Article Response: Indie Kids

It occurs to me that Chris Herbert is also the name of the manager of Hear'Say. Make of this what you will.

ethan, I don't think I liked you until today.

I'm not trying to exacerbate things, but I for one was offended by the same generalizations - especially the 'boys club' tone of Chris Herbert's post, yet somehow it was the 'yeah, right on brother' reinforcements that came just after that seemed far worse. So joke or no, it makes no difference at that point. Damage done. I'm a girl. I love music, for real. Why should I have to read that shit in a supposedly enlightened place like this? It's also a really disturbing social phenomenon that whenever anyone, anywhere, ever has the courage to stand up and call someone out (with good reason) there is always a legion of 'smoother overers' that start pressuring that person to let things be. Apparently conflict makes people uncomfortable. Is it really better if those feeling discomfort to begin with, just shut up seethe silently beneath the status quo? And yes, I CAN leave if I don't want to read it.

ethan, you rock.

Well I apologize for the Maxim-like tone of my post, the misogyny, and really whatever else people have said about it. Of course everyone ought to rely to my post, it's a forum, that's the point. . Of course there is something unsettling about attributing life in rap music solely to negative subject matter (though there is often a remarkable correlation), etc etc. Of course girls like music, there's no quetsion. But am I really so wrong to think that the music obsessive is essentially a male personality-type? Or that some of the excesses of indie are due to girls (and some guys) taking on the aesthetic of the music obsessive while making the music itself secondary?

I just have to say that the brutal truth contained in the orginal indie kids article intoxicated me, and made me go perhaps a little further than I should have.

Chris - I don't know why you bother to retract your offensive statements just to make more, worse ones. Thanks Ethan for being the only one to point out that these nasty pisstakes aren't entertainment, that they flippantly dismiss the point and belittle something without even having a decent argument against it. Did Chris actually have a point or was he just playing for laughs?

I'm pulling back my original, offensive statements to make more truthful ones. The hip-hop rap thing was mostly irrelevant, only there to prove how unimportant the actual music is to many indie scenesters.

And about half the population

Oh, shut up you tossers.

I don't even care if saying that gets me yelled at. I still fail to see - NEWSFLASH I AM A GIRL - what was so offensive about Chris's original post. It was glib and sarcastic and definitely in poor taste - so fuckin' what? As I said, people need to go reread all that jumping down the throat done to necromancer (yes, Ethan, this means you) when he went off on rap music being a bad influence on popular society - ie a FAR BETTER SELLING FORM OF POPULAR ENTERTAINMENT THAN A MAGAZINE (just ask Fred Solinger about magazine sales) - yet you're all going to claim Maxim is going to negatively influence people? It's going to negatively influence people just as much as rap music will.

Mind you, I'm not someone who thinks rap music is going to influence any sane person to do anything different from what they would've done otherwise, so I'm saying magazines are not a major influence either. Obviously, anyone stating Maxim is a major influence would be a hypocrite to claim that music, a more popular form of entertainment, isn't an influence on people's behavior. A popular magazine has a sales base of a few million around the world. A popular rap album has a sales base of a few million in the United States alone. Do the statistics.

And I'm ticked off at Chris for even apologizing. Don't bow to the pressure of the board, it's not worth it. Piss them off. Music obsessive IS by and large the male of the species. Which isn't to say girls aren't music obsessives - my favorite band seems to appeal only to females, from my non-internet experience - but rather that the majority share (ie more than 50%) of music obsessives are males. This is an oft stated, oft studied fact. If you don't like it, tough. Try to get more of your female friends to buy music. Just look at the proportion of men to women on this very board. Don't give me the "this is the internet, computers are for men" bullshit either (which is so hypocritically sexist it's not even funny anyhow - music is for everyone but computers aren't? Fuggedaboudit) because recent studies (and no I don't have them but one of them was cited to me by Tom Ewing himself) show that the internet is nearing the 50/50 mark more and more every day and the disparity is nearly non-existant. You can probably look this up in the technology section of Yahoo! news, which I believe had a story on it recently. Yet music sites are around 75% male. Why do you think this is if you believe what I'm saying right now is offensive? This goes out to anyone, not someone in particular...

