worst fad of the 21st century so far. it's steampunk, right?

or is it kale? or the kale backlash! planking?

anyway...

http://cdn.totallycostumes.com/images/sbe-20641-men-s-steampunk-shoulder-harness-armor___5_FOR-75196.jpg

kale is pretty bad

it tastes like something that should be purely decorative

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcI7jgkwdCM

i like kale soup a lot!

at least it's not arugula. I have some minor allergic reaction to arugula? a little mouth and throat itching

kale isn't that bad cooked with stock and garlic, but even there I'd rather have collards. In salad I'll take p much any other green over kale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05-jeYSPQZ0

I like arugula

me too, therein lies the rub

Kale, eh? I ate kale decades before it was cool. I steam it until it is fairly soft and eat it with a bit of mayonnaise, which is not at all as foodies seem to like it nowadays. I find it goes well in some soups, but only if it is cooked through. I don't really favor it raw in salads or undercooked, even at the cost of looking uncool. When the kale fad passes, I will be happy to leave it behind, although it will be harder to find it in produce aisles again. /garrulous grandpa

https://youtu.be/guJYc7gkV_U?t=250

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guJYc7gkV_U&feature=youtu.be&t=250

well that's supposed to be huell howser looking at a 'steampunk treehouse' at coachella 2008

oh jeez I don't remember that but I was there

portuguese kale soup with sausage....the best really. or italian kale soup with sausage and white beans. either/or. so good.

I feel like there are 50 people who talk about kale being popular for every person who actually eats kale. Kale is just another dark green vegetable and deserves no opprobrium. It's not like it's fucking steampunk or something.

"steampunk treehouse"

elaborate treehouses definitely a thing still. but i guess everyone loves treehouses. the small house movement should be something i support but i'm kinda sick of it. mostly cuz i don't believe a lot of the people buying/building small houses are living in them all the time. more like having another car or a winnebago. i could be wrong though. maybe everyone is living in them. just feels like some decadent american thing. look we have a tiny house behind our huge house!

everyone has eat kale bumper stickers where i live. and bernie stickers. there's also a guy around the corner with an I Love Vagina bumper sticker on the back of his truck. i don't know if he eats kale though.

Even still, any mention kale always reminds me of the "Veggie Boy" episode of Cheers.

mention of

steampunk can only be embraced by fairly wealthy people with more time and money than good sense, and it is based in an utterly false, fantasy version of history, so it gets my vote until something worse is mentioned.

Raw kale is kinda poisonous, actually.

Steampunk is stupid. I lump it in with burlesque and roller derby, it seems to be all the same people.

Worst fad tho, I'm gonna go with autotune vocals.

who started the whole punk roller derby thing anyway? ex-swing dancers of the 90's?

Ha, probably - thats another thing the same groups are into.

(theres a goth crossover somewhere betwixt, too)

soylent as a category. stupid "tech" hacks that replace things that were working fine before, like solid food.

yessss

I could write a mini-memoir about my days around roller derby women but I like my life and don't want to

there's very little burlesque/roller derby overlap here at the minute but there's an affinity for sure.

The salad place I like has kale as a default option in a lot of its salads, although I feel like that's finally waning.

i saw a guy with a top hat, a curly mustache, jodhpurs, and a giant 19th-century bicycle in front of the Twitter building earlier this week.

when you have the bad experience of living with someone who went from childhood ballet to local theater productions to swing dancing to roller derby there is a lot of baggage and please keep me away from all

also on an unrelated note what is with banjos and people who are suddenly into them and old-timey banjo right after there was an upswing of bad pop banjo acts? "oh, I'm not into Mumford whatever, I just chose this decade to really love this instrument and it's historical roots"

I feel like any dude doing a particular look in San Francisco is another burner casualty

generalized neo-Victorianism seems arguably worse than steampunk.

is there really a diff

the kale fad is good because kale is good for you

you gotta problem, go eat a cheeseburger

i think the perceived burlesque-roller derby connection might just be women with tattoos

the weird obsession with Betty White
"zombies"
Rocky Horror Picture Show shadow casts (this 'fad' is several decades old yes but it's 2016, find another cult classic ffs)
GIF memes with a pic of a celebrity and some text that they may or may not have said in comic sans
the saying "I just threw up in my mouth"
whining about Firefly getting cancelled (ok, I like Firefly, but it's become a meme at this point: "8 seasons of According to Jim, 1 of Firefly?"
Condescending Wonka meme
Deconstructed cuisine
Hookah lounges
Fireball whiskey shots being on special at every fuckin' bar
Man-buns
Hating Nickelback
Selfie sticks
Escape rooms
"Laser tag" with military-esque weaponry (srsly what was wrong with classic laser tag)

Hot Stampers

everyone else seems to think selfie sticks are inherently loathsome but i don't really care about them

back in my day you had to hold the Polaroid *just right*

Macklemore

back in the day you just had to say "excuse me will you take our picture" and hope the person wasn't a thief

this might actually give steampunk a run for its money.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/7XNHCDOed6g/maxresdefault.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSVoeHKZDLE

xxpost it ain't a selfie if someone else takes your picture!

