And now for another breaking announcement. It’s basically old news at this point, but I feel compelled to weigh in on the "drag queen story hour" debacle in progress, mostly to make some broader points about subcultures in general. And before I scare anyone away, I should start by saying that no part of any criticism I might have is a conservative one on behalf of mine or other people's children. On the contrary. There is something incredibly lame to me about trying to turn anything that was once as cool as drag culture was into a Disney show. But I'm already getting ahead of myself.
Excellent piece. Some disconnected thoughts I had while reading:
This is why Paris is Burning is cool but RuPauls Drag Race is lame. Or why the Ramones are cool but Simple Plan is lame. Or the first time you saw someone do a choreographed dance during wedding party introductions it was cool, but the 100th was stupid and cringy. Its why Comicon in 2002 is very different, culturally, than Comicon in 2023. Or why saying "Im a nerd, I love Star Wars" means something very different in 2023 than it did in 1983. "Normalizing" definitely ruins things. I am not one for "authenticity" (its what I hate most about the Punk Music scene), but there is definitely something lost when a subculture becomes part of the main culture.
I think we have all experienced being interested in some topic or hobby that isn't popular that then gets popular and having a strong negative reaction to this popularity. Seems to me this is a personal, localized, example of what you are describing.
I was also reminded of the society described in The Giver. Yes the society regularly euthanizes infants and the elderly for population control, but thats pretty tame for sci-fi distopias. To me the worst part of the society was how *boring* it was. Absolutely nothing interesting about it. Pleasant to an extreme, like eating sugary foods all day everyday. You just can't live that way.
When I used to teach undergrad film studies I'd use Todd Haynes' (remarkable and brilliant!) 'Poison' for the week on queer theory... I found the undergrad students increasingly wanted to write about films like 'Love Simon' or 'Call Me By Your Name' etc. and... I basically felt they were LGBTQ* or gay cinema, but not really transgressive enough to be //queer// cinema. At the same time, I felt that only being bisexually leaning and in long-term relationships with, largely, women... I had less authority that the 18-year-olds who often used different pronouns and identified themselves openly as belonging to an LGBTQ* identity... though they largely liked Marvel and Disney and Star Wars.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this overall lack of counterculture, and as someone too young to have been involved with punk or goth or metal scenes before they got mainstreamed, it leaves me in a weird place where I don’t know how to rebel when there are no cultural signifiers for me to use. The main form of visible counterculture now seems to be the LGBT aesthetic (which is adopted by a subgroup of the LGBT community, and not by most of the gay or trans people I know). Dying your hair, piercings, dressing subversively etc is increasingly associated with LGBT youth. The frustrating thing is that rather than trying to be subversive, the desire seems to be for normalization. So how do you express your distaste and subvert mass culture when the arbiters of mass culture (liberals) who were formally “the squares” have been trained to have a sympathetic eye toward visible “counterculture.”
It's the same in every subculture. I think gay marriage was a splitting point in the queer community; the assimilationist "white picket fence and 2.5 kids" faction won out over the "queer as in fuck the system" side. So now the punk-ish can't/won't fit in crowd is stuck on the fringes of the movement they kept alive for decades, unsure what to do. Meanwhile the now-"normal" crowd is trying to legitimize all the less-photogenic sides of the community by pretending it's all perfectly natural, always been that way...of course there's always been 36 genders, the evidence just got hidden by the patriarchy...
>don't bring your kids to these events. Problem solved.
I think the broader fight is not one this sentiment is a solution for. Increasingly some of these views and cultural practices conservatives are very uncomfortable with are popping up in places situations where they don't expect them or the norm is to overall be less provocative (public schools/libraries/etc.)
If you don't like it don't go, is a good response to someone complaining about DQSH or DEI nonsense at the local Pride Parade, or at the Democratic Dads of Dallas mixer. It is another thing entirely at a supposedly non-partisan "normal" day care of public library.
For example I took issue with my children's daycare having a (very milquetoast) prayer at lunch, and a regular pledge to the flag. Those were cultural practices I didn't like, and I let the daycare know, and I spoke out against them when appropriate or they asked for feedback. But all told I figured it was worth it to go there.
Similarly I absolutely would take the same actions against DQSH if it made an appearance there, except in that case I would be held up as some intolerant bigot.
>whose sole purpose is to defy and reject the idea of what normal is in the first place.
~80% of this movement is literally about the some portion of teenagers want something to really piss off their parents/society about, and there is tolerance now of kissing boys, and blue hair, and tattoos. So now you need to want your tits cut off. Its the next frontier in being a moody, self-centered asshole. But even worse than tattoos because the changes are even more permanent (yes tattoos are mostly quite dumb).
This is a smart explanation, and I like it. I often wish conservatives could embrace what appears from outside the core argument. In this case, rather than maudling about harm to children I'd appreciate a simple statement such as "these people are weirdos and should be dealt with appropriately." It might not mark a person as 'one of the good set' to want to punish others for being different, but after all one is in good company: every previous society did this as much as it had power to do.
