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Cultural Figures You Are Expected to Like, but Don't

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  • Faust
    kitsch killer
    • Sep 2006
    • 37852

    Cultural Figures You Are Expected to Like, but Don't

    I had this idea for a while. There are some cultural figures you are supposed to like because you like certain other cultural figures in art, music, literature, fashion, whatnot. Usually, these are dictated by your milieu, your peers, etc. I've certainly had a fair share of awkward cultural conversations where my interlocutor would enthusiastically speak of the work of so and so, and expect me to respond in kind. What are the cultural figures you are supposed to like but don't?

    One of the points of this thread is for us to be open to changing our minds. I have certainly grown to like some cultural figures I did not at some point.

    Jim Jarmusch - director. I could appreciate the dry humor in some of his dialogue, but most of his films do nothing for me. I find them rather flat.

    Ai Wei Wei - artist. I never got the appeal of his art as art. I can process it as political gestures, but as art I find it pretty pedestrian.
    Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

    StyleZeitgeist Magazine
  • ADreamofBlue
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2015
    • 194

    #2
    It's a shame you dislike Jarmusch! He's one of my favorite directors.

    Kanye West - He just doesn't seem like a likeable person and I'd hardly say he's responsible for the success of his last few albums. He's had a humongous team of writers and producers that do everything for him. He's just the perfect controversial face to constantly stay in the headlines. His fashion endeavors as far as I'm concerned are low-hanging fruit.

    Beyonce - She has a team of people that does everything for her. I don't see her as some revolutionary pop star. Really, you could extend this to any well-liked mainstream artist...

    Ai Wei Wei - The same reasons as Faust, more or less. I see his stuff as a political statement first, and art second.

    Paul Thomas Anderson - The only thing I truly like of his is There Will Be Blood. His films feel rather... empty to me? I'll watch anything of his once, but beyond that I won't go out of my way to revisit.

    Death Grips - I'm extremely picky when it comes to music, but since my peers know I write for a music site they'll ask for recommendations. I'll recommend artists many others like, but I don't, and Death Grips has come up. I can appreciate what they've done (and are doing), but they just don't do anything for me.

    Wes Anderson - I like The Life Aquatic, but his films all feel the same to me. Emotionless/dry and quirky - hipster bait.
    Last edited by ADreamofBlue; 05-26-2016, 06:14 PM. Reason: accidentally a word
    who slips in to my body and whispers to my ghost?

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    • En.
      Senior Member
      • May 2015
      • 121

      #3
      Originally posted by ADreamofBlue View Post
      Kanye West - He just doesn't seem like a likeable person and I'd hardly say he's responsible for the success of his last few albums. He's had humongous team of writers and producers that do everything for him.
      Kanye's definitely isn't likeable by any means and shouldn't be revered as a "controversial" individual like he is but the bolded is incorrect. He actually does most of his music for himself, unlike his fashion lineup. He's known for sampling and he credits the writers of whatever he samples which adds to the large list.

      Kanye would also be included on my list. I'm sure he's a given on here.

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      • Faust
        kitsch killer
        • Sep 2006
        • 37852

        #4
        Kanye West is not the kind of person I had in mind at all. Ugh... Forget it.
        Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

        StyleZeitgeist Magazine

        Comment

        • Brokenaura
          Junior Member
          • Jul 2007
          • 14

          #5
          I feel your pain, Faust. I can't even begin to understand how anyone could equate him to a 'cultural figure'

          baffling.
          He who has rejected his demons badgers us to death with his angels

          Comment

          • Arkady
            Senior Member
            • Apr 2011
            • 957

            #6
            Hilarious thread idea.

            A few personal examples.


            Lars Von Trier -- Such a fascination with rendering pain that it becomes entirely personal and expository in a way I find exhausting / beyond what a recruited cast of artists should have to endure. Dancer in the Dark was great and Kiefer had the right idea in Melancholia -- that's all I have on that. I guess an extra fuck you for the nazi sympathizer fetishism.