"Hot Stampers"

also: vinyl revival in general. keep waiting for it to die. 7 years is a long time to have people coming in my store to say: i hear they're coming back! and then leave without buying anything.

No bronyism, no credibility.

Furries

Twitter

"Tell us what you think"

really unhappy about this steam powered giraffe thing

thanks to this thread for reminding me about kale and sausage soup which owns

TS: fake Victorianism vs. fake medievalism

there's also a guy around the corner with an I Love Vagina bumper sticker on the back of his truck. i don't know if he eats kale though.

I'll bet he tells people about how much he loves to eat kale, talks about how he'll happily eat kale all night long, it's not something he does as a favor, he just really enjoys eating kale, but then when there's actually a plate of kale right in front of him he sort of half-heartedly nuzzles at it for twenty seconds and then is like "ok great what's next"

kale is spectacular you just have to know how to cook it right

it is not very forgiving if you don't cook it right but neither are most vegetables

things about kale i didn't know before i ate it habitually for a long time - raw kale can be hard to digest, massaging kale with lemon juice and salt makes it less bitter and (supposedly) easier to digest.

just kale things

steampunk can only be embraced by fairly wealthy people with more time and money than good sense,...

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Thursday, August 25, 2016 8:26 PM (yesterday)

the people I know who are into it are not wealthy at all.

was gonna say, a lot of these items are easy to come by in thrift shops, eBay, etc.

Isn't steampunk like at least thirty years old?

No one's mentioned vajazzling.

I guess because the thread doesn't say 'best fad'.

yeah idk what about it codes as wealthy unless you think people are actually buying/making steam-powered computers or something xxp

there is definite steampunk - burning man crossover. With only a few exceptions, everyone I know who is a steampunk person either is or was a burning man person at some point.

the only person irl i know who has expressed any interest in steampunk is a young man who is sweet, non-gothy, very working class, and enjoys making things in the family shed

such a nice kid in fact that i've never took the piss out of him for liking steampunk

I had a steampunk outfit in a play I did once and I don't think the pieces combined cost us more than $100.

enjoys making things in the family shed

most of the steampunk ppl I know were like this as kids too.

worst fad: pro-rape blogs

i totally get the aesthetic delights of brass and clockwork and exposed engineering, i'm just a bit eyebrow-raisy about peeps who seem to crave to inhabit a more colonial era

generalized neo-Victorianism seems arguably worse than steampunk.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Thursday, August 25, 2016 11:03 PM (fourteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is there really a diff

― mh 😏, Thursday, August 25, 2016 11:03 PM (fourteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean yeah I think Steampunk has the defense of being a kind of fantasy/parallel universe thing, whereas straight up Victorian nostalgia is (1) nostalgia, which is inherently bad and (2) nostalgia for a more colonial era as NV says

to play devil's advocate for Victorianism though, you can make the same claim about nostalgia for almost any era. Humanity is pretty much always doing lots of horrible shit at any given time. 80s night -- "What, you're nostalgic for Reaganism? American imperialist foreign policy?

This ad keeps popping up in my FB feed and I've never wanted a train to derail so badly.

http://i.imgur.com/WFnqCqD.png

there's a certain kind of industrial optimism about the victorians that i still find kind of seductive: huge canals, the statue of liberty, digging up dinosaurs, national parks, all that. impossible to tease out from the bullshit ofc. and i'm not about to wear a 'waistcoat' in any case.

yeah i'm not gonna call anybody a monster if some aesthetic/imaginary version of the past tickles their fancy, but it is interesting the same kind of fantasies that become popular - i think there are political implications under the surface but not in convoluted, unexamined ways. i see some connection with "rap lyrics in stodgy English" and the whole exaggerated old-fashioned manners/m'lady/chappism cults. because manners are a weapon of class privilege and the roleplay adopters don't seem to be exactly detourning this aspect of their fantasy

most of the victorian "nostalgia" is about as accurate as renaissance fairs ime

sorry, scratch that "not" - the political undercurrents are complicated and usually unexamined

For Americans the VIctorian Era was actually a less-colonial era

yeah i get that but steampunk is largely Victorian London fixated imo unless you count that Will Smith movie

altho come to think of it just because the US's colonies in the 19th century were largely internal let's not pretend they weren't there

For Americans the VIctorian Era was actually a less-colonial era

― Josefa, Friday, August 26, 2016 1:24 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

reeeally depends how you approach the westward expansion of the US

also the Philippines (though that might be just after Victorian era proper)

Isn't steampunk like at least thirty years old?

steampunk was basically codified in the early 70s, sci-fi lit subgenre (Oswald Bastable books, KW Jeter etc.) That it's become a "thing" that people LARP about in is sad and ridiculous.