The indie scene IN MY EXPERIENCE is particularly bad because the girls do put more thought into their clothes. I used to hang out with a pile of them in Arizona and they knew jack all about music. As I said, this is my experience and gladly this board proves to me it's not necessarily a common thing, but I can see how Chris's experience led him to the same conclusion.

Maxim RULES. End of story to me. And I don't even read it. I'm just giving them props for using Photoshop to blow up the breasts of every flat chested actress they ever have on their cover. Rock on with your fantasy world, rock on with making these women look ridiculous because everyone knows they don't really look like that. It's all hilarious to me, and I quite frankly hope someone from Maxim is reading this and offers me a dirty spread in the mag for propping them.

This has fuck all to do with Indie Kids, mind you.

you know, the misappropiated british slang was bad enough, but did you actually just say 'Fuggedaboudit'? i think you do read maxim.

and why is it okay to say 'girls don't like music' just because girls are music obsessives less often than guys? as i said earlier in my hypothetically offensive statements, if i said 'black people don't really like music', would that be okay too? i mean, it's a proven fact that white people are music obsessives more often than black people. hell, if any group isn't the statistcal majority, they don't really like music either. because it's FUNNY!

It'd be a lot funnier if you said 'i don't like pussy emo, i listen to real die-jew skinhead hardcore', cuz I'd be more apt to agree with you. Unfortunately, skinheads are stupid fucks and they make shitty-ass music. "Because it's funny" is reason enough to say whatever you want. But Chris is not my idol anymore since it came out he was being sarcastic. The only times when tastelessness is funny to me or praiseworthy is when it's sincere and you can admire the strength of character or maybe just the uniqueness that goes into holding opinions that are wicked out of fashion. I suppose now a skinhead's gonna post saying that he's not a stupid fuck, but I won't believe him because if he wasn't stupid he would know that skinheads are stupid fucks who make shitty-ass music. Generalizations are great because they're statements which are mostly true, which is better than being a hippie and never saying anything, just protesting other people's thoughts (I'm not necessarily insulting Ethan here, for all I know he says a lot of wonderful things on this board, though lord knows I'm not paying attention, I'm just saying don't be a hippie).

I really do dress like an indie rocker to get girls.

Some disconnected points:

Influence of media - Ally, it's pointless comparing music and Maxim. A self-help book, for instance, will tend to have much lower sales than a magazine but will be more influential on those who buy it because it is directly addressing and advising them. Music tends to have no such pretension and is - overtly at least - entertainment. Mass media mags fall halfway between the two: half entertainment (look at her! read about him!) and half advice (how to be a cooler man!). So though less ppl read it, the influence may well be stronger. I personally dont have a problem with admitting that entertainment media influence society, anyway.

Female obsessives over music - nothing to do with it being a statistical minority, at least online. In the USA, 52% of surfers are women, slightly out of proportion to the population as a whole I believe. In European countries though the average is about 40% women. In the top 20 by volume posters on this board the percentage is either 10% or 15%. Napster users are (IIRC) about 65% male. That all said this board is about individuals not generalisations: leave your Hornbyesque 'observational comedy' at the door please.

Burp. If I may be annoying and interject a little something here...

EVERYthing influences people. You can listen to whatever you want and label it however you want.

Mental conditioning/brainwashing/memetics is as real as writing in E-prime is a real solution to disspelling falsehoods and "spooks" (false essences of things).

