Imagine you work by paying $425 for artificially mud-stained jeans

[nungesser]

@Aloisius

Fact is, fashion often starts at the high end and works its way down quickly. In a couple years, I fully expect to see mud washed jeans at Old Navy.

Absolutely, and they’ll be as stupid at $30 as they were at $425, just as pre-dirtied or pre-torn jeans have been. A fool and his money, etc etc. Then again, I’m not in a high school, college, or workplace clique these days, but I remember quite well how strong peer pressure to buy stupid clothes to be Part Of The Clique was back then. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if my young nephew shows up wearing brown-spattered jeans in a few years.

[hecep]

I think the fashion industry got the idea for layered baggy leisure wear from observing street people.

[Elmer]

Seems about right…

[Aloisius]

@Sagoli

Sometimes it does work in the reverse, like punk or grunge, as you mentioned above. But Trompe l’oeil dirt is different, in my opinion.

I’m not sure what you mean by in the reverse. What are punk and grunge reverse of?

Those were both, in the US at least, largely middle class (bourgeoisie) who did not have to wear dirt-encrusted, threadbare and paint covered clothing out of necessity.

[Sagoli]

Meaning that those trends did not come down from the class of people who are buying jeans made to appear muddy.

[57Lh7m5gq2f04iR]

That is indeed the “standard definition” but from where I’m coming from the word “bourgeois” indicates immense wealth, the kinds of people that are also referred to as “the one percent.” There was a time when the people I’m talking about fit that definition, but thanks to the immense redistribution of wealth toward a select few, the old standard definition is largely meaningless.

Then again, if you look at it globally, even a lot of poor people in Western countries are wealthy when compared to people living in third world countries, but I’m not a Maoist Third-Worldist so I won’t ignore the fact that poverty is relative to the cost of living where one lives.

[Aloisius]

@57Lh7m5gq2f04iR

That is indeed the “standard definition” but from where I’m coming from the word “bourgeois” indicates immense wealth, the kinds of people that are also referred to as “the one percent.”

I believe that is called the “I don’t want to admit that I’m not part of the proletariat” definition.

Which is ironic given the complaints about these jeans seems to stem largely from people pretending they’re in a lower class.

[57Lh7m5gq2f04iR]

Windows shift, whereas what we’d call “white collar” workers now would not have been considered members of the proletariat a hundred years ago, quite a lot of them can be considered to be a part of the socially equivalent class relative to where they live.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a wage slave in a cubicle in Duluth or a day laborer in Sudan, wage slavery is wage slavery, and it needs to end.

[Aloisius]

@57Lh7m5gq2f04iR

Windows shift, whereas what we’d call “white collar” workers now would not have been considered members of the proletariat a hundred years ago, quite a lot of them can be considered to be a part of the socially equivalent class relative to where they live.

In no way shape or form are any white collar workers today equivalent to the Middle Ages proletariat that Marx described.

The closest parallel we have today are probably migrant farm workers who today are the underclass to everyone but the indigent.

But everyone likes to make themselves part of the underclass when they talk class struggles. Or wearing jeans.

[anon61221983]

[anon61221983]

@lolipop_jones

“nostalgie de la boue” applied to our contemporary intelligentsia,

Rich =/= intelligensia, actually.

[57Lh7m5gq2f04iR]

What you’re describing is called “Maoist third-worldism” which posits that only the most oppressed can start revolution. Nowadays it is considered by many socialists throughout the world to be a largely counterproductive philosophy.

[Aloisius]

@57Lh7m5gq2f04iR

What you’re describing is called “Maoist third-worldism” which posits that only the most oppressed can start revolution. Nowadays it is considered by many socialists throughout the world to be a largely counterproductive philosophy.

Mmm. We’re not the third world. We have something close to Marx’s proletariat.

I’m sure the bourgeoisie-pretending-to-be-proletariat find it counterproductive to argue that the real proletariat should revolt against them. It is far better to try to trick the real proletariat into believing they’re in the same class as you so you can go after the aristocracy.

The hypocrisy and inauthenticity of the situation though is far too much to handle. It is like white middle class feminist women who completely ignored the struggles of black women for decades while claiming to represent everyone. Indeed, most of the revolutionary socialists I know happen to be white middle class people who also have no idea of the plight of those who are a lot worse off than they are while claiming to represent their struggle.

[Wanderfound]

@Aloisius

But if you want to insist on this, why don’t we talk about how awful all those apparently rich poseurs that apparently made up the entire 80s punk scene were for trying to look working class? Oh the horror.

Then:

Now:

Had fuck-all money back then, even less now. Just 'cos the punks you hung out with were middle-class tossers doesn’t mean that everyone was.

[anon61221983]

[Wanderfound]

[Aloisius]

@Wanderfound

Had fuck-all money back then, even less now. Just 'cos the punks you hung out with were middle-class tossers doesn’t mean that everyone was.

Heh. I was referring to the American scene. I have no idea who took to it outside the US. Though even in the US there were certainly people from working class families that were also into it, but for goodness sake, most of the Ramones came from middle class families.

[anon61221983]

OMG! I feel like I’m in a time warp! So 90s! Much goth! Such subculture! I’m having flashbacks over here!

[Wanderfound]

[anon68287401]

This is what happens when you close the lounge.