To wit:
"Being cynical is FUN, and it gets you p***y, but that’s not the same thing as it being an actionable worldview that makes you smart and helps the world get fixed: Therefore, never get uppity while you wax neo-cynical - fatal error right there!
...
For those of you who say Obama is just-like-all-the-rest, some kind of shill for corporate interest: You’re the shill. What do you think all this hipster s**t is? You spend your money on being told what to think until the biggest media empire of all time pays people like Gavin [McInnes, founder of Vice Magazine] in treasure because they so perfectly control you. I don’t think that track record quite puts you in a position to judge shillage."
-Blog post on Street Boners and TV Carnage
"With the election of Barack Obama, Cynicism and Snark are officially passe.Translation: Humor and irreverence are out; earnestness and sincerity are in.
David Denby, The New Yorker film critic, has written a book decrying our old bad habits: 'Snark: It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our Conversation.' I couldn't agree more. Snark is cheap and bad for you. But then, so are hot dogs. I still want one now and then."
-Kathleen Parker, The Washington Post
2 comments:
I tried to coin a word in a comment on your blog before (placefulness), and I'm going to try it again:
Are we witnessing the emergence of the hopester?
har har har
I guess we can add that to "hopenik," or Obama's own "hopemonger."
Actually I don't think we're witnessing the emergence of anything necessarily. I do agree that the whole hipster attitude and lifestyle of apathetic detachment (and wasted intelligence) is obsolete. Whether that would be replaced with yet another "subculture" or identity group with opposite characteristics is doubtful. I think it would be much better if earnest hope wasn't a subcultural marker as much as an ascendant, generally American trait. Hipster obsolescence would be just a byproduct of that larger reality.
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