i totally get the aesthetic delights of brass and clockwork and exposed engineering, i'm just a bit eyebrow-raisy about peeps who seem to crave to inhabit a more colonial era

I was thinking recently that there's a weird correlation between these anti-technologists and anti-social progressive Trump supporters. They should join forces and buy an island somewhere and live out their pre-industrial revolution fantasies.

burning man is also something you need to be wealthy to do.

also most of the good (or "good") steampunk books (difference engine, maaaaaybe diamond age) are pretty explicit abou viewing the victorian era/the victorian mindset as kinda pretty fucked up.

irl steampunk is more like "nostalgia for a bbc sci-fi miniseries that never actually existed."

burning man is also something you need to be wealthy to do.

yup

it didn't used to be that way but it sure is now

not if u work on a crew, based on what a bunch of my relatively poor 20-something friends are doing right now

what, you mean a crew bankrolled by a wealthy person, ie as an employee?

I dunno, whatever the garbage/recycling crew is, pretty sure that's part of the actual organization, they give crew passes in exchange for work.

those are employees not attendees

Burning Man LLC is a thing

was responding to "need to be wealthy to do", which did not specify an employee/attendee divide (which is pretty tenuous at best, the folks who are working still have a lot of fun, maybe even more fun)

well i mean you get to see babs streisand if you're a janitor at the arena

https://twitter.com/GroverNorquist/status/768988127415377924

Grover Norquist ‏@GroverNorquist 18h
18 hours ago Massachusetts, USA

There is no Trump. There is no Clinton.
Burning Man starts Monday.
All is right with the world.

if only we all could enjoy the privelege of cleaning up after Grover Norquist

We already are.

god that tweet is amazing

There is no Trump. There is no Clinton. Only Thiel.

I dunno, whatever the garbage/recycling crew is, pretty sure that's part of the actual organization, they give crew passes in exchange for work.

― vagenda of manocide (sleeve), Friday, August 26, 2016 8:12 PM (one hour ago)

those are employees not attendees

― Οὖτις, Friday, August 26, 2016 8:14 PM (one hour ago)

Nah, this is a really common thing to do to get into festivals. You volunteer for a few hours worth of shifts and then get to go to the whole thing for free.

Anyway, the answer to this question is Electroswing.

I think claiming you don't have to be rich to go there, you just have to work for no pay and free entry is a bit o_0. You used to be able to go to Burning Man for nothing (no tickets!), just the cost of your own transport and supplies (ie the cost of camping - a thing poor people do!). It is not like that anymore, and it hasn't been that way for 10+ years.

the only person i know who goes every year is ilxor d. wolk.

How'd we get this far without mentioning anti-vaxxers and/or gluten-free?

But yeah Steampunk is pretty bad.

I think claiming you don't have to be rich to go there, you just have to work for no pay and free entry is a bit o_0. You used to be able to go to Burning Man for nothing (no tickets!), just the cost of your own transport and supplies (ie the cost of camping - a thing poor people do!). It is not like that anymore, and it hasn't been that way for 10+ years.

― Οὖτις, Friday, August 26, 2016 9:22 PM (fifteen minutes ago)

My point wasn't really about Burning Man specifically (I know nobody who has been and have always thought it looked abominable). Just that 'not attendees but employees' is not entirely correct.

imagine having to clean up the CEO of Uber's toilet tank waste then being like woo this was all worth it

mra

doxxing

I shouldve said 20+ years fwiw

Damn i'm old

Xp

xxxp that's the Porta-Potty companies' job, not the people who help attendees sort their "garbage" into categories. Those folks just hang in a big tent and chill, people gotta come to them and then my friends chastise them for not sorting their shit correctly (note that I have never been to BM and am not a fan)

but yeah Shakey is correct that it changed into something else once the expensive tickets started happening

really I think Burning Man is a good nomination for the thread title

Anybody said TED talks or Amanda Palmer yet?

they can both get in the sea

RealDolls

really I think Burning Man is a good nomination for the thread title

nah BM is 20th century

The torture-porn horror phase that Saw temporarily inspired

Ironic ukelele covers of gangsta rap tunes on Youtube

9/11 trutherism

Ironic ukulele is a good call.

i do have a good friend that records enthusiastic ukelele covers of classic songs and gives them interesting arrangements and layered vocal harmonies (ie "Dead Flowers" by Rolling Stones) and hers I am into

yeah, sincere ukulele covers of gangsta rap tunes only please xp

tim from ilx does AMAZING ukelele covers, full voiced chords n shit... but i think we are talking about something different. that slowed down white person trying to sing like billie holiday style of cover song thats on every commercial.

yeah i'm talking more like the duo I saw that performed a "hilarious" stodgy-white sendup of Khia's "My Neck, My Back" on uke at a show I was dragged to a while back

steampunk AND ukelele AND that voice i can't stand that is the female version of the old man hat voice. in one video. trifecta of bad fads!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX_weRr19sQ

#45 - Napping Baby Cosplay

http://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/sleeping-baby-cosplay-joey-marie-laura-izumikawa-choi-41-57be9498b300b__700.jpg

http://www.boredpanda.com/sleeping-baby-cosplay-joey-marie-laura-izumikawa-choi/

Tempted to say Cosplay in general...