It is funny as hell when some prick tries to tell you what you are allowed to appreciate or disapprove of, however. For me, I felt gangsta rap/most rap = shitty topics that I don't want to dwell on (whether it's fighting, cheating, bling blingin', gettin' respect, getting revenge, smoking pot, or rising above these peeps in the community who act this way) and it is my choice after all, what I want to dwell on. Funny how it twisted into something else. I see that going on here, too... Hmmm, who's the culprit?

yeah, no kidding. all i did was say i didn't appreciate his comments and all of a sudden everyone's jumping on me like i was ruthlessly censoring him 'going on again' or something. i still think his original statement is worthless and unfavorable, and the comments about women and music deplorable, but i didn't DO anything other than point it out, ahem ahem.

Ethan, you and I are very alike. While your throat tickles you enough to actually write "ahem, ahem" as you type, the cucumbers I had for lunch compelled me to start my last post with "Burp". Interesting. Poot!

You make heaps of fair points Ethan, but you forgot the first rule of the internet: moral policemen never survive. And anyway you still haven't explained to my liking why it's elitist to like pop, or indeed any commercial music. Any statement of preference is by definition a self-clarification (saying "I prefer [X]" is synonymous with saying "I am a person who prefers [X]"). It can only be elitist if that which you like is beyond the resources (financial/critical) of others to a) access or b) appreciate.

Pop is the most accessible and most instantly appreciable music of all, a fact which I think *can* be supported by sales and radio play. A self-clarification is not in and of itself automatically elitist; the fact that you think it is only suggests to me that pro-pop sentiments threaten you somehow. Which is funny because racism, sexism, homophobia etc. are obviously a threat but liking pop is just as obviously not.

I found Chris' original post funny because it coincided so perfectly with my own experience of the indie pop world - that both the guys and girls were more often than not shallow people pretending to be deep in order to pick up; that the rejection of style had turned into a fashion as cynical and sexually-motivated as the plastic, "sluttish" world of pop. Chris's behaviour proves that the guys are probably more shallow than the girls, which seems correct to me (and don't say that Chris isn't an indie kid; he goes to indie clubs and is therefore an indie kid). Of course most musical scenes are like this, but at least most of them admit it quite openly.

I'll agree that Chris's comments about girls are a bit bizarre and he's done little to disprove your charge of sexism; it worries me that I barely noticed at the time. Good on you for pointing that out then, but I can't help but feel that you were using it as simple ammunition for your original tirade.

I don't go to indie clubs, whatever those even are, but I supposed it could be argued that I am indie. Though don't like the music, perhaps my insincerity and self-loathing are as indie as the Get Up Kids and Blonde Readhead combined (and oh, what a wonderful team those two would make).

I am also sexist. I believe that there are differences, both innate and socially constructed, between males and females. I also don't see the problem, so long as there's truth backing it up.

Chris, statistical differences between any set of groups shouldn't be denied, no. But to generalise from this and make lazy statements that stereotype or even stigmatise those who go against the trend is annoying (and sometimes funny, yes) and in the worst cases, dangerous.

To go from, say, some statistical evidence on the proporionately high number of young black males in London with a criminal record (which I entirely ascribe to environmental factors, by the way, lest there be any doubt!) to an assumption that all black men are criminals is a) wrong and b) socially divisive. Agreed?

I don't think I'm stigmatizing those who go against the "trend." If anything, I'm stigmatizing those who don't. I don't like people, girls or guys, who imitate the image of the music fanatic without actually being fanatics. It offends me, they're having their cake and eating it too, and whatever other cliche that's appropriate. People who say they are "totally obsessed with Napster," and yet only have two techno remixes of the Super Mario Brothers Theme and Margaritaville on their computers. Perhaps it's unfair to quantify love of music, but come on...

Anyway, when I meet, talk to, or hear about girls who have the same relationship with music that I do, it's exhilarating. I am in favor of girls listening to music.

"I don't like people, girls or guys, who imitate the image of the music fanatic without actually being fanatics."

Chris, let me get this straight - so to correct this grievous injustice these 'fakers' are perpetrating against your delicate sensibilties, you decide to screw them over by umm... being a FAKER? Or do you just not like yourself? Either way, it's just crystal the way that you're ALL about the integrity...

