I HATE CLUBBING

Indeed, it's far better to get to know people in rather more amenable contexts than clubs.

I must admit I don't get the sense of a groundswell that's intent upon clubbing at my University, even upon finals, which may be to do with Cambridge having virtually nothing in the way of clubs, and also as people I find, yes, my word, they can accept just having a night in a student bar or pub, and actually have a good drink well priced, and good conversation.
I mean this may mean I don't move in mainstream circles - heck, I've spent one night in a club in the last University year (though it has been my last admittedly and hard work) - but I can accept that. I have been clubbing far more regularly when at home, with many long time friends, and while there was an early period where I really enjoyed it, recent times have been slightly more strained. Our particular Sunderland club had used to have rather a student-y mix on Thursdays yet recently it's gone the other way, and just does seem less friendly and that bit more like DL's crisp description, or the club in "The Office", say... I'd really like to find somewhere that had consistently good music, too.

stevem otm, again. steve, really, people will start to talk. [smooch]

I would like to disassociate myself from the sort of (intended or otherwise) class judgements and similar comments that have gone on. Perhaps if some people thought things through a little more before posting things may be better, and also if people didn't so easily descend into mud-slinging. Don't try it, folks. ;) From all I gather, this seems to be the ILX 'thing' at the moment; one finds it difficult to tell when people are being serious here, though considering the generally thoughtful crowd we have here, it's hardly going to be BNP-style aggro is it? ;)

I have had good impressions of a club crowd in Sunderland, which is as northern and working-class a city as you'll find (bloody BNP targetting it recently and thankfully failing). I have also had plenty of bad impressions, but I think I can fairly say I've never had an experience as bad as DL with his initial post; most of my worse nights would be more dependent on internal than external stuff... awful night in Newcastle once on this big club on some sort of boat, which apparently Gazza frequented in his time. Partly as it had was absurdly lacking in air conditioning of any sort, partly as the night had been miserable hitherto, what with two friends having a bit of a falling out. And partly as I hadn't planned on going there; was a not-too-close friend's birthday night-out.

what is right with superficial? shall we call the whole thing off? people like stuff to mean something most of the time, it's re-assuring, people like order tho they may profess otherwise. that superficial moment is only really important if it leads to something else, no? the moment alone, once past, does not seem important if nothing comes of it. is it even worth remembering otherwise?

i think gareth you should ditch the brown (jumper) btw. put your money where your mouth is and rock the fancy 'drobe yung.

At a young age I realized that as a defense mechanism for people making snap judgements about me based on my skin color, I made snap judgements about people who chose to mainstream themselves into a society that I felt would reject me if it thought it could get away with it with its PR intact. This led me to completely fuck with my style; clothes were clothes and didn't really mean anything, so there was absolutely no difference between showing up at school wearing a red plid button-down shirt with a sweater vest and khakis one day, followed by ripped jeans, combat boots and a concert t-shirt the next day, followed by khakis and combat boots with a dress shirt and a tuxedo jacket the day after that. I also willfully sought out friends from almost every demographic in the school; jocks, nerds, theater kids, band kids, choir kids, the church crowd, popular kids, skaters, goths, stoners, etc. I was determined to confound whatever expectations people had of me; I wanted to dress really shabbily, walk into a room, and ostentatiously show off the fact that I memorize stuff easily and can sustain a reasonable discussion. I wanted to look like a punk but sound like a moderate.

I wanted people to judge my book by my cover and I wanted to manipulate their judgement to be "first impressions don't actually mean shit; you have to get to know someone before you can draw a conclusion about him/her". I wanted to convert all of the small-minded people whom I perceived to think themselves above everyone around them into disciples of me, where my society is strictly egalitarian and perfect.

The irony that I thought I was the greatest person in the world and was essentially looking down on everyone around me didn't cross my mind until much, much later; it wasn't until I met someone who had embraced "the normal" who also turned out to be extraordinarily similar to me AND interesting AND interested in me that I realized exactly how much of a sneering shit I'd been since about the age of 14. (Of course I eventually married this person.)

