I HATE CLUBBING

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...

My friends are a subset of Set B. Some used to be A. Some are B on Tuesday.

This is completely, totally, absolutely OTM and goes back to my point about "Fuck the cover; read what's actually in the book."

Somebody please photoshop dog latin's face into this picture.

So in the hipster-hating world view, if you try to anticipate the crest of a trend, you're suspicious. But if you give it up and just go "oxo-culture", you're narrow-minded. But if you go Dandy, you're flamboyant (read: gay) - so what choices are left?

When I was younger, my friends and I dressed the same and I chose friends based more or less on whether they looked cool to me. I'm glad I grew up. This gets too confining. There are such great conversationalists with poor fashion sense. You miss out on too much if you're concerned about whether you and your friends look "right".

Some days I dress like a hipster, some days I don't. I suppose if a hipster-hater saw me one day, they'd make assumptions about who I am that they wouldn't make if they saw me the next day. Really it just has to do with which of my clothes are in the laundry.

(Thanks for calling me Greg btw! I am hoping that people will magically catch on to this without me having to aid the process in any way).

Of course a Dandy can be a woman, don't be so narrow minded and sexist! Words mean what we say they mean, not what the Victorians who dreamed them up thought they meant!

Different people dress provocatively or flamboyantly or as Display for many different reasons. I'm interested in the reasons, not in what they wear.

The problem with a truly egalitarian world view is that everyone you want to insult is perfectly justified in insulting you back. I may have to become a fascist; then I can verbally crush people underneath my bootheels without being a hypocrite. (Yes, I'm rambling now.)