The word that follows no is left blank because I began listing off a number of things that ticked me off about the current “creative production” and “artistry”.
No, I’m not done beating the dead horse. Why? Because people stay doing the same tactics till this day! The lack of ___ never stops running.
For now, I leave the blank to your imagination.
I’ve seen countless essays regurgitating the rise of electronic music and party culture, coinciding with recession. I do believe history repeats itself, however, it sometimes feels impossible to escape the nostalgia fetish loop in the contemporary.
I, myself, am sporting American Apparel this summer. Controversial, I know, but it did feel like paying homage to a 13 year old self. It is a funny process too, seeing young tween and teen girls step foot in their first Brandy Melville.
In an innocuous way, I felt a relief things didn’t become drastically different. Yes, later Gen-Zs and Alphas are a lot more technologically ept and rotted than us from a younger age, but it is still good to know they are just girls too. I met an 18 year old at the LCD show and he let me hit his vape. He was born in 2006, and I was freaking out in my mind. They are perhaps facing an even more difficult experience of humanhood, of deciding who they want to be as an individual, but also as a person in relation to others.
Re-directing myself back to what I meant for these paragraphs to say, there is a way out of hell.
Quoting my own create mode🤣:
“While white people have cooked sometimes throughout history but so much of the avant garde negates politics, race and gender. Creative production loosely referencing the sociopolitical state with no punch. With no backbone. Oh we live in a society so what. Like yeah you tore that distorted sickly body/object image but how’s this any more experimental than mid 20th century Japanese photography documenting the aftermaths of Hiroshima? How is this of more prestige than the political graphics made for the 1970s Chicano Moratorium? Ok the Dada-esque photomontage of dictators and authoritarians was kind of fab but why weren’t women or people of color even allowed in the room. The True Avant-Garde, according to me, must engage with nuance, context and political resistance. Everyone can be an artist, sure, but often lazily.”
To be honest, this is not even a white person thing. I see artists of marginalized communities step on their own to get on top. Because money is everything. A desire to fit a puzzle piece and a hunger to be the most “forward” (which has been done, by the way) in trends and style dressing almost feels like a fragile glass portal to a person who have no idea who they are. You are devoid of any thing that truly excites you, just what the people you regard as cool tell you what is on the zeitgeist menu.
It’s kind of a clock because like, get your shit together. There is a clock that is ticking, riveting and waiting for us to collapse.
Tick
Tick
Tick
Tick
Tick
Tick
Tick
Look at yourself and wonder, is this who I really am? Have I rid of myself of everything that made life interesting for me? Am I living for the applause?
The most annoying part to me is the proclamation that “no one’s done this shit before”, because probably somebody has, and did it better. There is nothing wrong with having references, in fact, the multitude of it is what makes art so great. Monumental movements always involve the process of learning from one another, celebrating similarities, that allow way for new, exciting things to arise. Even communities in opposition create a tug-and-pull that is interesting (although not entirely positive sometimes) for innovation. Shocker, it won’t be a Pinterest board, TikTok or your favorite Instagram artist blended in an organic smoothie with spiralina and matcha. You are not an archetype or a core. You are a person with an ability to constantly evolve.
It is important for young people to develop a sense of selfhood, outside of everything the world tells them they’re supposed to know, especially in a very volatile state of the world. Also, it’s totally cool to embrace a trend and love being apart of the masses. That is important too, to be apart of a tribe and sheeple. Just accept and don’t deny that you’re too good for it. None of us are because consuming is fun sometimes! That acceptance feels more real to me than—-adapting archetypes of esoterism or subcultures when you have no idea the history, the community, that cultivated a space for you to express yourself in that way in the first place. Laziness is ruining us. Performing a self without understanding it first is a gun.
Tell me your favorite memory with Helvetica Bold. I’m not asking you to be a typographer, I’m asking how the font correlates with your individual vision. Drop the girls in “cunty” Americana, flashing lights without knowing how lighting creates a story, running without ever taking a step first. Lose all your marbles tonight.
I’m not saying don’t dance, I’m saying dance with your ass out and your heart in it. I’m not saying don’t-listen-to-snow-strippers-wear-sequin-heroin-chic-hedi-drug-habit, I’m saying stand on that fact that you are just like them. Just making sure I don’t fit in…but also do…is a hard life to live.
Live in the moment, viva la vida. Do you want digital photos of nothing “vibes” or a youth that is lived authentically?
I realized I never even filled in the blank, but you get what I’m saying.
Sorry, a lot of you statements in these paragraphs, so don’t take it too personally. Or do, because you love catching the heat.
Xoxo,
CGFOTY
shari wei 