The point to this mildly rambling story is that just as substance should not be subservient to style, style should not be subservient to substance. They are deeply intertwined and reflect upon each other MUCH MORE than people seem to be willing to admit. I have PLENTY of friends who disdain those who are fashionistas or who follow popular culture or read pulpy books because "they just aren't SAYING anything!" As I become older, I fail to see the distinction between their shallow pose of only enjoying oblique-prose literature or non-fiction, listening exclusively to NPR and clucking their tongues at those who aren't glued to CSPAN and the shallow pose of the people who are putting on ludicrously tight clothes to go out dancing, tuning in to the E! pre-awards show for Joan Rivers' outfit critiques, working out daily at the gym and weeping at the season finale of "Friends".

dan perry, still very much OTM.

First off, about the fucking class red herring, some English people who have never lived in America are projecting British class attitudes onto an American phrase based on American class attitudes. That's a bad idea. However, last night I fell asleep reading Toby Young's "How To Lose Friends And Alienate People" and found the most (only?) interesting chapter of the book was his desperate attempt to make sense of the NYC class structure. He comes off like an unrelenting twat, but at least he gave it a try. (Quotes from Tocqueville, Fussel, the Preppy Handbook and the sainted Veblen helped.)

Now on to tackle Gareth's questions about superficiality and fashion...

Secondly, Display as creativity. I accept that couture, style, clothing, presentation, is as much an art form as any other kind of design, involving aesthetic concepts of abstract beauty and personal expression and creativity. Some people, I see them and I think "Her outfit is a work of art, the same as a painting or a song, or a well designed lamp," and I admire her dress sense the same way I admire a clever turn of phrase or a catchy melody.

HOWEVER, I object to Display as an expression of conspicuous consumption. Fashion too quickly becomes a Status competition of "Look how many expensive handbags, three hundred pound shoes, Saville Row suits I have!" This doesn't just happen with expensive designer clothes. "Look how many cool thrift store dresses I have" can just as easily be a Veblenian Display of "Look how much leisure time I have to spend trawling through second hand shops."

That becomes Display as Competition, and I find status competition faintly nauseating.

Then there is Display as Reaffirming Conformity. Sure, clothing has been used as a way of announcing your affiliation since Roman times. This is the "lt's all be different together" aspect that I object to. There is clothing as code, clothing as signifier; a row of kids in denim and leather are as easily indentifiable as "metalheads/rockers" as a row of men in suits and ties are identifiable as "businessmen". I had an overwhelming need to be part of a subculture and to identify myself as such when I was about 15. But clothing as Code has an unfortunate tendency to become as conformist as the Mainstream Society I was trying to escape.

And doorcodes on clubs rigourously enforce these negative aspects of Display. "You're not dressed smart enough to come in here" = "you don't have status" and "You're not dressed indie/goth/raver/whatever to come in here" reinforces the conformity of the subculture.

How are you supposed to escape the mainstream society from which you are trying to remove yourself, without reinforcing the exact negative aspects of the mainstream which you are trying to escape?

I don't know. My reaction was to become a misanthrope and not be bothered.

like, when someone linked to profiles on makeoutclub (or was it lipstick and cigarettes), i forget, and, you know, these self-aware and attractive people were paraded around and laughed at. and the whole subtext was "they have nothing to say, they are worth less, its all a show, they don't really like xyz". i thought this was very unedifying. i also thought it was self-righteous and paternalistic

i think there has been a real problem on ilx, an inability to get visual people, or people where image has been perceived to have taken precedence above 'content', whatever that is. or people, who might not be 'straight up'.

this is something i've disliked for a long long time here, and i guess its only really on this thread (where it is only tangentially related), that its prompted me to comment

With beautiful people, other people treat them differently, give them respect, are nice to them, sometimes give them physical things, simply because they are beautiful. They often have unrealistic emotional expectations because they've never really had to work for the affections that they've learned to take for granted. Even if they are self aware, even if they know this is happening, still, there's a certain ... something that I find shallow about them. (The ones that I've met or dated or whatever, I do not speak for every beautiful person everywhere.) Maybe they have more self confidence, and they expect people to love them, and therefore they do.

