Screw This, Ban Me

[Spencer]

i'm fairly certain this will be interpreted as me thinking myself superior to everyone

I don't think so at all. What it all boils down to is common sense. Fewer and fewer people have it, and it's been replaced with what I'd like to call internet sense. Sometimes (albeit rarely) the two senses play nice and we have awesomeness that is (the good) SZ. Remove most of the common and we now have pretty much everywhere else on the internet.

[tg76]

when i was at art school the head of the painting department used to watch shortland street (local soap opera) religiously, when asked why he replied "because its brain dead, it gives me time to switch off from all of you before i can start on me"
lurking and posting on fashion forums used to be a source of inspiration and information for me, then it became my brain dead habit. lately ive started watching shortland street instead. after long days of real teen dramas, pregnant 13 year olds as the result of assault etc i cant stomach the petty bitchiness that has taken over from the lighthearted play that used to amuse me in the chatty threads.
maybe im just too old (fashioned)

[jcotteri]

The problem there's a clear line in the sand here sometimes. The higher ups and longtime members seem to relish the more expensive brands. I understand that. It's a matter of quality in materials and craftsmanship.
But if your tastes are deemed too low on here, you're ridiculed and if you're buying straight Atelier gear, you're just a rich consumer.
Double standard, not cool. But it exists.

not always the case

Inspired by a recent Chant fit. Minus the certian labels which is obvious:

/\ nice.

really like the outfit move ment. its good to see a nice fitting outfit minus the certain labels looking good. the fit is always the most important.

Thought I might as well post here for once. On the way home from work...

you, sir, are a true ninja.
and your photo, shitty camera and all, delivers by far more mood and steez than the considerable number of those who came before. seriously, you should post more.

here are two on the same page... Also there are many people who post their own creations

[Avantster]

problem with that is the amount of digging it would take. the best thing about sz is how un-compartmentalised and organic it is - great conversations spring up in double digits and fizzle out within the same thread. i can't really recall them off the top of my head, but there has been a lot of very good conversations amongst knowledgeable people. thats what i like about this place, i guess.. it'd be very hard to distil that, but those who have followed the forum for any length of time have probably noticed that aspect by now.

sure, i'd be willing to give it a shot, but would need help! surely you can't deny the value of taking those great dynamic moments and capturing them as static patterns of value so that they may be preserved, rather than have them lost.. after all, that's what a forum is for, no?

[Avantster]

that could work! of course it could be rather mammoth task, but there's definitely something to this idea. perhaps simply a link to the existing posts or threads would do. the difficult part would be how to classify them..

[beardown]

Merz,

I really like what you said about online forums tending to become a magnet for attention seekers and those who don't have enough power in their lives or enough attention at home.
(OK, I'm paraphrasing...but that's my interpretation).
Sadly, you see it everywhere. Even Facebook (damn waste of time that it is) is even a place where you're supposedly surrounded by 'friends.' Every time one of them posts something, a few minutes later, someone comes by to make a snide remark or a comment to try to get some laughs or steal thunder or whatever it is that they're seeking.
And again, those are supposed to be friends.
I mean, you could post a photo of your dog and some jackass is going to roll up a few minutes later and say something like, 'Nice fucking dog! It looks more like a cat! LOL!'
You just can't win if you've joined the internet to exchange intelligent thought anymore it would seem.
It just seems to be the attitude that permeates the entire internet, unfortunately. Or that's how it has become slanted over the years.
I don't want to get too far off topic but it does speak to how people interact online...as you mentioned, it's sad when that's what people exclusively contribute to discussions and forums.

JCotteri,
I wasn't speaking of WAYWTs particularly...
I said the double standard sometimes exists...I didn't say that it was the standard.

But if you're suggesting that certain labels don't elicit quick praise while others elicit equally quick groans, I would respectfully disagree.

By the way, I love seeing people who make and wear their own clothes on here. I wish it occurred more often. I'd imagine anyone on here who is passionate about clothing can respect someone who does it themselves successfully.

[Faust]

That's why I don't do facebook, myspace, linked in, twitter and all that other attention deficit disorder inducing bullshit. Web 2.0, fuck off.

BTW, if that jean pierre fucker posted his stuff in DIY and kept it there instead of trolling for WAYWT attention, he'd be alright.

[philip nod]

that could work! of course it could be rather mammoth task, but there's definitely something to this idea. perhaps simply a link to the existing posts or threads would do. the difficult part would be how to classify them..

man, and i thought the hall of fame was an insane thing to attempt.

[christianef]

That's why I don't do facebook, myspace, linked in, twitter and all that other attention deficit disorder inducing bullshit. Web 2.0, fuck off.

yeah, but i don't think 'attention' is exclusive to the internet and places like facebook - it just isolates it more and through an aperture its likely to become more transparent. the same low-brow sloppy interaction you refer to with your 'dog looks like a cat' example occurs equally in every day real life social interaction at school, the office, in bars, at parties ect ect. people say stupid shit to each other all the time, not just on facebook. its basically the root of any relationship; reciprocating validity in the lowest forms imaginable. ' honey, you can't believe what i said to my boss today.' etc. people are magnets for attention, the device be it face book, a forum, a cellphone, a bar etc etc is irrelevant.

[justine]

That's why I don't do facebook, myspace, linked in, twitter and all that other attention deficit disorder inducing bullshit. Web 2.0, fuck off.

Good for you. Facebook's not that bad though. Reminds me of this Conan joke: "In the year 3000, the three web sites: facebook, twitter, and youtube will join effort to create a massive time wasting site called youTwitFace." ....