Before cosplayers, genre coms were packed with unkempt socially maladapted guys. They're still maladapted, but more are taking showers now.

*coms = Cons = fan conventions

the internet

xp Cosplay has been around for longer than most of us have been alive. (Unlike most of the other things mentioned here, which only date back to when most of us were kids.

Forgot the ending bracket, here: )

Rickrolling coulda been a candidate but it fortunately died quickly

WHAT'S UP CHRISTINE ??

Loads of strange things. Very strange things. Will talk about it later.

cupcakes ffs

Cupcakes rule fuiud

kale haters : fine but do you even know about lambs quarters? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenopodium_album you probaly throw it away

Archaeologists analysing carbonized plant remains found in storage pits and ovens at Iron Age, Viking Age, and Roman sites in Europe have found its seeds mixed with conventional grains and even inside the stomachs of Danish bog bodies.

danish bog bodies is a killer band name

Still think its autotune vocals.

that slowed down white person trying to sing like billie holiday style of cover song thats on every commercial.

arrrhghtgh, I go to a yoga class each week where the instructor insists on playing nothing but sad sack, white guy songs while we exercise. Last week, she one-upped herself by playing an entire mix of mopey acoustic covers of popular songs. In what universe is it preferable to listen to a sad cover of "Billie Jean" instead of the original?!?

agree in principle, but in practice i will rep for caetano's version

In the upthread post regarding early-1960s cosplay, blogger Belated Nerd is begging for any info as to what became of Sylvia Dees. I could fill him or her in if only all means of posting comments there or otherwise sending a message weren't blocked....

well, until we can get a hold of the belated nerd, don't leave the rest of us in undue suspense!

what became of Sylvia Dees?

Went nutz

Last post on that blog was in early 2012. I'm assuming it's been abandoned.

-Marketing people using "brand" as a noun

-marketingspeak leeching into normal conversations such that non-marketing people toss around "brand" or "brands" as nouns

lots of jargon leaking into normal conversation changing tense, but I don't think that one is at all new

Wait what? When was brand not used as a noun

Xp

"Brand x", &c. Literally been around my entire life

yeah, iirc it has to do with branding cattle, which was actually pressing a mark on to, say, a cow to show ownership

people buying cattle at market might refer to a "trusted brand" if they knew the animals coming from one farmer were good, so multiple sources would be "trusted brands"

"branding" as in defining some sort of nebulous value system around the idea of a company or name is newer, but it originally referred to the act of pressing said mark on a product

Yeah, I know the historical origins, I think the annoying aspect is just the marketing jargon getting tossed around. This I posit as a worse development than corporate officespeak permeating all aspects of 21st-C Western life.

not the worst, but I read the opinion that the conversational stance of gen x was of assuming knowledge, and the new trend is these pieces from complete supposed naivety

if someone spoke about a band or film director then, whether you knew anything or not, the stance is that you have to convey that you know about the topic and everyone is assumed to "know" things and their place in some historical or significant context. music and film reviews with necessary references to older work, how things fit in canon, what the producer also worked on, and so on

the new thinkpiece trend is those articles where some college kid has never heard de la soul or never seen some important work and writes from a completely naive standpoint and it becomes clickbait

imo the latter is better because it means late night television hosts can stop doing these man on the street bits where they ask concertgoers if they know about fake band names and then clown people for pretending to know about some shit the questioner just made up

my own least favorite corporatespeak is "visioning" which isn't new but has come to new heights
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=7&case_insensitive=on&content=visioning&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cvisioning%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bvisioning%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BVisioning%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BVISIONING%3B%2Cc0

Have definitely read those, and yeah, they seem designed as clickbait, specifically because they rankle people who have already invested in the idea that what they know about a particular topic is correct and accepted and right. Those pieces delight people who enjoy pissing off the elder know-it-alls, and infuriate the know-it-alls, and everyone clicks away

re: brand -- think I know what you're saying, as far as working on one's "brand", or "your social media presence speaks to the value of your brand" etc kind of stuff. But "Levi's is a brand of jeans" is super old, and probably the first form of "brand" I actually learned.

(xp)

personal brand is the commidification of what I used to naively think was cool, "cultivating an aesthetic", which mostly means defining yourself by listing your music, arts, fashion, influences in list-like form and presenting them in place of self

but really can people ever know u anyway

late night television hosts can stop doing these man on the street bits where they ask concertgoers if they know about fake band names and then clown people

Oh I don't think these are going to stop, or at least not until they mutate away from vox pop bits being the laziest shit way to generate minutes of video.

Have there been any suitably deranged responses to these type of bits done by Conan or Eric Andre or somebody?