Maybe this is some kind of inverse snobbery, and some beautiful people (especially women) claim that they have to work to get people to take them seriously, intellectually or otherwise. But my immediate prejudice is that this is a person who has never had to do anything to gain love except be beautiful.

As to style over content, I would have thought that would be self evident. Style is important, aesthetics are important. But they are not the only thing. What do ideally want in a friend, partner, whatever? Do you want someone to look at, or someone to talk to? Ideally, what you'd want is both. But in my experience, I would rather have someone that I can talk to who is not so fantastic to look at, than have someone who is beautiful and stylish, but with whom I can't hold a conversation.

Style and Content are both important. But I will accept Content without Style, while I will not accept Style without Content. Your values and expectations may vary.

The class division probably doesn't (an probably has never) rigidly applied. But the divided between the aspirational and the comfortable is more prominent than ever and dare I say it but ILX is the preserveof the comfortable and fearful of the aspirational.

what i find strange is that this is then tied up with a misapplied romanticization of working class culture as somehow a corrective to the above, when in fact the above IS working class culture.

it isn't a fear necessarily of the ridiculuous, the contrived and the pretentious, i think there is an acceptance of that in art/music, but, there is a deep suspicion of it in daily life, or in people we might meet, or in doing it ourselves. the idea that someone might be superficial/sleazy/ridiculuous/contrived/fake as, like, an actual person, or, that they might present themselves that way, is something that ilx, as a board, has never been particularly receptive to.

and, what i find interesting is the way that this antipathy to the visual is played through a distorted class mirror, that carries an implication that, you know, good old geezers, have 'more' to them than mere appearance, that this is the preserve of some nebuluous 'faux-rebellious' middle class.

yet, the majority of this board (in london anyway, which is what we are talking about here, right?) is very middle class, and there seems to me to be some kind of one step removed imagineering of working class culture, going on at the same time. as though, you know, a working class person, that grew up in some northern or black country town, or wherever, would have more about them, than this 'playing', you know, more 'depth' or something.

or, why are people suspicious of 'image'?

I don't think this is quite true, I think it should be highly possible to just take things, or people, as you see them. In fact if anything it may be more feasible that someone is fascinated by image or style from an insecure point of view.

Also another point, I think the suggestion that there is something superficial about whatever we are calling "hipsterism" here is quite off and wrong. I think most people I know who dress in a manner Mark might have called "ostentatious" do so because they have a genuine love for and interest in clothes and fashion. The fact that this deviates from a percieved norm DOES NOT make them ostentatious. Even if they're fully aware they're deviating from the norm, the suggestion that to do so is to "show off" is conservative rubbish.

Furthermore, as regards style over substance, I mean surely we all can accept how ridiculous even attempting to define either is. It's all entirely subject to opinion, I will say this, I've had enough dreary substance to do me a lifetime. In art or fashion or anything else.

what exactly is so wrong about showing off?

certainly I would add that the idea that there might not be more beyond someone's image or style is ridiculous in itself, image is our way of marketing ourselves, and it's the greatest and most frequently revolving chance we have to escape the "self" we're given by birth, friends, society, or whatever other factors at whatever time.

x-post, I don't think there's anything wrong with showing off. I think in this case the ostentatiousness is in the eye of the beholder.

It is an in built necessity of all styles or fashiones to be at least a little ridiculous, contrived and pretentious. This comes from living in a time and place where the merely functional is not the norm and could even be seen as yet another style. We live in an era where almost everyone is a peacock in some way or another, peacockery is availible to everyone. Some do it by the size of their record collections or the range of bullshit they spout some do it with a ten pound outfit from primark and a night out at pulse and vogue. We live in an escaist age and deludoing ourselves that one escapism is better tha another is daft but very human. Why should an escapism into rablings on the internet be any more valid than a preening hoxditch fantasy.

