The Normie Cultural Mafia

[IdleRich]

This is Dissensus! Being called 'normal' around here is tantamount to being called a Nazi paedophile who listens to Radiohead.

Don't worry about it guys... not everyone can have the cool, outsider status that I and @linebaugh enjoy, that's just the way of the world, but don't let it make you feel bad @Mr. Tea and @Corpsey cos you do fulfil a very important role in that there needs to be a kinda normie backdrop so that we have something to stand out from.

Or think of it like a film, yeah everyone wants to be the leading man/woman, the star around which the whole thing revolves, but behind the star there are loads of really important minor roles - guys who say one line and get killed - and, behind those there are people needed to just stand there and be part of a crowd or to be walking down a street etc while the action takes place, and without those people the film wouldn't seem real and effective and the stars wouldn't look so good. So try and think of yourselves as one of those extras; yeah you're in the background but you are still an important part of the film - except obviously I'm not talking about a film, I'm talking about life - you are an extra but still important.

That ought to make you feel better.

 

[IdleRich]

Can't find the pics on the bigmini one, which part do I go to?

The other one reminds me of the enormous act of vandalism that occurred at Number One Poultry but that is more cos of the location than style



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But tell me, what do you see as the defining features of that Nevele 22 thing? It looks like a fairly standard boring office to me from that pic, what makes it normie? If I can grasp that a bit better than I can probably tell you if there are similar in Lisbon, I'm sure there are.


But tell me, wat

 

[linebaugh]

Can't find the pics on the bigmini one, which part do I go to?

The other one reminds me of the enormous act of vandalism that occurred at Number One Poultry but that is more cos of the location than style

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But tell me, what do you see as the defining features of that Nevele 22 thing? It looks like a fairly standard boring office to me from that pic, what makes it normie? If I can grasp that a bit better than I can probably tell you if there are similar in Lisbon, I'm sure there are.


But tell me, wat

 

[linebaugh]

theres a million buildings here with that exact same interior, minus the putt putt courses ofc

 

[Clinamenic]

theres a million buildings here with that exact same interior, minus the putt putt courses ofc

So a slightly more hipster/liberal take on an otherwise hokey aesthetic?

 

[linebaugh]

and designers didn't have access to the same supply chains and materials necessary to so easily hone in on a specific aesthetic like this in the past- yes? no? Surely if you had the cash and desire you could give your building a distinct look but not so easily that said look can be cranked out on a mass scale by anyone with the same wish

 

[Mr. Tea]

Don't worry about it guys... not everyone can have the cool, outsider status that I and @linebaugh enjoy, that's just the way of the world, but don't let it make you feel bad @Mr. Tea and @Corpsey cos you do fulfil a very important role in that there needs to be a kinda normie backdrop so that we have something to stand out from.

Or think of it like a film, yeah everyone wants to be the leading man/woman, the star around which the whole thing revolves, but behind the star there are loads of really important minor roles - guys who say one line and get killed - and, behind those there are people needed to just stand there and be part of a crowd or to be walking down a street etc while the action takes place, and without those people the film wouldn't seem real and effective and the stars wouldn't look so good. So try and think of yourselves as one of those extras; yeah you're in the background but you are still an important part of the film - except obviously I'm not talking about a film, I'm talking about life - you are an extra but still important.

That ought to make you feel better.

It's OK, Rich. I know you've read some of the fiction I've written. I'm secure in my status as a low-key weirdo.

 

[Corpsey]

We definitely talked about this on here somewhere - there's those lists of cultural markers that appear and totally "nail" a certain sort of person, and when I came across one describing someone like me I felt my sense of uniqueness threatened and the urge to dox the person who posted it and expose them to extreme violence

 

[IdleRich]

That's interesting, it wasn't at all what I was expecting - though I'm not sure what that was. I can't really think of any buildings like that in Lisbon or anywhere really but I suppose it does raise the question of to what extent normie style varies from country to country. I'm gonna just make a complete guess here and suggest that, while many (sub)cultures transcend borders and nationalities, especially now with the ubiquity of the internet, if we assume that one of the defining normie traits is to go with the flow and fit in etc, isn't it likely that Portuguese normies, needing to fit in in Portugal, will have their own style that is not necessarily that close to that of US normies? In other words it will be less internationally homogonous in terms of appearance than other subcultures. If it even is one.

 

[sus]

A large part of the mythos and metaphorical existence of the normie is IMO tethered to online/alternative tropes like "seeing through the matrix"

There's a reason that:
- "bluepilled" and "normie" are roughly synonymous
- "redpilled" and "Very Online" are roughly synonymous

Part of that reason is: tribalism! In-group is always in the know. Outgroup always has a stuffsack over their heads.

But part is that the Internet exposes you to a wall of information, dissenting voices, values, etc

You guys have your own alien sensibility that's fine, a hierarchy of priority, a system of likes and dislikes, a structure of values, which no problem I'm with ya, but then you treat it as obvious self-evident non-constructed non-subjective non-idiosyncratic

you mean we believe in it?

 

[sus]

Why? Just habit you fell into or deliberate affectation or you think it's easier/quicker than 'thank you" or what?