Crut, I feel the roller derby/burlesque/women with tattoos nexus is somewhat redeemed by verbally inventive double-entendre naming of the Helena Handbasket / Anne of Cleaver type.

no, that's the worst part of it

Burning Man LLC is a thing

― Οὖτις, Friday, August 26, 2016 12:14 PM (three days ago)

a thing that was started in the mid-late 90s after someone died at the event and the organizers got sued. It's actually just the operating organization. The Burning Man intellectual property is owned by a separate company, and now they have a tax exempt art foundation.

imo burning man as a fun zone for moneyed types and burners as a tiring people are two different issues

the event as whole still isn't necessarily for moneyed people afaik and there's probably some "no true burner" arguments going on in that sphere

I am aware of how the Burning Man organization is structured.

this is prob the worst part
http://www.furtherfuture.com/

blurring the line between work and play

btw if ilx wants to crowdfund my trip to the further future thing for research purposes I will accept donations

they have exclusive mixes!!

http://www.furtherfuture.com/ff002-music

actually this doesn't look as bad as I expected and the musical lineup isn't too far from what I've seen live

please send me to the desert

I vow to wear an outfit similar to this
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5692b3604bf1182ee60156fe/t/57292c6cb6aa60d43fc47aa9/1462316153868/Speaker-Lineup-Final-WEB.jpg?format=750w

Burning Man perpetually one of those things I am mildly curious about, and can imagine how it would be fun, but then think again about how I probably wouldn't be able to stand a single person I met there, and do I really want to waste my molly experience on EDM and "visuals" anyway?

dunno how the top would work for you, I'd reconsider.

lol "Beyond Vegas"

I have some canadian friends who went maybe three-ish years ago? and a coworker who is older and went somewhere five or six years ago

I've gotten the impression it's changed a lot, which would make sense considering the size and makeup of the attendees shifting. "Events" were a lot more ad hoc or arranged on the fly and now it's definitely a thing where people plan things to do while there.

the coworker who went is kind of an odd guy, in a good way, and he traveled with his brother who had some sort of (mutant) vehicle repair-and-construction rig. their other brother had recently died in a freak accident and they decided to spend time together at this thing. coworker is probably in his 50s and has kids in their teens/20s iirc

to burning man, that is. not this ff thing

do Paris Hilton and Grover Norquist party w poor people?

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Paris-Hilton-Burning-Man-2016-Twitter-braids-9192622.php

Steampunk, it's er neither steam nor punk. Burlesque is another dreadful development of the modern age.

would love a christopher guest burning man parody movie.

omg

no, Paris Hilton and Grover Norquist take private shuttle services or helicopters to air conditioned trailers with private security and have stage-side areas to hang out where others aren't allowed in

it's like asking "does Paris Hilton go to the same Drake concert that everyone else does?" and yeah, to an extent, the private seating w/unlimited food and drinks, table service, an unobstructed view of the stage (or even being on the stage) is the same concert but it's not the same

on the other hand, I guess Steven Tyler played the state fair and went to the midway to ride the ferris wheel and eat a corn dog after his performance, so yeah, I guess he does party w/poor people

imo the tiered experiences of music and cultural festivals is definitely something that has been refined in the last couple decades. there have always been guest lists, VIP access, whatever, but now it seems like any event with more than a handful of people has at least three ticket tiers with varying levels of access and amenities

depends on how you define "poor people," too. were there ever significant numbers of burners below the actual poverty level? idk

I guess I should just ask: Shakey, what's the premise you're snarking about here? That burning man is corporate and for rich people, and that it has always been that way, or is this some change? I snark about burners and that event all the time but I'm not getting what you're trying to imply about the whole enterprise.

what i don't understand is if you're going to do the luxury corporate weekend experience why do it at some shitty festival?

mh - upthread I was just otm' chaki's "burning man is also something you need to be wealthy to do" claim. That didn't used to be true, pre-2000 or so. I think it is def true now. that is all.

how wealthy

prob getting hung up on the terminology, I'm thinking $$$ and middle class is technically pretty wealthy

https://www.utilikilts.com/

The Utilikilts website helpfully informs people: "We will be closed for Burning Man from 9/3-9/5."

Maybe that only applies to their retail store. But maybe you should take that under advisement even if you planned to order online.

You know, if you should have an urgent man-kilt need during those TWO DAYS.

it takes money to buy a ticket (tickets are >$400 iirc?) and be there for more than a couple days. If you want to do an art project, the scale/cost of projects has increased exponentially over the years to the point where someone who's gonna do something that doesn't cost thousands of dollars + hours of labor probably shouldn't even bother. And over the years the number of wealthy celebrities and techbros has also increased exponentially. And the majority of the attendees as far as I know are, yes, middle class and $$$ ("technically wealthy").

