marketing of masculinity

Also to sarahel: there've been news stories (Oh hello NYT Style section!) for at least several years about aged hipsters giving up city/corporate life and moving upstate to raise goats organically or whatever. Wasn't news then, isn't new now.

so sorry I don't live in NYC or London - but it does seem like this isn't something that was a "trend" 8-10 years ago.

Hipster knitting was part of the same movement (actually it's the earliest example I can think of, but maybe I just didn't know any yuppies-turned-farmers then), and there were books about guerilla fiber arts and "stitch'n'bitch" groups 8-10 years ago. And I always thought etsy.com came out of that movement too: people wanted a way to showcase/sell the stuff they were making.

Actually, I kind of support that. Whatever forms we need communal folk crafts to take to pass to the next generation, go for it. Stitch-n-bitch / urban farming / carpentry / whatever.

I think this comes from reading all those Foxfire books when I was working a boring summer job at a historical village.

Hipster knitting was part of the same movement (actually it's the earliest example I can think of, but maybe I just didn't know any yuppies-turned-farmers then), and there were books about guerilla fiber arts and "stitch'n'bitch" groups 8-10 years ago. And I always thought etsy.com came out of that movement too: people wanted a way to showcase/sell the stuff they were making.

If this is a movement, my moms would be an OG. She's been weaving, and winning state fair blue ribbons for it, for nigh on 30 years now.

Semi-relevant, although I may wind up making a separate thread:

http://assets.theatlantic.com/static/front/images/magazine/covers/210x280/201007.jpg

It's the 20th annual End of Men! issue.

I can't tell whether this sort of thing is more a result of misandry (men are useless and dumb) or misogyny (women are power-hungry bitches who want to eliminate us), but either way it gets under my skin.

Like if we've been operating on the premise all these years that people should be judged by ability and not gender, and all these years men have been the overwhelming majority in every field, then why are we sounding alarms the moment women overtake men in something?

well sure, knitting, arts & crafts, the readymade magazine thing are the predecessors for the gardening/farming trend. And maybe it's not that recent, but I feel like this type of thing became more prevalent among members of and aspirants to "the creative class" post-dot com crash.

because it will sell THE IDEAS ISSUE of the Atlantic Monthly

x-post

I found out recently that pulling weeds and planting stuff in your yard is kind of fun if you're not forced to do it. Is that manly or not or non of the above?

i think it depends on whether you have lower back problems as well as your class background and where you grew up

e

i no

My back's okay. I was middle class, but it's more complicated than that.

& I grew up in eff ell aye.

i grew up in a town where agriculture/agribusiness was the largest industry - i'm having trouble imagining planting things/pulling weeds as something fun, because i equate it so intensely with low-wage labor.

and as an educated middle-class white person i could avoid it and sit in an air-conditioned office - or something like that.

I never thought I would like it. It's only kind of fun because I don't have to. And starting a compost heap with my roommates at previous house was my gateway drug. Digging in dirt and trash I knew would be fun without even thinking.

a

dorian corey is such a hero

"After Corey's death, the mummified body of Robert Worley (aka Robert Wells), was found in Corey's belongings with a gunshot wound to the head."

I want to know more about that but can only read the first page of the citation!!!! Who has the goods?

The extent of my urban farming is herbs on the balcony and six months of Saturdays working on a farmer's market stall, but I like doing those things. In the suburb where I grew up, everyone had gardens with at least beans and tomatoes growing in them. I also hate with a passion anything you could label YARD WORK, having been press-ganged into doing a ton of it for my mom as a teenager, but if I had my own garden I might feel differently.

"After Corey's death, the mummified body of Robert Worley (aka Robert Wells), was found in Corey's belongings with a gunshot wound to the head."

― The Black Keys - white boys can still throw down (crüt), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 8:55 PM (9 minutes ago)

haha i knew this, but did you read about the note left with the body? I can hear it read in her voice.