My guess is people around you say it and it rubbed off, just cos that happens to me very very easily. Got a friend who says "sick" a lot and I catch myself saying it... it's not a bad word particularly, but it's not me.

No I've never heard anyone else do it, I just think it's really funny lol

 

[sus]

It is disgusting because it is a late down-stream version of other aesthetics

It is like the scene in Devil Wears Prada about the cerulean sweater. You think you just pulled something off the rack. But really it was chosen for you. You're just at the end of a cultural spigot whose waters are muddy from use.

Look at the brick walls, the stupid pink neons, the twinkle lights. It's like a 2000s Williamsburg/LES bar.

 

[sus]

 

[linebaugh]

That's interesting, it wasn't at all what I was expecting - though I'm not sure what that was. I can't really think of any buildings like that in Lisbon or anywhere really but I suppose it does raise the question of to what extent normie style varies from country to country. I'm gonna just make a complete guess here and suggest that, while many (sub)cultures transcend borders and nationalities, especially now with the ubiquity of the internet, if we assume that one of the defining normie traits is to go with the flow and fit in etc, isn't it likely that Portuguese normies, needing to fit in in Portugal, will have their own style that is not necessarily that close to that of US normies? In other words it will be less internationally homogonous in terms of appearance than other subcultures. If it even is one.

I dont know about libson but Im positive there are places like this in london

 

[sus]

What's key in that scene is that Wintour could never be a normie because she creates the culture—how could she not see through it? She understands viscerally how invented the norms are; she helps design them

Extreme pursuits and extreme power always radicalize people out of normiedom

 

[linebaugh]

ya definitely. what Im interested about normie specifically is how this has possibly accelerated via physical materials/technology.

Theres a type of normie architecture/design thats gotten very big in the past 5-10 years that projects normiedome outside the lines of class. Theres always been buildings/design choices that project an in group and an out group via sophistication and wealth and manners, but this new trend Im talking about achieves normiedome without those signifiers- its on the same class level as an anti-normie space. Maybe the designers themselves are unaware that this is the feel their space projects, but theres an immediate repulsion to these spaces felt by the non normie which I think is significant and possibly an new historical anomaly in that the repulsion is achieved outside of class signifiers. but I dont know, thats why I bring this to you all

and designers didn't have access to the same supply chains and materials necessary to so easily hone in on a specific aesthetic like this in the past- yes? no? Surely if you had the cash and desire you could give your building a distinct look but not so easily that said look can be cranked out on a mass scale by anyone with the same wish

It is disgusting because it is a late down-stream version of other aesthetics

It is like the scene in Devil Wears Prada about the cerulean sweater. You think you just pulled something off the rack. But really it was chosen for you. You're just at the end of a cultural spigot whose waters are muddy from use.

Look at the brick walls, the stupid pink neons, the twinkle lights. It's like a 2000s Williamsburg/LES bar.

@Leo were there 'normie' buildings in 80's New York? places that you instantly clocked as not for you and your gang as you made your way to cbgb's?

 

[linebaugh]

desperately need leo in this thread

 

[IdleRich]

No I've never heard anyone else do it, I just think it's really funny lol

Really? Another question, what does it mean when you say it? Cos I reckon that if you see something that truly amuses you and makes you laugh then you probably let a spontaneous real laugh slip out. I'm guessing that you don't follow it up by saying LOL cos then you would be doing it twice. So... if I continue my trail of deduction; I'm thinking that the above reasoning implies that you don't use LOL for its literal purpose of informing people that you find something funny enough that it causes you to laugh out loud, therefore you must use it in a slightly (or totally) different situation and with a slightly different meaning - to me the two obvious possibilities are 1) You found something genuinely quite funny, albeit not funny enough to laugh out loud at, however you want to show your appreciation for the humour (and possibly convey that you understood it) and so it has a function a little like when people at a stand-up show clap to show they get the clever joke. So in short you use LOL precisely when something is funny but not funny enough to LOL.. or 2) You use it sarcastically to show that you did not find an attempt at humour funny...

But my guess, from you saying that you just find the phrase amusing, is that you don't use it sarcastically and I therefore guess option 1.

 

[IdleRich]

There's a reason that:
- "bluepilled" and "normie" are roughly synonymous
- "redpilled" and "Very Online" are roughly synonymous

But redpilled has this manosphere incel or PUA type association doesn't it? I mean maybe that's moved in and colonised the idea, but surely you can be an abnormie without hating women... .and more to the point, surely plenty of normies are sexist.

I do get that in the Matrix if you took the red pill you awoke and the lies around you were peeled back and it could be a metaphor for any such kind of awaking and discovery of new knowledge plus the revealing of lies... and yet, now when I hear the term redpilled it makes me think of right-wingers, Q-Anon types or PUAs etc it shouldn't have to but sadly it does, I think that, like it or not, they have captured that term for themselves.

 

[IdleRich]

I dont know about libson but Im positive there are places like this in london

Sure... and there may well be in Lisbon too. Although when you think about it UK and US norms are probably more similar to each other than either is to Portugal and so, if my theory (well, wild speculation really) above was correct, then it would make sense that UK and US normie architecture were more similar to each other than to the Portuguese take.