A Brooklyn Culture Mafia

luka

luka

Well-known member
The interesting question is what is Gus' emotional relationship to this material. Is there something self hating in it? Is it a kind of sexual infatuation combined with an intellectual contempt? Is it social envy? How is he positioned?
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
Sometimes he portrays it as, like, this is the premier league. There's only one premier league and if you want to play at the top, that's the only thing there is to aspire to. BCM league. And then this fascination and fury. Wanting to be part of it, being on the periphery of it but nowhere near being given a membership card.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
@Simon silverdollarcircle says the point of raving is the certain knowledge that your crew is the Greatest and is having the best laugh, is the objective centre of the universe. This is that other thing, believing yourself to be outside of Reality entirely. That life only becomes possible once a certain degree of celebrity is attained.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
My Texan friend talks to me a lot about how being American means believing from childhood that Fame is your Destiny and Birthright, and coming to terms with nonentity is a kind of trauma and mourning that never ceases.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
We talk about that relationship to Celebrity here

The Shining Ones

I posted Katy Perry's Teenage Dream to our birthday party thread. And I was watching the video and scrolling through the comments and "To the people who are not teens trust me this is not what teenage life is like: it's just a dream" And it reminded me of what I was saying at the start of...
dissensus.com
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
Gus knows enough to couch everything in irony, and knows enough to know these people are talentless grotesques, hideous mannequins, the very worst dregs of society, and yet they still compel a kind of adoration and fascination in him, like Bilbo's ring, the more he tells himself not to look, the more he keeps looking. Captured.
 
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luka

luka

Well-known member
It's definitely similar to craner's fascination with Made In Chelsea but also different. Craner doesn't aspire to being part of the Chelsea set and in any case such an aspiration would be clearly ludicrous
 
shiels

shiels

_
luka said:
@Simon silverdollarcircle says the point of raving is the certain knowledge that your crew is the Greatest and is having the best laugh, is the objective centre of the universe. This is that other thing, believing yourself to be outside of Reality entirely. That life only becomes possible once a certain degree of celebrity is attained.
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definitely in play, arguably a stronger motivator than professed collective transcendence / lost in the crowd / self acceptance / PLUR - --- believing you and your mates are the weirdest maddest coolest people in a town or city
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
1590s, "bewitch, enchant," from French fasciner (14c.), from Latin fascinatus, past participle of fascinare "bewitch, enchant, fascinate," from fascinus "a charm, enchantment, spell, witchcraft," which is of uncertain origin. Earliest used of witches and of serpents, who were said to be able to cast a spell by a look that rendered one unable to move or resist. Sense of "delight, attract and hold the attention of" is first recorded 1815.

To fascinate is to bring under a spell, as by the power of the eye; to enchant and to charm are to bring under a spell by some more subtle and mysterious power. This difference in the literal affects also the figurative senses. [Century Dictionary]
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Possibly from Greek baskanos "slander, envy, malice," later "witchcraft, sorcerery," with form influenced by Latin fari "speak" (see fame (n.)), but others say the resemblance of the Latin and Greek words is accidental. The Greek word might be from a Thracian equivalent of Greek phaskein "to say;" compare enchant, and German besprechen "to charm," from sprechen "to speak." Watkins suggests the Latin word is perhaps from PIE *bhasko- "band, bundle" via a connecting sense of "amulet in the form of a phallus" (compare Latin fascinum "human penis; artificial phallus; dildo"). Related: Fascinated; fascinating.
 
shiels

shiels

_
luka said:
What do you think shiels
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There's an honesty to it. Americans are generally more comfortable pointing out these implicit power dynamics

in britain and ireland it can be bad taste or plain embarrassing to draw attention to who's the hardest or the cooolest, its just known and felt, it doesnt need explored or stated
 
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entertainment

entertainment

Well-known member
luka said:
Gus knows enough to couch everything in irony, and knows enough to know these people are talentless grotesques, hideous mannequins, the very worst dregs of society, and yet they still compel a kind of adoration and fascination in him, like Bilbo's ring, the more he tells himself not to lol, the more he keeps looking. Captured.
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this principle is fundamental in youth culture but i feel like tik tok has forced it out in the open. knowing that what is being done is ugly and requires no talent but being drawn into doing it anyway resulting in a strange register of irony or self-awareness that has now fused with the sexual charge of innocense and self-embarassment to synthesize this particular expression of thrill in self-concession to some overwhelmingly authoritative order of things
 
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