MTV VMAs 2011

he didn't

I guess you can sit there and argue until you're blue in the face about how a pack of black kids becoming famous for nihilistic, violent lyrics and blatant real-life misogyny during their stage show is a new, startling development in the perception of young black people in America but it's a position dripping with so much blind white privilege and outright stupidity that I really didn't think anyone on this site would get behind it; congrats on your devil's advocacy, I guess?

He says faggot like a 19 year old Ron Paul supporter yelling at his World Of Warcraft game.

this doesn't really help against the "fuck Tyler" line of reasoning.

white devils advocacy

a pack of black kids becoming famous for nihilistic, violent lyrics primarily inspired by the recorded output of a multi-platinum, ubiquitous white rapper

Dan, I obv don't want to dismiss how you feel personally about how OFWGKTA represents the black community or whatever. That's important to you and obv something I can't speak to.

But I mean to the majority of people who actually know OF lyrics they are a product of the predominately white Pitchfork/Vice/Thrasher/Fader culture. To anyone that DOESNT know their music, they presented themselves at the VMAs as industry suckup toadies psyched to get a meaningless award.

I don't disagree with any of that; the difference is that I see that as even more problematic in terms of the ardor with which they're being embraced. For some hard-to-divine reason*, I find it really really really REALLY problematic when the white press falls all over themselves to praise some kid whose music I don't really like anyway and cite as the main reason how willing he is to talk about how viciously he want to mistreat women and how easy it is for him to drop homophobic slurs.

We've already told Chris Brown that it is totally cool and okay for him to have smacked Rihanna silly because hey we weren't there and she probably had it coming. I don't think it's particularly cool or a good idea to tell Tyler it's totally cool and okay for him to frame his entire artistic persona as a nihilistic, woman-hating shit.

* yes I read your first paragraph

I think I am incapable of being shocked by any degree of nihilism/mysogyny/homophobia/take your pick in popular music, it's been the lingua franca for my entire adult life

and that's a bad trend, and odd future aren't helping

I've been meaning to write an essay on this for a while. I honestly think there is some new-millennial Norman Mailer shit going on where the white press is fawning over dude because he likes Toro Y Moi and skateboarding and slasher flicks and Vice magazine—stuff white ppl consider THEIR culture. Like when a cool black dude comes out and co-signs our obsessions, it VALIDATES the white hipster "culture" (lol) in a weird way, and ppl can't wait to tell everyone.

Remember how everyone went BATSHIT because Jay-Z went to a Grizzly Bear show?

And I think think Vibe putting Chris Brown on the cover is 1000x worse than Stereogum posting about a kid who says fag

the press for odd future & the press for chris brown are still largely two different entities

yeah

and that's a bad trend, and odd future aren't helping

sure, but really they're small potatoes in terms of why this kind of stuff has had such an enduring popularity. I mean, there are much bigger targets.

xp

I'm more inclined to blame things like the music industry itself, the lowest-common-denominator audience they pander to (stupid white teenage boys and girls, mostly), the press, etc. than I am the artists themselves. artists are relatively powerless compared to these forces imho.

powerless like Rihanna

chris brown can mostly be blamed on the industry itself -- no one in that realm decided to freeze him out, and the mainstream press eventually got in line bcuz they cover what is popular

I've been meaning to write an essay on this for a while. I honestly think there is some new-millennial Norman Mailer shit going on where the white press is fawning over dude because he likes Toro Y Moi and skateboarding and slasher flicks and Vice magazine—stuff white ppl consider THEIR culture. Like when a cool black dude comes out and co-signs our obsessions, it VALIDATES the white hipster "culture" (lol) in a weird way, and ppl can't wait to tell everyone.

I don't understand the impulse to write an article about this unless it is a historical piece tracing all of the instances of this exact same fetishization curve back through human history.

xp: white ppl are not entirely to blame for Chris Brown, but I don't think white people are entirely to blame for Odd Future either; however, yelling at white people about how black people need to stop supporting scumbags isn't really going to accomplish much unless all the white ppl are secretly hiding whips, waiting for the opening to re-establish slavery

xpost, yeah, i think its fucking disgusting that the only person to take a stand against Chris Brown was Jay-Z. everyone is greedy as fuck and didn't want to miss a potential revenue stream

(stupid white teenage boys and girls, mostly)

Sometimes I'm tempted to dismiss this as some strawman, but I spent a late night train ride the other night stuck between a group of 18, 19 year old kids (both male and female, all white) throwing around the f-word in question here and, more obnoxiously, the n-word, obliviously for the entire train ride.

