  Right now there seems to be zero interest in real blues, and some sort of perverted interest in folk.

 

Interesting.  Maybe this accounts for that Laura Marling/Rumford and Son interest.  Tho I think OCMS is sort of hipster-esque....& the Avett Brothers (doing a song about Brooklyn...how obvious can you get).

 

For decades the central sentiment of American music was "I'm a nobody but I live a nobler life than the the Capitalist, the Lumpenproletariat, and the squares".  Now it's no longer Americans having conversations about their mythology (including religion) and class struggle through music, but rather background music has been pushed to the forefront, and real musicians get the butt end of the 2 Minutes of Hate that are the 50-minute DJ instrumentals. 

 

...this sort of explains my befuddlment with the poolside music...I go to my apt pool nearly every day when its open, and the pool radio is  (usually) tuned to this "Channel 999" station....and I try to get into what they are playing and its just like background noise.  Occasionaly something will jump up out of the audio ooze that i can sort of "get", but its usually pretty generic, isnt it?

 

(That comment on US music almost sounds like some Greil Marcus would have written...liner notes to Blood on the Tracks...)

 

 

 

 

 

More on Hipsters and Detroit:

 

Hipsters and a Billionaire ....

 

....the city has become something of a Gen Y paradise, the Brooklyn of the Midwest. “Recent census figures show that Detroit’s overall population shrank by 25 percent in the last 10 years,” The New York Times reports. “During the same time period, downtown Detroit experienced a 59 percent increase in the number of college-educated residents under the age of 35, nearly 30 percent more than two-thirds of the nation’s 51 largest cities.”

 

The media lionizes the young artists, designers, and urban farmers who—attracted by cheap rent, jobs (Gilbert hired more than 1,000 interns this summer), and an unlimited potential for do-goodery—are reclaiming the inner-city neighborhoods of Eastern Market and Corktown. Male-model-turned-restauranteur Phil Cooley is the most famous of the bunch—I can recommend the pork-butt sandwich at Slows Bar BQ, his place in Corktown. But still, with more than 70,000 abandoned buildings remaining, there simply aren’t enough hipsters to get the job done.

 

Also, Detroit<-->hipster buzz from the New Yorker:

 

Motown Down

 

f you were to visit the Detroit Institute of Arts, home to Diego Rivera’s magnificent murals depicting scenes at the Ford Motor Company in the early nineteen-thirties, and then take a stroll through the surrounding streets, you might be surprised at what you would find: coffee shops frequented by young hipsters; old warehouses being converted to lofts; bike racks; houses undergoing renovation; a new Whole Foods supermarket. After decades of white flight, black flight, and urban decay, Detroit is being spoken of, in some circles, as “the new Portland,” or “the new Brooklyn.”

 

No fair!  I thought LOUISVILLE was supposed to be the New Portland!

 

@@@@

 

When I was up in Detroit I thought  Hamtramck had the a big hipster potential, it seemed.....art + music.....

 

 

 

 

 

Which makes me wonder what is it with this Polak-Hipster thing?  Seems these Hipster neighborhoods used to be Polish areas....???  Chicago, too....

 

 

>Perhaps Tiny Tim or Rip Torn, but they never gave off the "I know I suck" vibe that Astley did.

 

I remember when that Rick Astley song first hit MTV.  It was definitely presented in a serious manner, ala Amy Grant or Wilson Phillips.  But if you look at the video again, it's one of those things where you can tell the record company didn't know how to present him.  Maybe he has a way more interesting past than what was presented in that video.  But for stuff to really be "so bad it's good", it had to be presented as being serious at the beginning. 

 

>Maybe this accounts for that Laura Marling/Rumford and Son interest. 

