One boy dreams of starting a buzzband which garners critical acclaim from multiple blogsites.And on and on extends the list of entirely predictable modalities of selling out. The pursuit of personal credibility in the circles Carles here anatomizes is nothing more than the amassing of social capital deemed valuable by the culture industry. The success of these alts in developing their own personalities to their heart;s content is proportional to the degree that everyday life is stripped of its meaning, its revolutionary potential for the rest of us.
One girl dreams of becoming an alt model
One boy dreams of starting a t-shirt line
One girl dreams of ‘becoming the next Karen O/M.I.A.’
One alt dreams of opening up the best alternative nightclub in town
One alt dreams of starting the blogosphere’s next great influential website, making millions of AmAppy dollars from banner ads
One alt dreams of starting a zany twitter/tumblr meme blog and getting a book deal...
The alts, as Carles notes ruefully by adopting their voice, mean to use us as their running dogs:
We moved to this cityIf we can't be assimilated into their networks and sapped of our creative ideas for new trends and new uses for consumer goods -- flattery will be their bait (we are after all, as Carles imagines them saying, "fascinating human beings with similar interests being inspired by life") -- then we will be run out of their neighborhoods in their town.
to ‘run this town’
and I gotta feeling
(that 2nites gonna be a good nite)
and also
that if we keep networking
having fun
meeting fascinating human beings with similar interests
being inspired by life
good things will come our way.
Carles asks in conclusion, "What is ur biggest alternative dream?" His implied answer: purging the world of the the very concept of alt and forging a truly transformative revolutionary praxis that involves a sterner commitment beyond a willingness to lie in a gutter.
this website is the biggest piece of coattail-riding bullshit i've ever read
ReplyDeletePoor matt. Do you think that HRO is serious? Perhaps you feel confused that you have so wholeheartedly embraced the concept of 'alt' through HRO without even realizing that Carles is critiquing it. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with how revolutionary ideas are spread today. Carles is making some radical points on his blog, and enticing people to read it through humor, pictures, and dissecting different topics he knows people will want to read about. However, sometimes his points are hard to deconstruct and confusing. This website does a crucial service in taking the ideas behind HRO to interpret and expand upon them.
ReplyDeleteYour interpretation of "coattail-riding" potentially silences the spread of revolutionary thought. You have rationalized the notion of individuality to the point that you weigh uniqueness and originality over the potential credibility of ideas themselves. If you consider yourself a hipster or alt, then you are another sheep, and a hypocritical one at that. Are you riding the coattails of new buzzbands and cultural legitimators like Pitchfork? Or are you embracing any distracting cyclical fashion trends? Join us, ride our coattails, embrace a truly alternative dream beyond alt and hipster.
i wholly understand the satirical nature of HRO, but am just annoyed with anyone who thinks they need to stand in as a middleman to express their own infallible interpretation of Crls to the huddled interweb masses.
ReplyDeleteI have never read anything on your site that is not a obtuse, oversimplified, or just plain retarded.
Wouldn't it be more culturally enriching for you to write your own critique of contemporary subcultures instead of leeching off the brand that another blogger has already established.
so...'crucially service' my nut-sack please and go back to studying for your GRE, you self-important piece of internet debris.
1. I am not the writer of this blog.
ReplyDelete2. The writer has never claimed to be "infallible." He is aware that he is interpreting the ideas of Carles, and has made it clear on many occassions that on some points he may very well be off. You have somehow just convinced yourself that you know the intent of the author, with no justifiable reason to do such.
3. Why is it important to be culturally enriching? Did you even read the post we are commenting about? The desire to be cultured is merely a vapid acquisition of social capital invented by the culture industry.
4. Once again, this blog is spreading ideas beyond your conceptions of stealing brands and established modes of thought. Not only is this process essential to any revolutionary movement, but HRO Exegesis isn't even copying the work of Carles. As I mentioned in my last post, there are various fundamental distinctions between the two sites that make each important modes of "transformative revolutionary praxis."
5. Your insult regarding my nut sack only embarrasses yourself and reveals your immaturity and ignorance. I hate to break it to you, but you are the one lying in the gutter, the true piece of internet debris who is trapped in counterrevolutionary modes of thought.
6. Your assumption that I am studying for my GRE is wrong. In fact, I am still in high school.
he's talking about HIS nutsack
ReplyDeleteWell, I for one always assumed this blog was ironic and openly mocking of the meaningless circle-jerking of academia. Possibly another alias of Carles himself. But the more I read, the more I realize there is a lot of completely valid interpretation going on here, relevant too considering how ambiguous HRO is. The ultra-academic terms used here are sort of hilarious in the oh-so-down-to-earth blogosphere, but it's all good stuff. I'm truly interested in "purging the world of the the very concept of alt and forging a truly transformative revolutionary praxis that involves a sterner commitment beyond a willingness to lie in a gutter."
ReplyDeletei'm right, yall
ReplyDelete<3 HRO exey!!!
ReplyDeleteJJ you can put the straw men down, matt's obviously just saying he thinks the writing here on the posts is self-serving, unproductive, and douchy. I appreciate this site and obviously read it sometimes but the writing is extraordinarily and needlessly verbose (Hegel is in some ways much easier to read), and I don't know that it's really all that revolutionary since it doesn't seem especially invested in broad issues of global or class justice. You could interject that our author Rob is bound by the Carles posts, but it's pretty obvious that his posts represent are major deviations from what Carles is writing about. Rob has a lot of interesting stuff to say on popmatters, which I'd recommend you look into.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, the fact that matt mentions branding doesn't mean he can only think in terms of it, and the fact that he wants something socially useful doesn't mean that he's a slave to the culture industry.
PS the 'culture industry' has nothing to do with high/low culture, if you're familiar with the Adorno / Horkheimer essay which as far I know inaugurated the term, you'd know that the culture industry actually refers to mass standardized cultural products, which A&H contrast with highbrow/lowbrow systems.
It's awesome you're into crit theory and you're only in high school, but this is not really revolutionary - go to Chomsky, even Zizek they have tons of shit on youtube that is at once much more simple and much more radical.
@ Kevin, where can I get my hands on these straw men you speak of.
ReplyDeleteThink u mean fetishized, not reified. :(
ReplyDeleteno i think reified is correct. someone who has "reified their attempts..." is, according to marx, humanizing an inanimate object, something which hro believes "alts" do, mistakenly or otherwise. i agree with this explanation.
ReplyDeletefuck whatever this is
ReplyDeleteyall dont 'get shit'