            Anything related to Burning Man -- I went, it was a middle school team building exercise with legal and protracted focus on bumping uglies. Only to be rivaled in comedic heft by the vast hypocrisies that balanced each of the 10 guiding principals of the event. I feel more radically self reliant in a hospital ward.

            Basquiat -- Some personal and anecdotal connections here but, what an ultimately uninteresting asshole who didn't have much to say except "saying against." From what I understand the disinterest in commodification was pure farce, too.

            Andy Warhol -- See above, plus Vice asked me to play him in an advertisement for Absolut vodka once which naturally deepens my resentment.

            Whoever Helmed the Solaris Remake With Clooney -- Fuck you, I'm not looking you up.

            Elon Musk -- This is a new one for me. I've always been enthralled with the man's ingenuity and vision, but as of late it's become clear he's unable to sustain any business not funded by a government and its taxpayers. On the one hand this makes sense, on the other if the real clever minds of business lie outside government and he cannot secure any meaningful support beyond Goldman price target manipulation -- his rhetoric may be a lie at best. Maybe that's a good sign though -- I'll assume asshole until proven otherwise at this point.

            Net Art Celebrities -- OK. I'm down to use internet sex technologies to open "the portal." But the most you ever get from me is "OK."

            Žižek -- Somehow we agree on 90% of reality and I still have trouble listening to him if I'm not positive someone's hosed him off in the last week.

            Libertarian Tech Magnate Impresarios -- All my interests align with yours and yet, somehow every time Eric Schmidt opens his mouth I need to be hosed off harder than Žižek does.
            Last edited by Arkady; 05-24-2016, 09:36 PM.

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            • Shifts
              Senior Member
              • Jul 2013
              • 325

              #7
              Morrissey I simply can't connect. Maybe more about the voice and music than the person, but still.

              Comment

              • MoFiya
                Senior Member
                • Sep 2007
                • 1438

                #8
                Ooooh, great idea!

                The Beatles - I can see how much of a influence to pop music they were but personally, I just never really like them. Most of their music just bores me.

                David Lynch - I loved Twin Peaks but everything else was just meh. (okay, Eraserhead was good as well)

                Alejandro González Iñárritu - A central theme of his movies seem to be barking dogs. Annoying, isn't it?

                Innervisions - yeah, fuck that label.
                I have dreams of orca whales and owls
                But I wake up in fear

                BBS for sale (Sz 48-52)

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                • mrbeuys
                  Senior Member
                  • May 2008
                  • 2313

                  #9
                  Wes Anderson - Definitely. Style over substance and proof of how boring symmetry can be.

                  FKA Twigs - She had the briefest of moments. Now it's just self-indulgence and name checking.

                  ASAP Rocky - Don't even get me started, what a waste of space.

                  "New" Digital Art - When done by people who are not coders, it's mostly incredibly bad GIFs or badly conceived ideas that happen to live on the web. When done by coders, definitely a miss when the technology comes before the idea.

                  CCP - Sorry, I will never get it.

                  Machinedrum and the like - Retro without offering much new.

                  Arca / Kanda - I know Ale and Jesse used to work for me, really happy they are doing their thing, but I can't get into it.
                  Hi. I like your necklace. - It's actually a rape whistle, but the whistle part fell off.

                  Comment

                  • mrbeuys
                    Senior Member
                    • May 2008
                    • 2313

                    #10
                    Originally posted by Brokenaura View Post
                    I feel your pain, Faust. I can't even begin to understand how anyone could equate him to a 'cultural figure'
                    baffling.
                    He's not doubt a cultural figure. The question is whether anyone would expect you to be into him.
                    Hi. I like your necklace. - It's actually a rape whistle, but the whistle part fell off.

                    Comment

                    • mne
                      Member
                      • Mar 2016
                      • 93

                      #11
                      It might sound very subjective, but I'm sure some can relate - generally anyone who you thought you 'discovered', an overlooked gem, someone who didn't conform or who challenged status quo. But then they got popular, pigeonholed and thrown into the mainstream spotlight. It would leave me disappointed and with that distaste in my mouth.. meh..

