From: Bees!
To: Median Hater
Sent: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 4:33 PM
Subject: Don't you really like Downeaster Alexa?
From Slate.
From: Median Hater
To: Bees!
Sent: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 5:29 pm
Subject: extremely meta
Wow. That little essay captures all of what I hate about hipsters....or it at least draws a line of demarcation between hipsters and non-hipsters (or just me). Hipsters have taken a stand on earnestness...believing it either not to exist naturally in the wild, or to be some product of delusion or socialization. Non-hipsters (or just me) step aside and say, ok fine hipsters if you want to come up with some decent ideas or critiques or art or lifestyle choices or whatever, but your entire platform is probably the number 1 example of that which you criticize about the outside world. Hipsters are like academia, they cannot exist without reference to themselves.
Earnestness might not be the exact concept I'm going for...I'll think on it. It might be authenticity...with earnestness thrown in. But I know the authenticity thing is a well-worked criticism of hipsters, so I would actually have to engage my brain to put my finger on what I'm thinking of.
-MedianHater
P.S. re: Subject question: maybe... :-(
From: Median Hater
To: Bees!
Sent: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 7:51 pm
Subject: Re: extremely meta
Nope, I got it! It's bigger than this! It's people who claim that their criticism of something is related to what they see as a flawed process (standard go-to is hypocrisy, but authenticity and pretentiousness are used also)....when in fact the main driver of their criticism is the outcome. Case in point, the exact same article could have been written about Johnny Cash. Go through and substitute ever BJ reference for Johnny Cash, change song names and alter context only imperceptibly, and the article would still make sense. And yet, this writer would not do such a thing because she and her ilk like Johnny Cash. Billy Joel got stale, was married to Christie Brinkley, lived on Long Island, made boppy music that appealed to lame adults...whatever such criticism would make sense coming from someone our age. But oh no, they have to couch it as if its based on principle.
Second case in point...those fuckers who go on and on about the great hypocrisy/malice/manipulations of people like Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, but don't recognize that Keith Olberman employs the exact same (or mirror image) logic toward his pet issues. The two camps follow the same process (much like BJ and Cash), yet I must admit that I like where Keith Olbermann comes out on the issue most of the time and I don't like what the wingnuts say.
I could go on and on. And the worst part is that these opinions are formed almost entirely (except possibly by the some of the true, hardcore founder hipsters who I will admit probably exist) in consultation with what all the other hipsters think. Let's throw Jackson Pollack in there too. These opinions about what is an authentic, real, worthy, etc. get formed in some self-referential crapcyclone. Yet the whole stupid attitude cannot ultimately be reduced to a logically ordered set of preferences, free of feedback loops or circular logic. The vanguard has to constantly update whats cool or not in an attempt to kick out what becomes blase or obviously hypocritical...and that is how it feeds itself. The first X number of kids are permitted to wear the DARE tshirt ironically...after that it approaches danger zone and the practice must be excommunicated. Until of course it cycles back around again and one can wear it irreverently, thumbing ones nose at the van guard...who fell out of step. Ahhhhhhhhhh.
If someone did the MIB butt dildo to the writer so she forgot that BJ ever existed and then plopped her down in front of BJ himself performing all his old favorites at an Austin dive AND someone who looked cool told her it was good...she would like it.
-MedianHater
From: Bees!
To: Median Hater
Sent: Mon, 26 Jan 2009 8:08 pm
Subject: Don't you really like Downeaster Alexa?
Meh.
-Bees
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