I am an awful, horrible person. I had some serious reservations about the whole dressing up thing at first. I was concerned about integrity, dignity, uh, identity. Boy oh boy, was I wrong. It's worth it. Sooo worth it, as us college kids say. Not only am I much more appealing to the young ladies, but I'm just generally treated with more respect by everyone. Music shopping in particular has become less painful. The clerks don't roll their eyes anymore when I buy something that they don't approve of. Because of my clothes, that Eazy-E's greatest hits CD must be an ironic choice. Perhaps me and my indie rock friends are having a gangsta rap party, where we all bring our own eotic brands of 40s. People give me the benefit of the doubt. All the questions I initally had went out the window. I cannot recommend poseurdom highly enough, it was honestly one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Hey, powers that be!

Can we have a *new* article on posers? Please?

Yeah. And Chris should sooo.... write it.

I was just wondering if being an indie kid automatically means you have to be a fanatic? I wouldn't consider myself a fanatic by any means, music is very important to me and I make stringent efforts to seek out music that I might appreciate, but I probably enjoy reading just as much. I also like how I look. Is it such a bad thing to make an effort with your hair and clothes? Or does that fact make me a poseur just because I'm into indie? Does this apply to other genres? If I look good by anyone's definition, does that automatically mean I don't take my music seriously? Is simply taking care of your appearance shallow?

Also Chris, what do you do when you go out with a girl who finds your indie image appealing, then she finds out what your true music taste is? Because I would probably drop you because we wouldn't have that much in common....

I'm not trying to inflame the situation, I ask merely for information.

Most of the girls I date are not indie rockers, though I think that the clothes stil help. They probably don't have more than a casual aquaintance with what goes into being indie rock, so my fraudulence goes unnoticed. Even if they don't think that the indie rock look is particularly cool or attractive, having any consistent aesthetic is usually better than nothing.

The actual indie rockers, the ones who ought to be able to see though me the second I walk into a room, probably aren't going to date me. They might like the shoes enough drunkenly make out with me at a party, but that hole in my CD rack where the Young Marble Giants should be is just too conspicuous.

Why are they suddenly girls now instead of "bed-head indie tarts"?

Fine, bed-head indie tarts then. Or New Balanced one-strap baggers.

this is important.

i'm not sure what ethan's cryptic last post is supposed to mean ("all is revealed." "the camel sleeps at noon in cleveland.") and the self- righteousness is a little funny from a guy who went to praise hiphop because it was the only sort of dance music which didnt sound "gay" BUT: i still think the parent article of this thread is the best piece of music writing i read in 2001. pot calling the kettle black, part of the problem not the solution, laden with bad 90s irony/sarcasm YES. but still funny. ethan, ally, otis, chris h. (where did he go?) and the random indie kids are all mentalists, true...but whither the intensity of the past?

Such a good thread -- and I stand by my prev. claim re: MOC Grrls.

"Or New Balanced one-strap baggers."

Brilliant.

Too bad the original link's been hijacked.

"intensity of the past" = so gay, jess

But the article is back up on the new FT, yo.

I didn't really like that much. there are easy targets and then there are very very fucking easy targets. why not bloody write an article slagging off westlife or something? that's really shit, it's like something I'd write.

Sorry that was a bit of a rant. it's well written and all but the subject is a bit tired i think.

On ILM the subject is a bit tired, elsewhere it's probably not. An edumacated guess from what music-crit I read nowadays, anyway.

It didn't offend me as much as I hoped. Good call on the infantilism angle though. Thats gotta be the biggest turn-off to indie girls. (Although the claim that the Buddy Holly specs are easily breakable is just wrong. I beat the crap out of mine and they hold a lot better then the thin wire frames.)

And this was written near the beginning of the ILM period, so some battles had yet to be fought.

I wasn't impressed at all, nor particularly amused, by the article. Of course indie rock has a strong component of Pod People -- that was perfectly obvious from the very first indie show I went to in Philadelphia, where everyone looked frighteningly identical and had predictably banal conversations about Godspeed You Black Emperor and the Shaggs, etc., etc., etc.