The only reason i supose is the inate trivbalism of humanity, class tribes , money tribes, appearance tribes. There's nothing a human likes more than to form a gang and go and rumble with the other gangs, even if its in secret and on the internet.

i'll say one thing tho. i can't stand showing off. i have disliked ever since i was a kid at primary school. part of this comes from natural envy, seeing they have something that i'd want, or at least like think i could have if i wanted to (a control issue). perhaps it was something drummed into me so much by what i saw at that age - morals and lessons played out on TV and in books (rather than parental instruction). this continued right thru my life - when it started becoming apparent that i had certain talents and i was displaying them willingly then that was interesting because i'd set the onus on myself to not brag about it, but i remember many occasions of showing off in a certain way as a kid that i remember feeling was an act of vengeance - directed at nobody in particular, i just wanted to show 'the world' i was good at something. this desire for that sort of attention and success continued to battle with my own cultivated appreciation of modesty, subtlet, dignity, integrity etc. - perhaps to the point where i became afraid to really apply my full potential, afraid of it causing problems with other people who didn't have that same talent and wanted it. to this day i am still always eager to demonstrate that i am good at certain things and eager to attain recognition and respect for that, but at the same time worried that it will make people think i am a egotistical show-off, go figure.

Many of the anti-hipster attitudes I come across (read here or in media or whatever) are a 'defensive' march on the offensive - you know, get in the insult at a group you reckon is sneering at you first, regardless of the truth of the matter. Many people who are attracted to subcultures have felt rejected by mainstream culture/'normals' first and then see the social patterns in a particular scene mirror those they see as conformist already, then decide to reject the group forcefully rather than be shunned twice. It's kind of like the difference between being the dumper and the dumpee.

yes but as you rightly pointed out image is very important (whether it should be or not) wrt to people making snap judgements, fundamental in fact - so if their taste doesn't seem to match yours at first glance then you may entertain the possibility that you and this person might not be able to relate that well. of course Mark and other people's vitiriol seems way OTT when it's put that way...

Suzy otm regarding a fear that it's the anti-hipster being sneered at first, or that it's a pre-emptive strike based on insecurity about their own inadequacies which may be focussed on when confronting people who are different (perfectly understandable)

what are you talking about, some of us also have to play guitar

http://img14.photobucket.com/albums/v41/hitchhiketorhome/crosseyed_john.jpg

also, why do people move to inner city areas if they get upset by people coming to give their patronage to the entertainment areas? not like they weren't there before they moved in....

I love New Yorkers. They spice up the place. They talk loudly on cell phones about humorous uptight problems. They lack self-consciousness. They dress better than most of the people here. They look out of place.

This whole thread is about snobbery, fitting in or not. To club at a snobbish club, you gotta dress to fit in. If you're snobbish about the snobs, you're gonna have a lousy time and wonder why you're there. Turning your nose up at the velvet rope - ironic, really.

I reckon it's worth patrolling the line between dandyism and hipsterism, 'cos Gareth's arguments seem kinda closer to a celebration of the former, more and more, and I think dandyism is actually precisely the same drive as hating from the other direction. Y'know, making yourself an outsider and posing it as a quest for some pure self or something. I reckon Mark and Kate could sit with Dickon and pour venom on 'vacous hipster cokeheads' all day...

Warning, this question may be outrageously stupid. but, is it possible to read the new answers to a thread without actually loading the entire thread?

We're Night-Clubbing.

Bah x-post.

I think you've got that quite wrong. At least, that hasn't been my experience. It's not fear of being "dumped" or shunned, it's the awful sickening realisation that your newfound friends within the subculture are as conformist, cliqueish and narrow-minded as the oxo-culture you rejected in the first place. It's not fear of being shunned, it's "Holy, shit, we really don't have the same values at all, just the same haircuts."

it's that anybody can look good, attractive, sharp, in the "right" clothes and haircut;

Now that's just not true. It's a bit Rikki Lake of you to assume that anyone can look good with a makeover. But it just doesn't work that way.

or, why are people suspicious of 'image'?

I wrote several long paragraphs on that back there, and I can only assume that you didn't read them from the fact that you didn't comment on anything I said.

Hipsterism is about setting or being close to the crest of a trend. Dandyism is a flagrant and willful denial that trends even exist.

x-post...