 

Meanwhile I don't sense any kind of Bob Dylan, Peter Paul & Mary, Woody Guthrie, etc. revival.  People's fleeting interest in music reminds me of how much people just like looking at old clothes in movies set  in the distant past.  It doesn't matter to the average movie-goer if the clothes the man and woman in a scene weren't actually in fashion at the same time.  With musical history, there's a similar inattention to detail, and if you bring it up, you're the bad guy. 

 

No need to repost the Rick Roll video.  It really wasn't exceptionally bad at the time, considering it was contemporaneous with:

 

And:

 

 

A buddy of mine who moved away about a year ago is visiting from San Fransisco..... errrrrrrr, I mean "the Bay."  He has the beard

Hipsters are killing American razor sales

 

Slowly replacing the hippie as the target of scorn for things other Americans don't like or understand, hipsters and their elaborate facial hair have fallen right in the cross hairs of international market research firm Euromonitor. The group says hipsters have helped create a "vogue for stubble" and a "growing acceptance of the unshaven look in the workplace" that is dragging down razor sales that relatively "nonhairy" China can't compensate for.

 

But is it really the fault of some kung-fu marathon-watching, "Super Mario Bros. 2"-playing, bourbon-aged-beer-drinking bogeyman? Or is the real culprit staring right into razor-making conglomerates' shaving mirror?

Not sure there was ever a name for this musical genre, but Gil Mantera's Party Dream from Youngstown was definitely the group that "pioneered" it.  They started in 1999 and broke up in 2008.  Problem is these various imitators are a)10 years late to the party and b)not as good.  And there are far more imitators than just these!

 

Gil Matera's Party Dream (Youngstown):

 

The Flavor Savers (St. Louis?):

 

Champions of Breakfast (Michigan):

 

 

Also, I have photos of some guys in Knoxville, TN in early 80s aerobics gear in 1998 or 1999 giving an ironic aerobics class, so the idea for this "look", at least (perhaps not the whole electronic band concept), was born in more than one place throughout the 90s. 

 

Ah yea, I know of what you speak. There were/are others such as Totally Radd!!, I Hate You When You're Pregnant and Mr. Pacman. I think some of those bands toured with Gil Mantera. I don't know the name of the genre, either, but I know it's not just "guys with drum machines yelling and barfing".

There was also Grand Buffet, who toured a lot with Gil Mantera, but who I never saw live:

 

Also apparently an affiliated group called The Candy Bars:

 

Also, Youtube suggested this:

 

Hipsters are killing American razor sales

 

Slowly replacing the hippie as the target of scorn for things other Americans don't like or understand, hipsters and their elaborate facial hair have fallen right in the cross hairs of international market research firm Euromonitor. The group says hipsters have helped create a "vogue for stubble" and a "growing acceptance of the unshaven look in the workplace" that is dragging down razor sales that relatively "nonhairy" China can't compensate for.

 

But is it really the fault of some kung-fu marathon-watching, "Super Mario Bros. 2"-playing, bourbon-aged-beer-drinking bogeyman? Or is the real culprit staring right into razor-making conglomerates' shaving mirror?

 

I don't buy razors because i could buy a case of beer with the amount of money it costs to shave.  Seriously, blades are stupidly expensive.  I roll with a beard (not ironically) or shave with the guard off on my clippers (the small one used to get the back of your neck).

 

Also, big, stylish facial hair is not a new phenomenon; just ask General Burnside. 

Hipsters are killing American razor sales

 

Slowly replacing the hippie as the target of scorn for things other Americans don't like or understand, hipsters and their elaborate facial hair have fallen right in the cross hairs of international market research firm Euromonitor. The group says hipsters have helped create a "vogue for stubble" and a "growing acceptance of the unshaven look in the workplace" that is dragging down razor sales that relatively "nonhairy" China can't compensate for.

 

But is it really the fault of some kung-fu marathon-watching, "Super Mario Bros. 2"-playing, bourbon-aged-beer-drinking bogeyman? Or is the real culprit staring right into razor-making conglomerates' shaving mirror?