But I get no excitement out of watching someone tilt at straw men of their own making. The article falls into the very same cooler-than-thou trap that is implicitly at the heart of most problems with the indie scene -- or for that matter with any scene, since the real problem is a self-congratulatory way of thinking that's common to nearly any obnoxious, inbred milieu, and has nothing to do with horn-rims and single-sided 7-inches. The narrators' voices [1] don't convince me that they're particularly more insightful or interesting or free-thinking than the people they're critiquing, so the whole thing comes off as a nasty bit of sniping between groups who, from the article, would seem more alike than either would like to admit: they just have different signifiers. (Why trade one set of scenesters for another?) I can't help but think that the people who like this article like it because it's telling them what they already want to hear. But the problem with this article and the problem with indie and the problem with any scene are all one and the same, at heart.

To make a litany of contempt worthwhile, you have to offer an attractive alternative to what you're mocking -- otherwise it's just a series of cheap shots, really. And once you've seen a few of those, they're no longer interesting, and end up seeming like the kid at the back of the school bus who brilliantly picks apart everyone's faults but who never actually does anything of his own: once in a while he's funny, but usually all he succeeds in doing is to ensure that everyone else has less fun. People like that are a dime a dozen, but they make very little of what's worth loving in the world.

[1] (as expressed in this single piece, without regard to anything of theirs I've read elsewhere -- this isn't intended as a slam of the piece's authors)

I remember reading this piece a while ago and having no strong reaction. I'd considered it an unexceptional but unobjectionable.

That would be a year or so ago. Now, re-reading it and bearing in mind this revitalised thread, it just looks as offensive as the stereotypical comments that the (trolling?) bloke above made about fans of rap music. Actually it would be a much better piece if it was updated to describe the 'IDM' lovers who use "indiekid" to describe all music outwith their own narrow tastes.

In my experience most idm folk have been indiekids themselves at one point or another. Either that or industrial (grrr....spit). The most bothersome thing about the article I think is the "pretending to like it" claim near the end. Mainly because it could be turned back around so easily on the Popists.

i'd be inclined to agree with you bnw, but in the wider world - despite what it may seem like on ilm - admitting a love for steps or all saints or bsb will NOT get you laid (unless yr hitting on 12 yr old girls of course.) whereas a love (and the garb) of indie rock...wellllll...

The lack of scope in the authorial voice is intentional: this was not a well-thought-out critique and an offer of alternatives, it was pure and simple annoyance (which is why we chickenishly credited it to Tanya originally, who had nothing much to do with it). Of course a lot of the hatred in the piece is self-hatred as we admitted from day one (the context lacking in the piece can be found liberally across the rest of the archive, I'd hope).

It's not that good a piece - some of the charges stand up (generally the good points come from Maura, who knows the lifestyle better than I do), some are just cheap, most as Phil points out are true of any scene. The "pretending to like" jibes are intentionally unfair in a frothing "see how you like it" way. But I'm glad I did it - it was a good way to lance a couple of boils that had built up over the course of a year when FT and NYLPM had got attention and criticism from just these kind of people, and I like to think that my comments on indie *since* writing that have been more intelligent and inclusive. Some may disagree. ;)

I've read this whole thread and I've read the original article (I know I'm about 8 months late for the actual discussion!). I'm a bit confused about what an Indie Kid is though. I always thought it was just another word for alternative. I mean, when I was in high school alternative was sort of a mix between goth and punk. Every one liked The Clash, The Cure and Joy Division for example. Then it became The Pixies and Morrissey, then The Breeders and Smashing Pumpkins. Then all those people got into Techno but the younger ones were into Nirvana & Pearl Jam. Basically alternative was Punk then Goth then ?? then Grunge.

So I thought Indie = Alternative = Grunge (which is pretty mainstream but there's nothing wrong with almost all young people being alternative). But, after reading all this stuff it sounds like Indie = those who try so hard to be cool. The ones who wear 2nd hand burgundy courdroy jeans, suede runners & tee-shirts with slogans (preferably from the 70's) on them and use old, vinyl Ansett & Qantas school bags. Am I right??

