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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   2561 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 7, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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After recently becoming rich (read: middle class in socal), I've started doing more rich people things; eg I'm a member of a couple museums I like near me, the gemological institute, and I bought a membership and season tickets to my local orchestra. Hence, I've been going to more soirees, concerts, events and such and have developed some feelings.

Re: Some types of 'cultural' activities are just better than other types. I know, I know, taste and what have you. That said: if the only thing that you do outside of work and buy shit is watch sports, I am tired as fuck of you. Even if I disagree with 80% of the people here on 90% of reality, at least your fucking here! That already give you a bunch of points or interest.

Everyone I meet at these highfalutin type situations likes dumb garbage prole entertainment. They watch sitcoms or NFL or MMA or whatever. The problem seems to be when that is the ONLY thing you consume.

Secondly: Man I love having a social circle that includes some cultural elites. A lot of dudes I used to be around in trade actually had more money than these people, but they spent it on eg a bigger truck or cloths or shitty furniture that is still expensive for some reason or vacations to Cabo or Acapulco. I know that finding these things to be fucking lame as fuck and boring makes me an elitist piece of shit but fuck man. Acapulco? You're gonna spend 10k for 7 days in a shitty hotel?

Basically, I am devastated but unsurprised to find that the better half actually do live better.

Also I got the subject of my most recent ban in the mail and it is fucking beautiful; a heavily used Stanley no. 8 type 9 jointer from 1900ish in nearly mint condition somehow; many carful owners. It is now my precious son and lives on a special shelf so I can admire it from my computer.

I found the opposite direction - I used to buy more memberships, etc. in the past than now. I didn't become poorer, on the contrary, though I don't consider myself rich either, maybe mid-mid class. When I lived in California, we had some museum, etc. memberships but we discovered for various reasons we're going there less and less until it just didn't make sense to do it anymore. The fact that this coincided with every public institution getting aggressively woke and actively proselytizing didn't help either. But even after moving, I am browsing through the offerings of local theatres, etc. and most of the things just don't attract me. Maybe it's the price that a pay for not being in a big city - and if it is, I'm fine with paying it - but that's something I don't really even observe as an option. TBH, if I did, I probably wouldn't like it anyway - it's hard for me to imagine what "cultural elites" could provide me that I want and don't have.

You're in the honeymoon phase. Enjoy it now because in a few months or years you'll start to realize the money doesn't buy you happiness, class or status and you'll feel pretty desperate that you spent money on uhhh, the gemological institute rather than on improving the happiness of the people around you. And if you don't reach that point it's not great either

Nah dude, I was old as fuck when I got my degree (at least in comparison) and I know what I like, and that is gems and the institutes thereof and steam engines and classical music. The people around don't need my help in terms of money, they all have theirs; and when they need something heavy lifted or a pipe soldered or a some such they know who to call.

You gotta be less cynical! They good life really can be good, and money absolutely buys happiness 1:1. If it doesn't, you need to spend it on different shit.

Nah man, I know what I like too, but I'd rather go without them than make the people around me jealous that I have something they covet. It actually makes me feel horrible to flaunt status around other people. It's just sick and would be ridiculous for me to brag about what I have when it makes other people upset. I'd rather use my resources to empower people around me than make them jealous. I have ruined friendships from envy before and I would much rather have the friendship back than be able to feel superior to them because of what I have or what I've been able to experience.

Maybe it's my area but flaunting status would be buying a big dumb mcmansion or a Maserati or something. Nobody gives a shit about my nerdy obsession with Shostakovich and how he is the best modern composer and fuck the haters.

This is socal though, where your either buy your 700000 dollar luxury truck in cash or live on the street with no in-between.

This post is exactly the kind of obnoxious rhetoric that makes vast swathes of people look at high art as "high falutin".

adjective: high-falutin \

(especially of speech, writing, or ideas) pompous or pretentious.

Do you actually enjoy these things you esteem or enjoy the markers of status you think they imbue you with?

In that case, why not just optimize the entire process by getting more status?

I (and many others) have some (reasonable) contempt toward status chasers. But at least that's understandable, you can't be human and not chase status, its too much of an ask. But chasing proxies of status. Jesus that is truly contemptible.

https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/03/dont_hate_her_because_shes_suc.html

I don't know, dude. I always liked them things and I never give a shit about status, autist that I am.

I just think that low culture is the equivalent of jangling_keys_10hrs.wav.

It's fine for what it is, and I like to watch the keys jangle sometimes too. That said, when it's the upper limit of what you can appreciate it probably says something about your IQ.