 

I don't buy razors because i could buy a case of beer with the amount of money it costs to shave.  Seriously, blades are stupidly expensive.  I roll with a beard (not ironically) or shave with the guard off on my clippers (the small one used to get the back of your neck).

 

Also, big, stylish facial hair is not a new phenomenon; just ask General Burnside. 

but razors are a flawed point, when one could easy be shaved by a professional. You could be shaved at a barbers shop or mens grooming salon.

Thank you 1907 MTS.

A writer for the Louisville free weekly calls these bearded hipster Beardos (as in wierdos)

Thank you 1907 MTS.

 

2 bits pal! 

deleted

Great footage of New York City in 1993 before the arrival of the hipsters:

And before everything inside that had earth tones for 50 years was blasted with white, just to have to be painted brown again 5 years later as the "coffee look" got big in the late 2000s.

 

Maybe that's more of a Columbus thing.

I still remember my first minute in New York City quite vividly.  We drove a rented van and emerged from the Holland Tunnel into a world that didn't exist anywhere else but that island.  The culture of New York City was almost "obscure" in the 80s and early 90s, since Hollywood dominated everything.  So a ton of it was completely new to me or anyone else.  Now so many truly eccentric people have been pushed out of Manhattan, and so the energy has waned. 

 

Yeah, the coffee house aesthetic took over America. I think people forget that the rise of the coffee house was timed with the raising of the drinking age.  Suddenly people between ages 18-20 couldn't go to bars, so they split their time between 24-hour Denny's and the new coffee houses.  At Denny's or Perkins, you could pretend you were a little blue collar and make a little fun of the wait staff and clientele.  At coffee houses, you were surrounded by people who had graduated from college, were in college, had traveled, etc.  The difference was that from the very beginning coffee houses attracted the pretentious left-leaners who imagined they were bohemians and overall the whole scene wasn't friendly (or talented [or destined for greatness]).  Also, the artwork on the walls always sucked, poetry readings always sucked, and the music almost always sucked. 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/the-most-hipster-things-that-have-ever-happened

 

Anybody who lived through the '80s and the first half of the '90s remembers Burnouts. Burnouts smoked a ton of pot and most other drugs were also A-OK. Burnouts also loved metal and beer. Here is a totally unknown VHS-quality documentary from the '90s called Metallimania about Metallica and thier fans. Starting in part 2, you meet some burnout fans that succeed in making you feel totally uncomfortable and make the people from Heavy Metal Parking Lot look like teddy bears. Also, you see the '90s phenomenon of anybody acting serious for more than a minute or two totally getting their balls busted. The band members interviewed, including all of Metallica, Jim Martin from Faith No More, Tom Araya from Slayer, Rob Halford (with the band Fight at the time), a post-Kyuss pre-Queens of the Stone Age Josh Homme and even Madonna knew the game and took the piss the entire way through. Personally, I found it difficult to constantly come up with all the BS material people expected from males at the time -- though most of my friends weren't metalheads, being serious for more than three sentences was considered unacceptable at the time it seemed.

 

Despite the big names in the tape and the extremely popular subject matter it has remained totally obscure. It has only managed to average less than 500 views on Youtube per segment after being on the site since 2011. Metallimania may be the most extensive showcase of burnouts ever made.

 

Here's part 1, but the good stuff doesn't really kick in until part two.

 

In the 90s a lot of teenagers made home video mockumentaries.  When I was 16, I remember hanging out at some girl's house who had a tape some of her friends made that was a suburban "Sabotage".  So they were aware of and were making fun of their lame suburban upbringings and lack of music, acting, or filmmaking talent by filming themselves jumping around wearing their dad or grandpa's clothes and maybe a wig or old hat while "Sabotage" played.  I myself created a "documentary" about my high school which was cut down to about 50 minutes from about six hours of footage taken in and around my high school, including footage from a 1970's themed disco dance in early 1996.  At said dance (incidentally, an all-girls school dance) some guy knocked out his girlfriend on the dance floor and she was taken out on a stretcher.  I made the executive decision at the time to not film the girl being wheeled out.  I did, however, film goth girls leading their dates around with dog leaches.  The sole edited copy is believed to have been destroyed by my friend's ex-wife, however, I do have the original VHC-C tapes with all the raw footage.     

