Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Very interesting as an example of the sort of cultural hyperdevelopment one can experience in late-stage capitalism. The sort of development I've been trying to systematize with things like "second-order pragmatism" and "controlled schizosis"
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen

IdleRich

IdleRich
In my experience American conservatives and right-wingers (some variation of which the Red Scare/Dimes Square-adjacent crowd are increasingly sympathetic to) are at least historically just as sanctimonious as good liberals (if not moreso) regarding 9/11, I suppose in the context of that subreddit the meme is somewhat directed negatively toward care-lords of all stripes. I do personally find it somewhat amusing, just because the imagery of that mini-van dash combined with the lady’s attire inspires within me in a potent way a contempt for mainstream American culture. Similar to this tattoo an old friend of mine had, which I think originated in early-mid 00s punk circles

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Reminds me of a telly programme called Dalston Superstars? Does anyone remember that? It was a fake reality thing about these model-actress-dj-designer-dickhead-whatever types living in Dalston. Pretty much the same targets as Shoreditch Twat or Nathan Barley except it was presented as an actual fly on the wall documentary which was following real people - when we watched the first episode, for about ten seconds we were going "how is it possible for someone to be this clueless, without any self-awareness whatsoever?" and staring aghast. But then very quickly we realised it was simply not possible and it's not real and it's just some dickheads pretending to be even bigger dickheads than they are (probably).

Anyway, one episode involved them doing an art show in a shop and - actually not a bad visual gag I guess - in the background while they were talking was this artwork which was a photo of the twin towers with the planes crashing into them - except the towers themselves had been replaced with massive dicks (or maybe dildos, you get the idea).

I say it was a pretty good gag cos it was a good stab at exactly the kind of thing these guys would have made, taking a sacred cow and putting a dick on it and catching people's eyes in the most facile way - but if someone asked them to explain why they did it or what it meant beyond that then they would have been completely unable. The whole joke of the show was that they would have been far too dumb to even ad lib something about how the towers were the phallic manifestation of capitalism, the tool America had used to rape the world's resources and... same as Nathan Barley with Trashbat I guess.

 

wektor

Well-known member
spendy no heat but I think you should revise your twitter follows and move a little bit further upstream, that post is from a week ago which makes it quite aged already
 

wektor

Well-known member
Reminds me of a telly programme called Dalston Superstars? Does anyone remember that? It was a fake reality thing about these model-actress-dj-designer-dickhead-whatever types living in Dalston. Pretty much the same targets as Shoreditch Twat or Nathan Barley except it was presented as an actual fly on the wall documentary which was following real people - when we watched the first episode, for about ten seconds we were going "how is it possible for someone to be this clueless, without any self-awareness whatsoever?" and staring aghast. But then very quickly we realised it was simply not possible and it's not real and it's just some dickheads pretending to be even bigger dickheads than they are (probably).

Anyway, one episode involved them doing an art show in a shop and - actually not a bad visual gag I guess - in the background while they were talking was this artwork which was a photo of the twin towers with the planes crashing into them - except the towers themselves had been replaced with massive dicks (or maybe dildos, you get the idea).

I say it was a pretty good gag cos it was a good stab at exactly the kind of thing these guys would have made, taking a sacred cow and putting a dick on it and catching people's eyes in the most facile way - but if someone asked them to explain why they did it or what it meant beyond that then they would have been completely unable. The whole joke of the show was that they would have been far too dumb to even ad lib something about how the towers were the phallic manifestation of capitalism, the tool America had used to rape the world's resources and... same as Nathan Barley with Trashbat I guess.

that sounds hilarious, will have to watch it. I wonder if young John Eden or some other dissensian makes a cameo there
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Well, I don't want to recommend it cos I really don't remember how good it was, I think it was a real DIY cheaply made thing with episodes about ten minute long, I think that there were some good jokes but I wouldn't swear to it. If I saw it again there is every chance i would think it was totally awful so please don't take what I'm saying as any kind of recommendation. And it wasn't that long ago, neither JE or I were young when it came out.
 

dilbert1

Well-known member
This point is what I was trying to get at in @version 's Hypothetical Enemies thread, but dilbert here does a better job.