Excellent piece. Some disconnected thoughts I had while reading:
This is why Paris is Burning is cool but RuPauls Drag Race is lame. Or why the Ramones are cool but Simple Plan is lame. Or the first time you saw someone do a choreographed dance during wedding party introductions it was cool, but the 100th was stupid and cringy. Its why Comicon in 2002 is very different, culturally, than Comicon in 2023. Or why saying "Im a nerd, I love Star Wars" means something very different in 2023 than it did in 1983. "Normalizing" definitely ruins things. I am not one for "authenticity" (its what I hate most about the Punk Music scene), but there is definitely something lost when a subculture becomes part of the main culture.
I think we have all experienced being interested in some topic or hobby that isn't popular that then gets popular and having a strong negative reaction to this popularity. Seems to me this is a personal, localized, example of what you are describing.
I was also reminded of the society described in The Giver. Yes the society regularly euthanizes infants and the elderly for population control, but thats pretty tame for sci-fi distopias. To me the worst part of the society was how *boring* it was. Absolutely nothing interesting about it. Pleasant to an extreme, like eating sugary foods all day everyday. You just can't live that way.
When I used to teach undergrad film studies I'd use Todd Haynes' (remarkable and brilliant!) 'Poison' for the week on queer theory... I found the undergrad students increasingly wanted to write about films like 'Love Simon' or 'Call Me By Your Name' etc. and... I basically felt they were LGBTQ* or gay cinema, but not really transgressive enough to be //queer// cinema. At the same time, I felt that only being bisexually leaning and in long-term relationships with, largely, women... I had less authority that the 18-year-olds who often used different pronouns and identified themselves openly as belonging to an LGBTQ* identity... though they largely liked Marvel and Disney and Star Wars.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this overall lack of counterculture, and as someone too young to have been involved with punk or goth or metal scenes before they got mainstreamed, it leaves me in a weird place where I don’t know how to rebel when there are no cultural signifiers for me to use. The main form of visible counterculture now seems to be the LGBT aesthetic (which is adopted by a subgroup of the LGBT community, and not by most of the gay or trans people I know). Dying your hair, piercings, dressing subversively etc is increasingly associated with LGBT youth. The frustrating thing is that rather than trying to be subversive, the desire seems to be for normalization. So how do you express your distaste and subvert mass culture when the arbiters of mass culture (liberals) who were formally “the squares” have been trained to have a sympathetic eye toward visible “counterculture.”
It's the same in every subculture. I think gay marriage was a splitting point in the queer community; the assimilationist "white picket fence and 2.5 kids" faction won out over the "queer as in fuck the system" side. So now the punk-ish can't/won't fit in crowd is stuck on the fringes of the movement they kept alive for decades, unsure what to do. Meanwhile the now-"normal" crowd is trying to legitimize all the less-photogenic sides of the community by pretending it's all perfectly natural, always been that way...of course there's always been 36 genders, the evidence just got hidden by the patriarchy...
>don't bring your kids to these events. Problem solved.
I think the broader fight is not one this sentiment is a solution for. Increasingly some of these views and cultural practices conservatives are very uncomfortable with are popping up in places situations where they don't expect them or the norm is to overall be less provocative (public schools/libraries/etc.)
If you don't like it don't go, is a good response to someone complaining about DQSH or DEI nonsense at the local Pride Parade, or at the Democratic Dads of Dallas mixer. It is another thing entirely at a supposedly non-partisan "normal" day care of public library.
For example I took issue with my children's daycare having a (very milquetoast) prayer at lunch, and a regular pledge to the flag. Those were cultural practices I didn't like, and I let the daycare know, and I spoke out against them when appropriate or they asked for feedback. But all told I figured it was worth it to go there.
Similarly I absolutely would take the same actions against DQSH if it made an appearance there, except in that case I would be held up as some intolerant bigot.
>whose sole purpose is to defy and reject the idea of what normal is in the first place.
~80% of this movement is literally about the some portion of teenagers want something to really piss off their parents/society about, and there is tolerance now of kissing boys, and blue hair, and tattoos. So now you need to want your tits cut off. Its the next frontier in being a moody, self-centered asshole. But even worse than tattoos because the changes are even more permanent (yes tattoos are mostly quite dumb).
exactly!
https://www.npr.org/2011/05/27/136616845/john-waters-reflects-on-his-role-models
This is a smart explanation, and I like it. I often wish conservatives could embrace what appears from outside the core argument. In this case, rather than maudling about harm to children I'd appreciate a simple statement such as "these people are weirdos and should be dealt with appropriately." It might not mark a person as 'one of the good set' to want to punish others for being different, but after all one is in good company: every previous society did this as much as it had power to do.