[jcotteri]

youTwitFace." ....

tehehehhe

Merz,

I really like what you said about online forums tending to become a magnet for attention seekers and those who don't have enough power in their lives or enough attention at home.
(OK, I'm paraphrasing...but that's my interpretation).
Sadly, you see it everywhere. Even Facebook (damn waste of time that it is) is even a place where you're supposedly surrounded by 'friends.' Every time one of them posts something, a few minutes later, someone comes by to make a snide remark or a comment to try to get some laughs or steal thunder or whatever it is that they're seeking.
And again, those are supposed to be friends.
I mean, you could post a photo of your dog and some jackass is going to roll up a few minutes later and say something like, 'Nice fucking dog! It looks more like a cat! LOL!'
You just can't win if you've joined the internet to exchange intelligent thought anymore it would seem.
It just seems to be the attitude that permeates the entire internet, unfortunately. Or that's how it has become slanted over the years.
I don't want to get too far off topic but it does speak to how people interact online...as you mentioned, it's sad when that's what people exclusively contribute to discussions and forums.

JCotteri,
I wasn't speaking of WAYWTs particularly...
I said the double standard sometimes exists...I didn't say that it was the standard.

But if you're suggesting that certain labels don't elicit quick praise while others elicit equally quick groans, I would respectfully disagree.

By the way, I love seeing people who make and wear their own clothes on here. I wish it occurred more often. I'd imagine anyone on here who is passionate about clothing can respect someone who does it themselves successfully.

I whole heartedly agree, but with any form of interaction the old human nature comes in..

Yep i noticed that you said it exists, i just wanted to express my joy when i saw these pictures posted, not because we all frequently post on sufu together but because the clothing was a breath of fresh air.. also show you a great recent example of zero double standards.

as for;

"But if you're suggesting that certain labels don't elicit quick praise while others elicit equally quick groans, I would respectfully disagree."

can you please expand upon this, maybe because it is late i don't know what you mean exactly..

I also throughly enjoy people dressing themselves in their own creations. Makes me smile so much

[hap]

sorry if this is some kind of gate crashing.

it is always interesting for me to see discussion on people's behavior on the internet.

for those of you who don't know i manage supertalk [the forums of superfuture], and i have seen it go through a whole lot of changes of guard.

one thing i have learnt is that more than anything people use forums as a means of self expression more than anything else, this is evidenced by the rise and size of the waywt threads across the fashion internet.

i can't for the life of me think of a forum in which that is not the most active thread.

i know that at supertalk the most viewed forum is superdenim as some of the early deep discussion was about denim, and this set the tone. this is somehow analogous to the Designers and Their Work forum here.

i make no secret of my enjoyment of waywt, i have always had a strong interest in other people's personal style which for better or for worst is where i have always find inspiration to try new ways to dress.

i remember when the waywt thread was frowned upon on supertalk as somehow less important than the discussion threads, i guess in someways the attitude towards that here reminds me of that time.

it kind of makes sense to me that looking at where the users of a forum read and post the most gives you a good indication of the nature of the membership.

as a comparrison:

supertalk waywt


started in 2005, closed for comments in 2007 after the start of chat edition.

stylezeitgeist waywt


started in 2006

both threads are the most posted in and the most viewed on the respective sites.

if one were to imagine people coming across a fashion forum for the first time then surely it would be safe to assume that the forums main purpose was for people to show each other how they dress.

the fastest growing site right now that i know of is http://lookbook.nu started barely over a year ago, the traffic is now bigger than the fashion spot which seems incredible.

i seem to have gone into a long ramble about this [which i hope is at least interesting]. it does seem to me that often our perceptions about what these sites mean and the purpose is a slightly different to the way we treat them in actuality.

[thejjbb]

I think another reason people place so much importance on the WAYWT thread is because most other fashion forums direct new members there as a way to 'learn how to be stylish'. Seriously, the advice for new users seems to be to look around threads instead of asking questions, and to look at the WAYWT thread for how you should dress. Not to say that's the mentality here, but I'm pretty sure a fair amount of SZ users find SZ through other fashion forums, and perhaps that mentality sticks?

[Laconic]

I apologize if I put this in the wrong thread, but I’d like to attempt to contribute to this omnipresent problem. Although I was never around for things like ‘***********’ and ‘goth-ninja’, I can see how this blatantly creates a typecast for a free-thinking forum.

move_ment:
I'm fairly new and obviously haven't been around for 1,354 posts, but it's clear if you wear, for example: Rick, AnnD, BBS, Julius, CCP, MA+, CDiem, Attachment in a waywt... and wear it well, everyone will be on your dick.

The first thing I’d like to point out is the majority’s boredom of full on Rick-clad armor. A while back, a certain user posted something along the lines of “no rick in this outfit” and was almost celebrated (albeit a joke or not). That’s not my main point, though. Certain designers are promoted here because they’re different. This might be in aesthetic, construction, etc; the bottom-line is they would never be mistaken—to the trained eye— with something like Luis Vuitton (excuse my spelling) or Chanel. I don’t think most of the new WAYWT posters are seeking validation—they’re seeking self-assurance. When one goes through much effort to dress, it’s good to be noticed. The indifferent masses can’t provide that kind of gratification (I don’t mean this in any sort of hedonistic way) unless the individual is wearing something superfluous. (Even then, the attention is usually not positive.) I don’t think that this particular WAYWT thread is so much a circle jerk as it is an on-going inspiration. At least that’s how I take it. And while this is certainly not the accepted medium for everyone, I think—hope—many of you will agree.

I have a lot more regarding style that I’d like to say, but I think I’ll cut it here. Sorry for the wall of text—I’m no master of epigrams.

[AKA*NYC]

there's also an important distinction that seems lost on many between posting a lot of rick and wearing a lot of rick