I grew up in a variety of socioeconomic categories--but during my formative years, we were po'. Like really. So, I get this bubbling class rage over these types of things--and it makes me almost have French-Revolution-style thoughts.
Because it is a really sick thing--this mocking of human experience--but, I think it has its origins in a place that I understand, or at least that I can get behind artistically. Which is sort of what I was ranting about in my comment to Pocochina--hipsterism is really just the commercial/consumer-friendly branch of postmodernism. So, their "references" and "irony" are based on the sense of play and decontextualization of history and breakdown of conventions that are present in postmodern art and lit.
The problem is--you can't decontextualize suffering. Because when you do, you trivialize it. You are telling the people from whom you are you're borrowing artifacts of their suffering that their experiences are meaningless. That their ongoing tribulations aren't occurring. And that's the REAL danger. That the decontextualization of these issues (poverty, racism, etc) denies that the they are still problems. Or if they are problems, the problems, like everything else, are meaningless. All of human experience is a collection of simulacrum that amounts to nothing real. And so it's fine that women are being raped for sport in the Congo and it's fine that impoverished miners are being trapped in collapsed mines and are suffocating to death and its fine that people are still calling the first lady of the United fucking States a "ghetto crack whore." Because none of that matters. You can take apart all the suffering and disassemble it just like you've disassembled the significance of the hipster phrenology charts and taxidermy animals, and pearl-button shirts, and the steampunk Victorian hats, and the Pabst Blue Ribbon.
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I grew up in a variety of socioeconomic categories--but during my formative years, we were po'. Like really. So, I get this bubbling class rage over these types of things--and it makes me almost have French-Revolution-style thoughts.
Because it is a really sick thing--this mocking of human experience--but, I think it has its origins in a place that I understand, or at least that I can get behind artistically. Which is sort of what I was ranting about in my comment to Pocochina--hipsterism is really just the commercial/consumer-friendly branch of postmodernism. So, their "references" and "irony" are based on the sense of play and decontextualization of history and breakdown of conventions that are present in postmodern art and lit.
The problem is--you can't decontextualize suffering. Because when you do, you trivialize it. You are telling the people from whom you are you're borrowing artifacts of their suffering that their experiences are meaningless. That their ongoing tribulations aren't occurring. And that's the REAL danger. That the decontextualization of these issues (poverty, racism, etc) denies that the they are still problems. Or if they are problems, the problems, like everything else, are meaningless. All of human experience is a collection of simulacrum that amounts to nothing real. And so it's fine that women are being raped for sport in the Congo and it's fine that impoverished miners are being trapped in collapsed mines and are suffocating to death and its fine that people are still calling the first lady of the United fucking States a "ghetto crack whore." Because none of that matters. You can take apart all the suffering and disassemble it just like you've disassembled the significance of the hipster phrenology charts and taxidermy animals, and pearl-button shirts, and the steampunk Victorian hats, and the Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Aaaand I'm done ranting now.