This is pretty different from how it was in the 90s, when there were no tickets, no rules (for the most part), tons of relatively poor artist types and tons of low-tech projects/camps/exhibits. It isn't like that anymore.

xp

thanks!

what I was getting at is that the celebrity/moneyed types *do* think the majority of ppl there are poor and erect barriers to differentiate their experience, but the reality is it's only accessible to the middle class so the anger about class (rich people ruining it, "poor" people complaining about the rich) really misses the point. so we're on the same page

imo the middle class should be the ones to gut the super-rich anyway, genuinely poor ppl lack the time and resources

how does a man-kilt differ from a regular kilt

it has "man" in the name so you know for sure it's not a rebranded skirt

imagine a kilt fused with a pair of cargo shorts, I see guys wearing these quite frequently in Austin, they are a clear sign to steer clear

clearly

Tickets are $390, there's thousands available at half-price if you can't afford that - the only people I know who've gone are skint students, they did a thing and people liked their thing, but their thing definitely did not require thousands of dollars. Hours of labour, I'll give you.

it takes money to buy a ticket (tickets are >$400 iirc?) and be there for more than a couple days. If you want to do an art project, the scale/cost of projects has increased exponentially over the years to the point where someone who's gonna do something that doesn't cost thousands of dollars + hours of labor probably shouldn't even bother.

as far as the projects go, some of them are funded/paid for by the festival's non-profit foundation, essentially an art grant, and even in the past, pre-foundation, artists making featured projects were compensated for materials and time. And there are people: featured artists, various crew members, volunteers, that get in free in exchange for working the event. One of my co-workers is there this year, and she's far from rich or even middle class. I'm not even a supporter of Burning Man in its current form, but saying that only wealthy people can go because of the cost ... it isn't any more expensive than going to Disneyland or Hawaii or your standard proletarian vacation.

prob cheaper than when I stayed in an actual hotel in downtown SF for a long weekend

some of them are funded/paid for by the festival's non-profit foundation, essentially an art grant, and even in the past, pre-foundation, artists making featured projects were compensated for materials and time. And there are people: featured artists, various crew members, volunteers, that get in free in exchange for working the event. One of my co-workers is there this year, and she's far from rich or even middle class. I'm not even a supporter of Burning Man in its current form, but saying that only wealthy people can go because of the cost

idk this is like saying Ivy League schools aren't for the rich because they have scholarship programs and employ janitors

I also don't personally know anybody who goes anymore, apart from the random neighbor or two. People I know who used to work for BM org quit several years ago in disgust, mostly about the shift in attendee audience but also just the way its run and their priorities.

A shortish plaid wool wrap skirt worn by a woman - often with one of those comically large safety pins - may still be called a kilt. I specified mankilt when referring to Utilikilts because they're marketed to men.

In my world, these men were in Drama Club in high school, but they did a manly crew-thing like set building or lights. Now they have man-buns and they are big into the Renaissance Festival. Not judging too much, as I'm not so culturally far off this demographic in my own life - but it IS a recognizable type.

idk this is like saying Ivy League schools aren't for the rich because they have scholarship programs and employ janitors

Ivy League schools are a bad example of this, because they are almost entirely need-blind. You're better off using 3rd tier liberal arts schools who give very little scholarship aid.

not to mention Ivy League schools are giving out scholarships for tens of thousands of dollars, vs the price of a Burning Man ticket.

I don't really associate Burning Man w/rich people per se. But its rep seems to have gone the same way as Bay Area culture in general -- used to be good and free and hippies and drugs, now it's tech and bros and too expensive, etc etc. This is perception, mind you, I'm sure it would be possible to have fun there, just like it's possible to afford living in the Bay these days.

ok fine

i would go or would have gone to burning man at some point if it weren't in the fucking desert. I'm not going into the desert for any reason unless there's AC and a pool

also most of the people I know who still go there are not wealthy by any means.

sounds like it's gone from a DIY/direct peer patronage even to an event-based patronage/sponsorship thing

ppl hate when that happens, both seem fine to me

There seems to be an assumption somewhere in this thread that middle class and wealthy are the same thing? Which is bizarre.

"wealthy" means anyone with more money than you iirc

burning man started like 30 years ago

reaction gifs

reaction videos

we totally forgot about flash mobs.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Y_YcDmv5gIY/maxresdefault.jpg

Property shows

amen. making celebrities out of realtors one of the most ominous of fads...

Flash mobs are the worst 21st century fad, yes. Do they still happen? I've never seen one in person.

burners suck

buying a house

https://derpicdn.net/img/2013/2/5/234294/large.jpeg

real name no gimmicks

so that's what eric wareheim's been up to lately

mh - upthread I was just otm' chaki's "burning man is also something you need to be wealthy to do" claim. That didn't used to be true, pre-2000 or so. I think it is def true now. that is all.

I'm on a plane right now and an hour ago I was sitting next to a super posh older british woman who mentioned she spent half the year in santa barbara and half the year in london

she was going to burning man

Datum older women

was she wearing goggles

utilikilt or it didn't happen

http://i.imgur.com/WFnqCqD.png

Oh for fuck's sake Cuyahoga Scenic RR at least do a 1930s and 40s themed event if you're going to pull these gimps around behind a USRA Heavy Mikado. More than anything else, think about how it's going to feel.

