Face pawing continues. Ad infinitum.
I'd like to talk about cool. Or buying into it, rather.
It's really, really starting to fuck me off.
I just discovered dubstep. Just finding out what it's all about now, apparently makes me over-the-top pathetically non-underground.
Don't fucking mock me because I haven't been slothing off at some underground party in a dark basement high on crack in some obscure part of the world. I love this “new” music genre, it's opened up a whole new world of music for me, and yet, I was told that I'm [gasp] square.
Fuck, maybe I just do really really need a holiday. People buy into this underground of cool. The ironic thing is buying into it makes you a commercial freak, innit? Maybe, maybe just maybe I DON'T CARE TO BUY INTO ALL YOUR STUPID COOL SHIT. There was a time when I flirted with the idea, back in my youth, but now only if I dig it, I do it.
Can I make a list of the ultra-urbany-cool-commercialised-by-product crap that has been irritating me lately?
1)Cape Town. People who buy into “Long Street.” It used to be nice, actually.
2)The latest cover of SL magazine. It smacks niche cool. Kids who shop at Mr Price surely shouldn't pick it the fuck up? It's meant to be a student magazine aimed at the masses of intellectuals who study at various institutions. Hence Student Life. Half the shit it propogates falls into higher LSM category, not Koo-beans-on-toast for three days category.
3)Your hairstyle. You dye your hair eight shades of electric blue, it looks like it was cut with a weedwhacker.
4)You wear high tops. What a fucking legend.
5)You're the kind of person who scoffs at hip hop, but when you go to a hip hop party, you'll drink all the free booze.
6)You go out of your way to buy into sub-cultures, and look down on people who don't mind being "mainstream."
7)Lemme guess: you don't eat MacBurgers or a KFC Streetwise Two. You eat Kauai because you wanna be seen ordering the wheatgrass juice.
Generally, it's this...attitude. I have conservative long brown hair, I wear high heels not hightops, I have a pair of jeans from Mr Price, I accessorise minimally, I listen to all types of music, I go to dives and I go to pretentious places, why make me feel bad about this?
I also don't fucking hang off an aeroplane banner that says, “Everyone is a wanker except me because I am so fucking cool.”
Good example: some of the hippie wannabe journos I studied with in Cape Town. Some okes wore dresses to lectures, that sort of stuff. Shock value, and try hards - We're so, like arty, so we'd better make sure people know this. We need to, like, over-express ourselves, because we go to pottery on Thursdays and paint landscapes on canvas on Mondays...and then play guitar on the mountain and eat, like, shwarmas together.
Real artists don't need to overdo it. Some of the most talented people I know don't buy into this vibe, just like the genuine dark horses don't have to dress Goth all day long.
Right. I'm off to buy the You magazine.