 

The narrator is now a hopeless corporate family man who posts excessively about his 10K and marathon runs on Facebook, but he was once a wise-ass who could speak with an absolutely ridiculous British accent, and I find the very dialog with which we opened the documentary to be almost identical to this one.  I do recall that we ended with (in British accent) "We assure our viewers that our motives are purely academic...". 

 

I also saw clips from a mockumentary shot in the pool of the Fairfield YMCA called "Castle of Otranto", which was suburban Cincinnati 17 year-old staging a Greek Tragedy in contemporary costume and at an inappropriate setting. 

 

Amazingly, a search reveals that somebody else did almost the exact same thing!:

 

 

 

Yeah, this Metallica documentary is pretty wild.  Way more involved than Heavy Metal Parking Lot, of course, but what's not cool is this host really is baiting the people in a way the Heavy Metal Parking Lot guys weren't. 

 

It's amazing seeing how all these kids are self-medicating when they all have very obvious psychological issues.  For me I was really impressed by Metallica when I was a kid but probably was actually scared of Dave Mustaine.  I was scared of the guys in Danzig but thought Danzig himself was a little goofy.  Now I think hardly any of Metallica's music even makes any sense, whereas Megadeth was very focussed. 

After Metallica finished Master of Puppets, they spent most of the rest of their career desperately wanting to become Advanced even though they are incapable of it. Hence the winding storylines of the Justice record and songs like Shortest Straw and Harvester of Sorrow that don't make any sense, really, even if you have been told what they are about. Then the Black Album comes along and it's obvious that the band wanted to be the thinking man's pop metal band, ala Queensryche but less operatic. Then the Loads hit and Metallica wants to be your alt-country hard rock band in yet another attempt to be Advanced. Years later, St. Anger tried to be a Dylan and Neil Young-esque weirdo series of sketches using nu-metal as a base. Failure again. Then one real metal album that sounded great because they stuck to where they actually excel followed by Lulu, an overt attempt at becoming Advanced by working with one of the most Advanced of all Lou Reed. But of course, Lulu only made Reed more Advanced while making Metallica even less so.

 

While Metallica are rich, they are not uber-rich and recently they put up $20 million of their own money making a 3D concert film (nearly every Metallica album must be accompanied by a live home video or album, though their best one consists of bootleg footage from '83 to '86) that was an immense flop in theaters. It has jeopardized their personal fortunes.

This is also why I maintain that Kill 'Em All is the best Metallica record because they didn't try to get above their raisin'. It's direct, to the point, all about cool riffs, killing people and reading the Bible to you nearly verbatim. A Tygers of Pan Tang record for pissed-off American teens. For many years I really thought For Whom the Bell Tolls from Ride the Lightning was totally boss, but now I realize it's just weird. "Hey lookie what we can do, first a bass part that sounds great only when Cliff Burton plays it live and improvises off of it and on no other situations because it's too chromatic" then a riff, then the end of Fairies Wear Boots, then a four chordy, Judas Preisty part for the verses, then a riff of our own under the chorus then we end it with an unpredictable part. And did they mention it's about a BOOK? It's just a bunch of parts, not a song.

 

If I was writing sketch comedy for SNL I'd do "Mandatory Meatloaf".  It would be a circa-2006 hipster who ironically works at an FM rock station who ironically listens to and eats his mandatory meatloaf on his ipod while he plays mandatory metallica to the masses. 

I'm with you guys on Metallica, with the exception that I liked Justice (it actually was the first Metallica album I bought, since I got into metal a little late (read the off topic thread for more detail). But I still have Master of Puppets as my all time favorite by them.