Haha I even said "I think this is critical to how the culture war works"
“Hypothethical enemies” is also a nice way of putting it, I’ll have to check out the thread. And also, yeah, I think this many ‘cycles’ in or whatever this point becomes increasingly obvious, but def still a critical insight. Not sure if people here fuck with podcaster Matt Christman but been a fan of his the past couple years, he’s really articulate on this point
 

dilbert1

Well-known member
Just another thing speaking to its ubiquity, immediately after I made that ‘EAT THIS’ post I stepped out of my car into my workplace parking lot and spotted that DeSantis bumper sticker (which I had never seen before) within seconds lol
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
back in nyc (or at least back to continuing to write my fictional account of being in nyc from my flat in reading). went for a walk across town to tribeca to look at some paintings. me and my friend dorien got increasingly perturbed as we crossed soho. its always full of well dressed people. but we both felt so ugly step by step and so unfashionable. everyone was beautiful. the clothes were magnificent. even peoples bodies seemed unearthly. impossibly skinny east asian girls. muscles. interesting faces. not even the normal soho thing of rich people buying expensive but boring clothes. much more taste, more quirks, and more perfect. i felt worse and worse. how could i compete with this. all of this beauty in the city on my doorstep and absolutely no way of participating in it. life felt half lived. it was hard to admit to or to talk about these emotions so i just told dorien that i found it 'a bit too much' and 'too intense' because i'd just got back from the countryside and there were 'too many people around'. it was 28 degrees, flesh everywhere, not much in the way of deep cut tops or sexy stuff like that but a lot of legs, a lot of skinny arms. as we got into some of the sexy cobbled streets there were people with cameras taking pictures of beautiful girls, just impossible, they all looked like mates but they were framed by these doorways. anyway dorien then remembered that it's new york fashion week and soho is a main hub for all of that so actually what we'd been walking through was literally streets full of models dressed up for one of the major global events in fashion, which frankly was quite a relief to realize.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
here's the best thing we saw in tribeca galleries anyway. 'all types of people are judges. the only important thing is that they are fair and honest.' wisdom from the walls and another way that this kind of visual art can sometimes kick the shit out of books and theory in making a point (in this case about how societies are currently functioning and the overlooked moral obligations that generates). it looks like shit in this resized picture but it was good in the flesh honest.
 

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shakahislop

Well-known member
have i said this before on here? the brooklyn culture mafia, as experienced from the outside, isn't totally dissimilar from how I (and at least a couple of other people i know in real life) experienced the extended k punk etc blogosphere back in the day from the outside. as a world where there were fairly complicated and intellectual but also informal exchanges going back and forth with a mixture of politics, cultural detritus / art, high flying theory. and where the people involved also seemed to know each other or at least see each other from time to time.
 

Leo

Well-known member
back in nyc (or at least back to continuing to write my fictional account of being in nyc from my flat in reading). went for a walk across town to tribeca to look at some paintings. me and my friend dorien got increasingly perturbed as we crossed soho. its always full of well dressed people. but we both felt so ugly step by step and so unfashionable. everyone was beautiful. the clothes were magnificent. even peoples bodies seemed unearthly. impossibly skinny east asian girls. muscles. interesting faces. not even the normal soho thing of rich people buying expensive but boring clothes. much more taste, more quirks, and more perfect. i felt worse and worse. how could i compete with this. all of this beauty in the city on my doorstep and absolutely no way of participating in it. life felt half lived. it was hard to admit to or to talk about these emotions so i just told dorien that i found it 'a bit too much' and 'too intense' because i'd just got back from the countryside and there were 'too many people around'. it was 28 degrees, flesh everywhere, not much in the way of deep cut tops or sexy stuff like that but a lot of legs, a lot of skinny arms. as we got into some of the sexy cobbled streets there were people with cameras taking pictures of beautiful girls, just impossible, they all looked like mates but they were framed by these doorways. anyway dorien then remembered that it's new york fashion week and soho is a main hub for all of that so actually what we'd been walking through was literally streets full of models dressed up for one of the major global events in fashion, which frankly was quite a relief to realize.

yup, as I was reading that, I immediately thought of fashion week, good call. That scene is also maybe pumped up by coinciding with the Armory Show and the Independent, dragging the art crowd in as well.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
i've had to block myself from accessing the red scare reddit forum ('redscarepod'). it was briefly enlightening, but it's incredibly actives, so much new stuff on there every day, and it was melting my brain a bit. it is quite surprising to me how comprehensively it got under my skin in a matter on months. changed my opinions on a few things. also found bits of the board vocabulary running through my head. 'L-posting'. 'many such cases'. 'age gap discourse'. there is a kind of weird social science going on online i think, and forums etc are the perfect way to inculcate beliefs. definitely on that board there is a collective-ish way of thinking about the world, or at least there are a set of beliefs that a lot of people posting on there share, and it is comprehensively a discourse with its own vocab etc. hanging out with young americans a bit at the moment and it's definitely helped to understand some of the terminology they're using.

maybe a generational thing, but there is something i've noticed about internet forums, which is that people basically never talk about them in real life. presumably loads of people are posting on or are reading through forums. but i don't think i've known anyone admit to actually doing it, which is a bit weird when you think about it. there's still something quite deeply intimate about the internet i think, it still has that feeling of being a personal, interior activity. a private activity. what a weird and malleable thing to have to deal with.
 
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