I don't understand the impulse to write an article about this unless it is a historical piece tracing all of the instances of this exact same fetishization curve back through human history.

well, this is the INDIE ROCK GENERATION lmfao version. What was the Gen X version?

anyway, what dan is saying is interesting, but there's two things at work here. as it pertains to odd future being embraced by white, indie audiences, i think there is certainly a kernel of truth in the idea (dan is echoing cord jefferson here) that it is partly because that audience is attracted to black, male rage because it's a way to feel dangerous w/o actually being dangerous. BUT, as it pertains to odd future being embraced by the mainstream writ large -- the vmas, kanye west, etc -- it's because they break a lot of stereotypes as to what we expect to see and hear from our popular rappers

I mean, white hipsters were all gung ho about Ice T liking Black Sabbath or whatever in the 90s; but they were on board with stylistically similar stuff like Geto Boys and Schoolly D any way. The Band Of Horses blogger crowd seems really AMAZED that tyler says fag which shows they're not really listening to much rap until someone dresses like them and reads the same magazines as them (see also, Kanye West)

yeah, as i said to the Cord piece, the idea of white ppl being entranced by the "black rage" of Odd Future is like saying they're really feeling the "black angst" of TV On The Radio

lol wait really

the Hispanic rage in Pitbull.

the Jacksonvillian rage in Black Kids

the Oompa Loompa rage in Ronnie James Dio

the Puerto Rican cha-chas of J-Lo.

lol-lols

okay I don't know why I dismissed Odd Future based on the way you guys talked about them before, but based on you all essentially being like "they're like a young black better version of ICP" here I looked up "Orange Juice" and holy shit I should have been up on this earlier

― Indolence Mission (DJP), Friday, January 7, 2011

lol and by proxy I now like "Lemonade" a lot more than I ever did

although I still hate the way Gucci sounds

― Indolence Mission (DJP), Friday, January 7, 2011

I think the thing I am most furious about right now is that I've only checked out two things on this list and I've loved them both, completely throwing into disarray my baseline assumption that I hate modern hip-hop.

(the other being "Respect It")

― Indolence Mission (DJP), Friday, January 7, 2011

golden days

zomg I changed my mind, clearly that invalidates any opinion I might choose to express

I mean, I can play this game too:

I think the unanswerable question here is "are their 'acceptable' songs good enough to offset the degree to which you react negatively to their 'unacceptable' songs?"

― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 1:28 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

[...]

yeah okay basically I just hate Tyler

― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 1:36 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

(lol "just")

― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 1:37 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah I hate Tyler

― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 2:29 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

he's like a wholly repellent Method Man

― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 2:30 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

clearly not trolling at all

― crazy donkey winger (forksclovetofu), Friday, May 20, 2011 3:51 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

Who mentioned "vibe" earlier? I am not getting a trolling vibe. Sorry. I appreciate a good troll as much as anyone but not feeling it with this dude. Sorry. Maybe I'm just not getting the "joke" this time.

― \(^o\) (/o^)/ (ENBB), Friday, May 20, 2011 3:54 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

or maybe there's no joke to get

― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 3:54 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

sometimes, and I say this in full knowledge of the language I am using, you have to call a spade a spade

― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 3:54 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

but hey, I said I liked two songs in January, clearly I secretly adore everything about Odd Future

Found a way to make this group disappear:

http://www.turnofftheinternet.com/

Worked for MTV years ago.

I've been meaning to write an essay on this for a while. I honestly think there is some new-millennial Norman Mailer shit going on where the white press is fawning over dude because he likes Toro Y Moi and skateboarding and slasher flicks and Vice magazine—stuff white ppl consider THEIR culture. Like when a cool black dude comes out and co-signs our obsessions, it VALIDATES the white hipster "culture" (lol) in a weird way, and ppl can't wait to tell everyone.

Remember how everyone went BATSHIT because Jay-Z went to a Grizzly Bear show?

― step your 'îron game up, jamie xx (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, August 29, 2011 12:21 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

but i'm supposedly the guy who wets his pants with ejaculate when N.O.R.E. says "Creed"

Like when a cool black dude comes out and co-signs our obsessions, it VALIDATES the white hipster "culture" (lol) in a weird way, and ppl can't wait to tell everyone.

http://www.solarnavigator.net/music/music_images/Jimi_Hendrix_on_stage_fender_stratocaster.jpg

some dude I love that display name

ha thanks

although once again your display name puts your post into an uncomfortable context

anyway, what dan is saying is interesting, but there's two things at work here. as it pertains to odd future being embraced by white, indie audiences, i think there is certainly a kernel of truth in the idea (dan is echoing cord jefferson here) that it is partly because that audience is attracted to black, male rage because it's a way to feel dangerous w/o actually being dangerous. BUT, as it pertains to odd future being embraced by the mainstream writ large -- the vmas, kanye west, etc -- it's because they break a lot of stereotypes as to what we expect to see and hear from our popular rappers

― J0rdan S., Monday, August 29, 2011 12:30 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

i don't think "rage" is OF's selling point at all, otherwise their audience would listen to a lot of other rappers for whom anger/rage (whether political or whatever) is a much more defining trait. i think a lot of their fanbase mainly sees them as harmless skinny college-age kids who wear ironic kitten t-shirts and have barely worked a job (legal or illegal) a day in their lives, i.e. not very different after all. the infantile "facebook is being such a faggot right now deleting my page" anger lends a frisson of edginess to what they do but it's not the main selling point the way it was for, like, KoRn and their fanbase in the '90s.

yeah rage isn't really accurate. it's the casual nihilism, the standard "I don't give a FUCK" stance

whatever it is it's really boring

but i'm supposedly the guy who wets his pants with ejaculate when N.O.R.E. says "Creed"

― ✇ ruehl (some dude), Monday, August 29, 2011 4:03 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i literally told you twice what I meant by that

i literally am covered with sperm i'm so excited to not let you forget saying that anytime soon

come on, al!

I feel like I should say something here

hey don't bring up a guy's jizz unless you want him to literally rub your nose in it