 

I kind of like Death Magnetic. Sounds like what a Metallica tribute band might come up with if they were trying to sound like Master of Puppets era Metallica. On a side note: I took a client to see that concert at the Q when they came to town a few years ago. Seeing Metallica in a loge, truly an allegory for what they've become...and maybe me as well.

 

I kind of like Megadeth, but I always felt that Mustaine was too contrived. Like he sat in a room and wrote down the most metal things he could think of, and then made himself into that (snarly voice, check. Lots of arpeggios, check. Angry lyrics about things disaffected teens can relate to...check!). He always struck me as the little brother who couldn't hang out with his older brother and their friends, and so tried too hard to be just like them. Kind of Powerman 5000 to Rob Zombie.

 

 

^I really liked Justice for a long time and still dig the riffing, long songs and guitar solos. But it kinda wore off after a while. Since you've spent a lot of time in NYC, Justice probably speaks to you a little more since grimy, angry, hard-to-digest sounds just sound better in the city. Even if you didn't live there when it came out. Like how Asia sounds better to people who are always in new buildings (Columbusites) than to people in cities with a lot of graffiti.

 

Metallica had toured Europe at least a couple of times by the time Justice had came out, and I think the cold, half-crumbled, wet, still-rebuilding industrial and artsy cities had an effect on them and their sound going into Justice.

 

Death Magnetic really worked, but somehow I get the feeling that we're not going to hear that sound from them again. It wasn't a very big a seller because Metallica had used up everyone's patience.

A lot of the stuff hipsters emulate is probably pictured in this book:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2480247/Michael-Galinskys-Malls-Across-America-book-sheds-light-shoppers-defined-1980s.html

 

It's not tough to see why metal and punk rock were big in the 80s, when you had all this crap being heaped on you. 

 

Thinking back, the most extraordinary phenomenon of the 80s was the way that white jocks started acting black.  I'm not sure any photographer was out there documenting that.  What was the most amazing feature of it was when white kids in an all-white area started emulating black culture that they saw on TV, despite knowing zero black people in real life.  Somehow this was not just acceptable, but a marker of cultural status amongst whites!  And if you called them out on it, you were ostracized and/or punched in the teeth immediately. 

 

The '80s-early '90s Miami Hurricanes football team made that cool.

 

What was the most amazing feature of it was when white kids in an all-white area started emulating black culture that they saw on TV, despite knowing zero black people in real life.  Somehow this was not just acceptable, but a marker of cultural status amongst whites!

 

William Upski Wimsatt was a good example of this.  I think Bomb the Suburbs came out in the early 1990s, so a bit later than the first appearance of the phenom as an 80s thing.  I think for the 1980s Beastie Boys and similar acts where picking up on this trend.

 

I find that whole "whigger" thing actually a bit more annoying than hipsterism. 

 

 

 

 

Were The Beastie Boys just referred to as whiggers ?!?! 

Not necessarily per se, but more as popularizers of the hip hop musical style.

 

 

I find that whole "whigger" thing actually a bit more annoying than hipsterism. 

 

 

 

 

Aw, nobody likes them. High school girls maybe; that's about it.

Please folks, they prefer the term "Whafrican American".

May I interject that the only hipster artifact that I can identify is the thick black glasses - and I'm not even sure that's correct.  I am completely ignorant about it...But this thread keeps me coming back because it is awesome.  I am getting quite a popular culture education.  So, thanks!

 

Now back to your regularly scheduled program...

I always preferred "whacks"...... if there has to be a term

 

The other term..... feel free to use it at your own risk.  I recall a college professor of mine who reportedly made a student he heard using the term stand up in front of the multi-racial class to explain the etymology

May I interject that the only hipster artifact that I can identify is the thick black glasses - and I'm not even sure that's correct.  I am completely ignorant about it...But this thread keeps me coming back because it is awesome.  I am getting quite a popular culture education.  So, thanks!

