We should keep paying lip service to youth culture out of respect, ’til the last of the baby boomers either die or are too senile to complain. But after that, let’s bury it with them and get back to building upon the shoulders of giants, as was done from time immemorial before the worst of all sins became “whatever your parents did.”
It bothered me, too, but a filmmaker pointed out to me that before we had the Internet Countercultural Elite, we had the Urban Countercultural Elite. The Internet is inherently elitist, socioeconomically speaking, but it at least lets rural artists in on the game.
Now we’re all just fighting over who’s more aware of our own depravity. The next real counterculture movement is going to champion extreme optimism. Or maybe not.
DoubleW, I think the point here is that when mass culture or “high” culture ceases to be relevant, so does the idea of a counterculture. It’s like you need an easily identifiable mainstream in order to have an easily identifiable “underground.” I think that’s what Dorothy’s been getting at on this comic for awhile, although I may be wrong in my interpretation.
So there won’t be a “next real counterculture movement.” And what was ever subversive about extreme optimism anyway?
Yes, the one can be distinguished from the other. That it may be more difficult for you (or me) just means that our vantage point is awry. Or, in my case, I’m getting older.
@geoff – Yeah, that occurred to me about an hour after I posted. Whoops. I was kind of being sarcastic about the “next counterculture movement”. I was thinking that since everyone just loves pointing out our flaws and inhumanity, that the only way to move against the grain (what I was thinking of as ‘counterculture’) would be having unrelenting optimism.
You know, if anyone goes back to read these comments now that there’s a new comic.
October 22, 2009
We should keep paying lip service to youth culture out of respect, ’til the last of the baby boomers either die or are too senile to complain. But after that, let’s bury it with them and get back to building upon the shoulders of giants, as was done from time immemorial before the worst of all sins became “whatever your parents did.”
Honestly. What a stupid idea.
October 22, 2009
(that last sentence can easily be read either way, depending on your sympathies!)
October 22, 2009
oh god, I already say ‘to the internet’ mixing it with creswell just makes it worse. groaan.
October 22, 2009
It bothered me, too, but a filmmaker pointed out to me that before we had the Internet Countercultural Elite, we had the Urban Countercultural Elite. The Internet is inherently elitist, socioeconomically speaking, but it at least lets rural artists in on the game.
October 22, 2009
And Marfa doesn’t count.
October 22, 2009
But the Countercultural Elite could once be distinguished from the Cultural Elite. Can it be now?
October 22, 2009
Oi, trying to read this one’s giving me a headache; the split dialogues of Cat and Girl are unusually hard to follow.
October 22, 2009
Hahaha, see, it’s funny because they are already spending their lives on the Internet. You know, because they are comic characters. GET IT?
Oh, wait, there’s another point to this? Lemme read it again.
October 22, 2009
There’s too many people on the internet for me to want to live there. I’m moving to the post office, I hear it’s nice and quiet there.
October 22, 2009
Now we’re all just fighting over who’s more aware of our own depravity. The next real counterculture movement is going to champion extreme optimism. Or maybe not.
October 22, 2009
DoubleW, I think the point here is that when mass culture or “high” culture ceases to be relevant, so does the idea of a counterculture. It’s like you need an easily identifiable mainstream in order to have an easily identifiable “underground.” I think that’s what Dorothy’s been getting at on this comic for awhile, although I may be wrong in my interpretation.
So there won’t be a “next real counterculture movement.” And what was ever subversive about extreme optimism anyway?
October 22, 2009
Cat appears to be smoking ceci n’est pas une pipe in the frame with Eurocentric Great Art. Lovely.
October 22, 2009
Yes, the one can be distinguished from the other. That it may be more difficult for you (or me) just means that our vantage point is awry. Or, in my case, I’m getting older.
October 22, 2009
The pictures are still big.
It’s me that got small.
October 23, 2009
Just remember: Oprah and Rupert Murdoch are the Cultural Elite, Sean Combs and Eric Bauman are the Countercultural Elite.
October 23, 2009
@geoff – Yeah, that occurred to me about an hour after I posted. Whoops. I was kind of being sarcastic about the “next counterculture movement”. I was thinking that since everyone just loves pointing out our flaws and inhumanity, that the only way to move against the grain (what I was thinking of as ‘counterculture’) would be having unrelenting optimism.
You know, if anyone goes back to read these comments now that there’s a new comic.
October 7, 2013
The culture-counter elite of the Internet where everything is for sale in one way or another.