class prostheses

[WashYourHands]

when I am threatening people with violence my accent gets the broadest belfast

“Youse is all fucked and youse don’t even know it yet“ is the best line in Belfast pub violence I heard.

 

[constant escape]

These threads are better if we talk about our own class performativity like @WashYourHands did. It's easy to poke fun at working class/middle class/posh people but when did you augment yourself for an audience?

Stole some champagne glasses from a basement at my old college, only I didn't have Champagne nor was I old enough to purchase some. Put them on display on a window sill.

edit: incidentally, the name of the dorm was Champagne.

 

[beiser]

These threads are better if we talk about our own class performativity like @WashYourHands did. It's easy to poke fun at working class/middle class/posh people but when did you augment yourself for an audience?

when emailing extremely wealthy and important people, i spend hours on the text, making it look authentically dashed off while communicating clearly. just like everyone else

I definitely go hard on drink order signalling—have a stock repertoire of things that signal sophistication when dealing with people who are likely to be impressed by that kind of thing, cheap gauche swill for when I want to communicate that I don't care what people think of me. Depends on the venue.

When dealing with designers, I'll dress down (countersignal) but augment with a very good mechanical pencil. Many fall for that combo.

Skincare is one of the most interesting—I think sun damage is going to come back once "perfect" skin gets commoditized, so I aggressively target the look of someone who doesn't care much about their skin at all but does fine anyway. Thick, leathery skin implies worldliness, don't want to look too soft.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I knew someone who walked around with unread copies of Lolita or Slaughter House Five on them at all times just to plop it out on the table when looking for cash at the bar

what demographic is that even targeting tho

who's seeing that and going "Oh shit. Kurt fucking Vonnegut?!? I definitely gotta fuck/hire/network with this person!"

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Coffee table books

that's a good one

the digital equivalent is probably stylish website design

 

[version]

I once asked for "the cheapest thing you have" at a bar then instantly became incredibly self-conscious and never did it again. Suddenly felt the urge to order something expensive to appear as though I had money.

 

[Leo]

it's also fun to sometimes be in a posh shop in England and say "hey, howyadoin'. six pounds for that croissant? Fuggetaboutit!"

 

[yyaldrin]

it's impossible though isn't it? if you're really upperclass you see right through these things? i had a friend who comes from such a milieu and he told me his parents taught him how to properly sit at a dinner table by balancing a book on his head and having books squeezed between his arms and his side while eating. he was not allowed to drop either of the books. they can dress me up in ralph lauren but they would still notice me eating with my hands.

 

[Leo]

it's totally possible. some people can pull it off, others can't (like when it's obvious that the fancy coffee table book has never been opened).

 

[linebaugh]

I once asked for "the cheapest thing you have" at a bar then instantly became incredibly self-conscious and never did it again. Suddenly felt the urge to order something expensive to appear as though I had money.

I once asked 'what's the cheapest thing you have,' politely I think, and the bartender immediately began acting like an asshole. And then the mother fucker short changed me, I guess he thought I wasn't going to tip? all without ever once looking me in the face. I went into the bathroom and dumped the trash into the toilets upper compartment. Why I thought the bartender was also cleaning the bathrooms is beyond me.

 

[linebaugh]

what demographic is that even targeting tho

who's seeing that and going "Oh shit. Kurt fucking Vonnegut?!? I definitely gotta fuck/hire/network with this person!"

This was college so you can imagine. I think the goal was to make oneself an irl mood board.

 

[linebaugh]

making a finsta of your actual self

 

[WashYourHands]

These threads are better if we talk about our own class performativity like @WashYourHands did. It's easy to poke fun at working class/middle class/posh people but when did you augment yourself for an audience?

It comes through multiple routes. Performative. Vocalising - tone it right down and only certain people from x, y and z could genuinely read the tells. Vowels. Swearing. I picked up ‘duck‘ in Nottingham, which has to be verbally filtered all the time. It’s the main part of the de facto greeting.

Technical referencing and presentations are easier. You‘re relating by relaying strategies for every kind of human experience. A different part of the mind is working. That’s why accents in Britain and Ireland are infinitely fascinating. Even vocal studies that intelligence agencies use, ie Jihadi John’s accent profiling (which still could have been propaganda).

Social domains are what they are. Working with addicts you meet every kind of personality and class.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Thick, leathery skin implies worldliness, don't want to look too soft

that's interesting, I wonder if you - nothing personal, could be anyone - will still feel that way as you age

good skin has been a marker of class status, or of beauty connected to class status, for most of civilization it seems like

especially for women (or, feminine-presenting people)

i.e. the Victorian obsession with complexion that literally poisoned women with toxic cosmetics

the myth of bathing in blood to maintain beauty i.e. Countess Bathory

wealthy Roman women spending so much on expensive imported cosmetics that the Senate tried to ban them with sumptuary laws

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

seems more complicated for men as with anything to do with beauty (as we flirted with getting into in the James Spader thread)

tho there are things like the again Victorian ideal of the consumptive young artist and his deathly pallor

which I have to imagine influenced early vampire fiction - eternal, deathless pale beauty

Count Dracula - the oldest of acien regime old money - literally drains the blood of noveau riche Londoners to maintain his perfect complexion

 

[version]

I moisturise. I love my skin.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

counterbalanced against yr John Wayne Marlboro Man real men smoke a million a cigarettes instead of talking kind of masculinity

 

[mixed_biscuits]

I once asked for "the cheapest thing you have" at a bar then instantly became incredibly self-conscious and never did it again. Suddenly felt the urge to order something expensive to appear as though I had money.

My brother once told a salesman in Harrods that something very expensive was 'somewhat below his price range' - got a good reaction, especially as he was dressed in his standard hobo gear.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I moisturise. I love my skin.

I mean it seems like the default these days, tho I understand the countersignal, as he put it, of trying to appear weathered

there is a blogpost from earlier Internet days called Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians

aside from a couple stereotypical cues (haircut, glasses, etc) it's basically all aging male celebrities who take care of their skin

I guess the underpinning idea is eventually the absence of wrinkles takes on an uncanny valley smoothness that leans into gender ambiguity

 

[Leo]

the weathered outdoorsman. farmer or rancher working the land, a hard day's work. another American icon.