I grew up pretty much in a suburb (also in ef ell aye) with just my mom and our yard was always a mess. Our backyard especially was really overgrown and there was this huge bamboo tree taking over everything. It was a great place to play and I'm pretty sure I learned to love weeds and bugs back there.

In my dad's neighborhood everyone's lawn was way way manicured. All the kids in his neighborhood would dig huge holes in all the cul-de-sacs, destroying everything. I love gardening because any activity involving crouching and digging in the dirt is fun to me. My favorite part is squeezing the roots.

I once had this really ridiculous summer job planting restorative wetland plants along lake and river beds and it was soooo hard but it didn't make me hate yard work.

big loose compost heaps are the best. Gawd, having a semi office job is what makes me want to be outside and dirty when I'm not working. I guess because yard work was always presented to me as a leisure activity (except for that one job, but we were saving the environment!) it still feels leisurely to me.

wow that was longer than I meant for it to be.

and less coherent?

I also hate with a passion anything you could label YARD WORK, having been press-ganged into doing a ton of it for my mom as a teenager, but if I had my own garden I might feel differently.

― WHEN CROWS GO BAD (suzy), Tuesday, June 22, 2010 4:00 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

totally---secretly love doing "chores," unless they're actual chores, prescribed by someone else.

also: virtually every "crafty" trend i've even mentioned in passing to my mom, she can locate somewhere in the 70s. really sort of amazed that anyone (except 20 yo hipsters) think they're reinventing the wheel when they get stoned and try and reinvent the wheel

well, were these "crafty" trends trendy in the 80s and 90s? i guess that's my real question.

Next up: macrame and decoupage.

Man, I read some quote that was all "these young new women think they're doing something special and revolutionary by picking up needles and yarn and making themselves an angora toque, but really" from like the 1920s.

just wait 'til kilns make a return

HA! My cousin installed a state of the art kiln and turned her garage into a pottery about five years ago.

Crafts my mother did in the '70s: dried flower arrangements in baskets; cornucopia-type arrangements in baskets complete with varnished challah loaf and many, many dried gourds; wreaths; crocheting innumerable Afghans (besides the dogs, this is the reason ladies of a certain demographic can locate Afghanistan on maps); shell collections in lamp bases; arrangement of cattails and other dried marsh grasses in wicker baskets; God's Eyes; macramé; limited sewing of clothes; making jam out of a tree full of crab apples/the grapes on my aunt's trellis; needlepoint; rug hooking - but never, ever knitting. Most of those crafts make me want to stab my eyes out and there is a wicker ban in this apartment.

The only crafty thing I ever did in the '80s was to make Jackson Pollock-style sweatshirts and t-shirts using acrylic paint flicked onto plain tops.

i did hella rug hooking and cross stitch in the 80s, but i was a child

has this been posted yet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oQ4hjQ_9Bc

totally---secretly love doing "chores," unless they're actual chores, prescribed by someone else.

^^this

I love the fact that a thread called "Marketing of Masculinity" is now all about knitting and sewing.

how can we best market knitting & sewing to men?

sharp objects?

my sewing machine has more horsepower than your sewing machine

sew easy a caveman could do it

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/219/475949396_d22244c595.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/129/341792051_2bc38f8e02.jpg

goatse, that last one

how's this for a masculine look - the sweater's hand-made by this boy's great-aunt:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4015/4672733796_bee5fce3f6_b.jpg

eat your heart out, hipster knitters

i dunno about masculine, but it's certainly awesome

My kid in a sweatervest that was knitted for me as a child by my Godmother's mother:

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs429.snc3/24717_407929428782_556118782_5017459_69855_n.jpg

awww
That is a great vest that definitely looks homemade. No one sells garments made of variegated yarn. It's a dead giveaway that it was gifted by a crafty relative.

He looks a lot happier to be wearing it than the kid in Tracer's photo.

they're both beautiful!