How an ordinary New Zealand town became steampunk capital of the world

Two Steampunk proposals caught on camera at vibrant Lincoln festival

I don't think I realised that this stuff was so popular?

Jon decided to propose during “chap-hop” rapper Professor Elementary’s performance at The Engine Shed, Friday night and luckily a fellow steampunk was armed with a camera to film the moment.

best of luck to these ppl and everything, but steampunk + ostentatiously public proposals + whatever the fuck “chap-hop” is - surely a combination of three of the most awful things in the world

https://www.facebook.com/BlackRockHelicopters/

xp (just guessing wrt chap-hop which I've never heard of before, but it can't be good, right?)

Americans rapping in the voice they perceive British people speak in

Communal seating is still the worst.

not a fan of NYC Chinese restaurants?

luckily a fellow steampunk was armed with a camera

do you actually call someone involved in this stuff "a steampunk", or is this just the Lincolnite being out of touch? do ppl actually say "I am a steampunk" rather than just "I'm into steampunk" or whatever?

steampi

good god, every paragraph of this wikipedia article is somehow worse than the last

Chap hop is music originating from England that mixes the hip hop genre with elements from the Chappist or steampunk subcultures and stereotypical English obsessions such as cricket, tea and the weather.[1]

Two leading exponents of the genre are Professor Elemental and Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer, other names include Poplock Holmes & DJ WattsOn.[2][3]

In 2011, Sir Reginald Pikedevant, Esquire, inspired by Regretsy's "Not Remotely Steampunk" section,[4] posted "Just Glue Some Gears On It (and call it Steampunk)" on YouTube, which quickly went viral and has generated over 800,000 views to date. It was named one of the top ten steampunk songs [5] and was acclaimed by steampunk notables.[4]

In March 2013, UK Education Secretary Michael Gove said he was "strangely addicted to 'chap hop' rappers."[6] Mr. B noted the irony of this, since his music often pokes at members the establishment, commenting, "As a non-Etonian and thus an outcast within the cabinet, this is perhaps a little snook cocked at his colleagues."[7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chap_hop

Chap hop is worst fad of the 21st century so far, lock thread

I am a post-punk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iRTB-FTMdk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiRPBCiJg2c

but it seems to be just those two guys though...

having done some research I think the most upsetting thing is the number of articles about Chap hop that invoke Vivian Stanshall

I refuse to believe chap-hop has more than a dozen fans and is not a fad

oh man... Electronic swing... The horror. thanks Emil.y

"I refuse to believe chap-hop has more than a dozen fans and is not a fad"

2,772,857 views for that fighting trousers video.

brb crying

nerdcore also deserves a mention (as well as that Epic Rap Battles shit)

has anyone been to an escape room game? i just heard about them. seems pretty harmless..
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/05/01/art-escape-room-323150.html

lol they're huge around here, as I live near tourist central of Orlando. my brother used to work in one as one of his 3,000 jobs.

haven't been in one, have been told they "get old fast"

the escape room thing seems like a twist on the old dinner and a murder mystery thing that was a thing once upon a time. and which still exist as far as i know.

and now that i google there are apparently still a million of them...

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/76/db/ab/but-beware-in-this-show.jpg

those are also popular here - Sleuth's is the big one, but there's also Capone's

I noted someone on a FB comment thread (friend of a friend) state that he went to one of those with his then long term gf.

They broke up 2 days later.

she escaped

loooooooool

horrified @ "chap-hop", good god I wanna crawl under a rock and cover my ears for all eternity

Thread swiftly turning me into Dr. Morbius as regards what inconsequential shit you folks get wound up about.

I have actually seen Mr B in the flesh - his previous band Collapsed Lung played a gig with Bis recently. They were not really my thing, but definitely made more hilarious by Jim Burke (Mr B) still wearing his moustache - as it's a non-removable requirement of his day job.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz-XiweyDVs

Chap-hop is the lamest bullshit ever, don't think anyone was claiming it was consequential or not shit

has anyone been to an escape room game? i just heard about them. seems pretty harmless..
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/05/01/art-escape-room-323150.html

― slam dunk

my spouse had do one as a work activity, you know, "enforced recreation".

Some friends of mine have done these occasionally. They all have fun. It doesn't sound like my idea of fun, but hardly "worst fad".

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/960155_705015892858394_1549084023_n.jpg?oh=0b44b8d7b17e6a84aac5b5ddb16233ee&oe=584A926C

I get that yoga is the new preferred stretching/strength-building/fitness activity but ppl calling themselves yogis and gurus is pretty messed up

I just call everyone who does yoga a yogurt. Seems to work ok.

I did a really fun escape room, got out with seconds to spare. It was kind of steampunky I guess.

looks fun to me

like real life MYST

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/sep/05/luxury-camp-at-burning-man-festival-targeted-by-hooligans

calling the actual cops smdh

I didn't realize there were these exclusive, private parties at Burning Man. This is pretty gross and goes against the spirit of the event. Hardly an example of a gift economy!

i think the worst fad is the proliferation of whatever kind of music this is. sub DMB 'reggae' tripe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxTu9bVcwU0

I agree but would point out that this is, in fact, jazz.