                      FKA is a good example.

                      Comment

                      • mne
                        Member
                        • Mar 2016
                        • 93

                        #12
                        Originally posted by Faust View Post
                        Kanye West is not the kind of person I had in mind at all. Ugh... Forget it.

                        I think maybe we should start a new thread, call it i.e. Land of the Banned where we list all the names/words/expressions/brands one should not mention. Kanye definitely inspired me here haha

                        Comment

                        • Faust
                          kitsch killer
                          • Sep 2006
                          • 37852

                          #13
                          Originally posted by Arkady View Post
                          Hilarious thread idea.

                          A few personal examples.


                          Lars Von Trier -- Such a fascination with rendering pain that it becomes entirely personal and expository in a way I find exhausting / beyond what a recruited cast of artists should have to endure. Dancer in the Dark was great and Kiefer had the right idea in Melancholia -- that's all I have on that. I guess an extra fuck you for the nazi sympathizer fetishism.

                          Basquiat -- Some personal and anecdotal connections here but, what an ultimately uninteresting asshole who didn't have much to say except "saying against." From what I understand the disinterest in commodification was pure farce, too.

                          Andy Warhol -- See above, plus Vice asked me to play him in an advertisement for Absolut vodka once which naturally deepens my resentment.
                          I cosign to this triple entente! Especially Basquaiat - a completely manufactured celeb by the NYC art scene to make tons of money off of him, conveniently after he died.

                          I am ambivalent about Von Trier and Warhol. Von Trier's earlier work remains interesting, but his last efforts are weak and becoming an adult and ceasing to wallow in self-pity has definitely turned me off of this fetishizer of pain. Warhol, an insufferable idiot, a mediocre artist who swiped a lot from Rauschenberg, and yet he had an uncanny ability to reflect the zeitgeist. The 15 minutes of fame quip remains up there.

                          Originally posted by Shifts View Post
                          Morrissey I simply can't connect. Maybe more about the voice and music than the person, but still.
                          I am a latecomer to the Smiths, but I have grown to love them. I have not explored his solo oeuvre yet. He is definitely an asshole, but he is a talented lyricist, no doubt, and he hates the world because it's shitty, which I can relate to.

                          Originally posted by mrbeuys View Post
                          Wes Anderson - Definitely. Style over substance and proof of how boring symmetry can be.
                          YES!!! So fucking boring and infantile.
                          Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                          StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                          Comment

                          • Arkady
                            Senior Member
                            • Apr 2011
                            • 957

                            #14
                            Warhol I would say was the godfather of marketing as an artform / championed the recursivity of marketing-marketing that now dominates our culture. So in that sense, definitely attuned to zeitgeist and definitely an asshole.

                            I will co-sign the Beatles and CCP without further comment needed.

                            Comment

                            • galia
                              Senior Member
                              • Jun 2009
                              • 1719

                              #15
                              Nabokov - Aside from Lolita which is a masterpiece, I have hated every novel I have tried (and failed) to read with a burning passion. I don't like feeling hateful so I quit after about 30 pages. Ugh.

                              Anselm Kiefer - Used to love him, now find him kitsch and he just gets on my nerves. Like, seeing his art, or worse hearing someone wax lyrical about him is to me like nails on blackboard.

                              Steve Jobs - Or anyone tech related, or anyone who has held a TED conference. Burn in hell plz.

                              Christopher Hitchens - Fucking war mongerer, has been wrong about everything in international affairs. Is basically a more intelligent and less wealthy Bernard Henri Levy. Less unintentionally funny too.

                              Obama - not as a politician, but as a cultural / pop icon (although I despise him as a politician but that's not the topic at hand). How uncool is he, I don't get why people love his thing, it's so awkward when he goes on Ellen or whatever. He tries way to hard to be cool, it's a cringe-fest watching him be "relatable" on TV.

                              Xavier Dolan - admitedly have seen none of his films, so unfair and unfounded opinion, but everything I see about him and all the exerpts of his films I've seen have annoyed me way too much, I don't even want to give him a chance.

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