 

Now back to your regularly scheduled program...

 

Fixed-gear bicycles, fedoras, ironic t-shirts, and mustaches (especially pointy retro ones) all rank higher in hipsterdom than thick black glasses.

I play melodica. Does that make me a musical hipster? LOL :D

May I interject that the only hipster artifact that I can identify is the thick black glasses - and I'm not even sure that's correct.  I am completely ignorant about it...But this thread keeps me coming back because it is awesome.  I am getting quite a popular culture education.  So, thanks!

 

Now back to your regularly scheduled program...

 

Fixed-gear bicycles, fedoras, ironic t-shirts, and mustaches (especially pointy retro ones) all rank higher in hipsterdom than thick black glasses.

 

How about making a scarf part of your outfit, as opposed to something you put on with a jacket when going outside..... and actually thinking that it makes you look cool (even though I know you're hot as sh!t wiith that thing wrapped around your neck in the middle of summer

What about slip on style sneakers.  The ones that look like old skool Vans but aren't Vans.  Patchouli oil?

A lot of the stuff hipsters emulate is probably pictured in this book:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2480247/Michael-Galinskys-Malls-Across-America-book-sheds-light-shoppers-defined-1980s.html

 

It's not tough to see why metal and punk rock were big in the 80s, when you had all this crap being heaped on you. 

 

Thinking back, the most extraordinary phenomenon of the 80s was the way that white jocks started acting black.  I'm not sure any photographer was out there documenting that.  What was the most amazing feature of it was when white kids in an all-white area started emulating black culture that they saw on TV, despite knowing zero black people in real life.  Somehow this was not just acceptable, but a marker of cultural status amongst whites!  And if you called them out on it, you were ostracized and/or punched in the teeth immediately. 

 

 

I like to call this the MTV halo effect

How about making a scarf part of your outfit

 

...like that filmmaker character in Rent?

A lot of the stuff hipsters emulate is probably pictured in this book:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2480247/Michael-Galinskys-Malls-Across-America-book-sheds-light-shoppers-defined-1980s.html

 

It's not tough to see why metal and punk rock were big in the 80s, when you had all this crap being heaped on you. 

 

Thinking back, the most extraordinary phenomenon of the 80s was the way that white jocks started acting black.  I'm not sure any photographer was out there documenting that.  What was the most amazing feature of it was when white kids in an all-white area started emulating black culture that they saw on TV, despite knowing zero black people in real life.  Somehow this was not just acceptable, but a marker of cultural status amongst whites!  And if you called them out on it, you were ostracized and/or punched in the teeth immediately. 

 

 

I like to call this the MTV halo effect

 

MTV took a lot of heat in the '80s, especially before they began showing Yo! MTV Raps, for showcasing few black acts. Then you get to about 1993 or so and 50%+ of the music on the network was black. Racists exploded, including the one fan in the Metallimania video on the previous page that was boasting of his recent gun purchase.

 

And as teens are wont to do they began emulating the looks and attitude of the popular music of the time which, of course was a black look. In the '90s, if you were young you still had to be on team mainstream or you're out. What is a disservice to teens and other young people today for historical accuracy and also anywhere from slightly racist to very racist is the whitewashing of the '90s to make it look like grunge ruled uber-alles then everybody went straight to post-grunge alternative like Bush, Fuel and Silverchair. Finally, they wrapped up the '90s with New Radicals, Fastball, Blink 182 and Britney. No, no, no. If you were under 22 in those days it was rap, rap, R&B, rap, early '90s dance music, rap and rap. If you were into anything else you were weird, no matter how many records it had sold. Ma$e was more important than the Beatles and 2Pac was bigger than God.

Were The Beastie Boys just referred to as whiggers ?!?! 

 

I've never heard that. They had too much hard rock attitude and made a punk record right in the middle of their career.