Twice in the last week I have seen groups of young people repeatedly dropping large filled water bottles. The first time it was on the tube, and continued for some time with a lot of uproar that would suggest it was a game, although there was no indication as to what the rules might be. And the second time just now at the bus stop - another group fixated by the same activity.

Is this an emerging trend and if so, does anyone know what it means?

means you made some enemies

water bottle games a big fad. my 11 year old is constantly flipping seltzer bottles around the house. check youtube.

Oh jesus. My kid does that too. *thunk* *thunk* *thunk*

Thank you for clarifying this! I was starting to think that the meaning systems had all shifted at once. Is it like an elaborate hacky sack?

As far as I know it's just trying to get it to land upright after flipping it. Bonus points for showmanship?

I was scared to ask, but was pretty sure it was about sticking an upright landing. whew, I'm not as out of touch as I thought.

I agree but would point out that this is, in fact, jazz.
― Andrew Farrell, Saturday, September 17, 2016 5:04 AM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you justifiably probably didn't make it that far into the video, but there's a section with like reggae guitar and toasting. it's horrendous

i never clicked on that yt

you know there's a wookiefoot thread right

I think that's one of those things where I'd see it and my brain would protectively remove it from the listing somewhere between the optic nerve and consciousness such that I could never click on it

there was this long article on john mayer's career that someone posted on facebook and i actually read most of it and there were a million video embeds and the thought of actually clicking on one of the videos honestly never even occurred to me. i thought about that later. it's kind of that innate thing like knowing that you should wait for cars to go by before crossing a busy street.

ok the horrible video reminds me, where on ilx or the web did I see that video that was ripped from a local access show of yesteryear with a few kids playing a really off-kilter song about being all out of ganja

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jYMP1tz02Q

that's one of the best videos

running out of ganja is a serious problem tbf

which is why jill stein adopted that song as her campaign anthem.

bless you, goole

i just want to reassure the bass player in his public image limited t-shirt that life gets better

Shortly after the release of "Cooky Puss", iirc.

Escape rooms can be worthwhile. More so if you, yes, were a fan of Myst

Raypunk is a distinctive (sub)genre within the retrofuturistic esthetics (or retro-fantasy). Covers space surrealism, parallel worlds, alien art, technological psychedelia, non-standard science, alternative or distorted reality and so on. Predecessor to atompunk with similar themes but mostly without explicit nuclear power or exactly described technology and with more archaic/schematic/artistic style, dark, obscure, cheesy, weird, mysterious, dreamy, hazy or etheric atmosphere (origins cca 1880-1950), parallel to steampunk, dieselpunk and teslapunk. For basic info go to www.raypunk.org While atompunk ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/AtompunkCZ/ ) is a genre dealing with the post-WWII hard technological concepts and admiring the modern science, soft, surreal, dreamy and speculative quasitechnological fiction or half-science half-mystery concepts of all times belong to raypunk:

this local bar is doing something called a "silent disco" where everyone on the dance floor wears headphones that the dj transmits to, no actual sound in the room space. horrifying.

^^They're doing that tonight at ACL Fest.

it would be of great value to me, personally, if someone here could report on whether or not these are as bad as they seem

I went to a spirit halloween with my kid and was shocked at the amount of steampunk stuff they had, I kind of forgot that was a thing.

I have no idea who would be buying it, like the Sexy Covid Nurse constume buyers would hate that stuff and the hardcore steampunk typs would be building their own brass google / top hat contraptions.

A friend and I witnessed a bunch of teenagers and 20-somethings at the water’s edge dancing silently with headphones to a DJ set-up on China Beach when we were out walking a couple of years ago. When we came back later they had all taken their headphones off and were gathered around a guru.

It was probably some cultist Christian ministry thing, but walking among young people dancing silently on the beach was an unexpectedly sweet experience

it makes complete sense if it's outdoors or in a public place. but this is the basement of a bar - the perfect place for a sweet sound system. i think they must be trying to get in on the gimmick? people in my city are so ... ugh

Silent Discos have been about since the 90s, surely?

They've been putting those on for awhile in downtown Houston at fading indoor concert venue.

The fact that the bass is more a physical sensation than an aural one makes me think this could never be great

Yeah, silent discos have been around for a while. I always hated the idea but one year at Supernormal they had to finish the music early so compromised with one of these - it was reasonably fun, and quite amusing when you weren't participating watching people bop around to nothing.
However, if you don't *have* to do a silent disco, I have no idea why you would actively seek to do one.

A friend used to run them - one feature which was interesting was that there were separate channels so people were dancing to 3 different sets of music indicated by colour rings on the headphones. If you wanted to dance with someone you could switch to their stream so you were both hearing the same thing.

that sounds really nice