Anyway, I think the problem is that because all you guys are really into music you think that the music that goes with a scene is what the scene is about. I don't think that is the case at all. The music is merely and accompaniment to the scene (although it is the easiest way to define the scene to - all you have to do is ask someone what music they are into and you can immediately make hundreds assumptions about them - usually people will name some well known bands and if they don't then you know they are a pretentious wanker which can be important information!)

I think the reason the girls tend to be less obsessive about the music than the guys is the same reason that girls tend to be less obsessive about almost everything - they don't have the time or money to be so obsessed. Girls, in general, have to spend more on clothes, make-up, hair, accessories and magazines (and probably chocolate) than guys and so they don't have as much money left over for music. Also, it is not unusual in our society for girls to have more obligations than guys in terms of home and family. Girls are still frequently expected to be pleasant, cheerful & fully functioning members of a family whereas it is acceptable for the guys to hang out in their room or with their mates listening to music etc. and not helping do the washing, cook dinner, vacuum, visit grandparents, babysit cousins, work. There are also still some families around where the parents somehow manage to justify supporting their sons through uni but the daughters are expected to work part-time (maybe the parents think their son's education is more important?). Admittedly this is probably partially due to the girls actually being able to get part-time jobs due to their advanced social skills and greater maturity.

Plastic framed glasses do not seem to be anywhere near so fragile as metal framed ones. They are more comfy too and less likely to be damaged by being thrown into your bag with no case and they done get tangled in your hair when you have them up on your head like metal ones do.

Furthermore, the Indie Kid image as described is complete bollox. It's a nice romantic image but it's fake and it's tired because it doesn't exist. If you want to get out the stereotypes we can do metallers, idm fans, radiohead fans, traditionalists, whatever, but that image of indie kids is kind of obsolete.

Something I ought to say Ronan is that the piece was about American indie kids - I talked about the attitudes (the indie online community being US-dominated I was encountering them more than British IKs), Maura gave me some background detail on look and lifestyle. Whether it applies to Ireland I've no idea - it doesn't to the UK so much at all.

that would make sense. it must be totally different though, really radically different, I mean what Jess said about liking indie music getting you laid was just an insane notion to me. It's the complete opposite over here. the "indie kids" here are just sort of odd quiet people who are obsessed with a few big name bands, manics, maybe radiohead, and the odd traditionalist pink floyd, beatles, doors sort of fan.

I don't know if Britain is different from Ireland in this respect, but the people buying the sort of middling crap that seems to go under the "indie" label here are not really part of any scene at all. the markers have been changed so much with the huge growth in the pop industry, that popular (ish) rock is very very accessible to the average 18, 19, 20 year old. So we're talking alot of the Coldplay clones, aswell as Coldplay, U2 perhaps, Charlatans, that type of thing, Travis. the fans are just your average lad types. I get the impression Britain might be like this too from magazines and the like.

ronan...well, yr not gonna get laid by anyone other than indie gurls or boys...and a sad state of affairs it is. (not that, um, i know anything about this mind you...) the article is pretty dead on re. indie kids in america, the stereotype that is. and no. it's not dead. not by a long shot. i have no idea what "indie kid" means in other countries...but i have to assume it's pretty damn odd.

RIP to Eazy E, the E, one of the best hip-hopsters of all time

The Australian variant of the UK indie kids seem to be mainly Belle & Sebastian fans intermingled with a bit of Mod/Glam/ Northern Soul/Strokes action. And they most certainly exist, are as cliched as any other subculture and deserve as much healthy mocking - I know that the common practice for indie kidz on a Thursday night after the indie klubz close is to go to the local metal/industrial/grunge hang-out and (discreetly) jeer, so why not? We're talking about cheap gags here, so being determined not to lower yourself to everyone else's level will only get you so far.