(this isn't helped by 'good' low culture getting appropriated up the status ladder. Lots of literati types going out to see Billy strings or Chris Thile do old fashion country; +-0 shelling out to watch NASCAR)

The US is weird among Western countries in that the government doesn’t heavily subsidize highbrow arts, which means seeing opera, large orchestras, ballet etc is very expensive if you want non-shit seats.

In Europe, probably 80% of the average opera ticket is government funded. Almost all orchestras are substantially state-funded. Ballet is very heavily funded. ‘Higher brow’ theater (at both the avant garde end and the by-the-book Shakespeare end) is very much subsidized too.

I think this affects cultural perception in an interesting way. In the US, going to see these things isn’t necessarily a rich people thing (there are plenty of schoolteachers and college professors at Rachamaninov at the NY Phil), but it has the cultural cachet of being higher brow, higher class, and above all older, since young people aren’t paying $130 a ticket (even the cheap seats are like $90). In Britain/France/Germany, a lot of the audience to these kinds of things pay $20 a seat because they’re so heavily subsidized, so you see a lot more students, young people in general.

In the end, the European approach is preferable. The government wastes so much money on supporting the bottom of society that, at the very least, a few billion for the legitimate high culture of this civilization is owed and earned.

people aren’t paying $130 a ticket (even the cheap seats are like $90).

You can get cheap seats for under $30 and there is typically a student discount. The price is not the issue.

At the NY Phil? Not to something good, and not in seats that offer even a somewhat decent experience.

  • it was you who brought up the cheap seats

  • "Students can purchase $25.00 (including fees) rush tickets for select concerts up to 10 days in advance both online and in person at the David Geffen Hall Welcome Center. "

  • the vast majority of Americans do not live in or near NY

This doesn't really make sense an an explanation. First, Americans tend to have more disposable income than Europeans to begin with. Secondly, tickets for the sporting events, EDM concerts and other low brow media are even more expensive, yet extremely popular.

Yes, because they’re more popular. Nobody’s denying that 22 year olds will save up to spend $3000 on Taylor Swift tickets, but that doesn’t mean their price sensitivity on high culture is zero.

In the end, the European approach is preferable. The government wastes so much money on supporting the bottom of society that, at the very least, a few billion for the legitimate high culture of this civilization is owed and earned.

This does not check out.

EU spends more on the bottom and supposedly the top.

Ideal is spend on neither. Let the market decide what the "people" want.

Lesser of two evils is where you spend on A instead of A and B.

I'm assuming you want less spending because you say the government "wastes". So.. why would you want them to.. "waste" more?

Because if I’m paying 45% marginal income tax that seem extremely unlikely to change under any foreseeable government, I think at least they should use some of my money to fund things I enjoy.

“The man” is always going to take a big chunk of what you have, at least I’d like some of it to be returned to me.

Unprincipled, but understandable.

When you say better half, are you referring to those with money vs those without money? Because I know plenty of middle class people who enjoy all sorts of culture, including art, movies, musicals, plays, history, etc. They also really enjoy going to a football or baseball game.

Middle class is upper class now! Inflation, donchaknow.

Basically, I mean the type of people you meet at the event for the opening of a new exhibit at the museum of steam engines and early mechanized agricultural engineering, which is sick as fuck.

I've been to many museums and exhibits and openings and such events. I can't remember any case where I "met" any people. Don't get me wrong - there were always people there. There were present in the same room as me (sometimes too many of them for my comfort, but I understand, they want to enjoy the same thing I do, no bad feelings). But I never had any meaningful interaction with any of them. Such is the life of an introvert. Are there people that live differently? I'd be curious to learn about their exploits one of those days.

I am playing with max debuffs here, what with being an introverted autistic shaved gorilla, and all I can say is:

Anybody at any sort of event for anything that isn't normie as fuck has something interesting to say and will say it at length if you give them .2 of a chance.

I somewhat disagree. I find the consumers of "high culture" to be about as boring as the consumers of "low culture" and within the cultural upper middle class I find the consumers of low culture more interesting, at least they made a choice to do something they enjoy. Nerds are of course a whole other matter.

More to the point though I find "consumers" uninteresting. Unless you're producing something, you're probably about as interesting as a snail.

Disagree there.

There are vanishingly few producers of culture in the world; and many many hobbyists. If you are after that set you better be lucky or good.

What you call "culture"? There are heaps of books written every year. There are hundreds of movies made. Thousands of musicians perform old and new music daily, thousands of bands and individual singers perform and release albums. Painters paint and sculptors sculpt, all the time. I don't think there is a person in existence who even knows about single percents of all culture produced, let alone trying to consume and appreciate all of it. Can we really define this enormous torrent of information as "vanishingly few"? Or do we only include a tiny sliver of it into "culture" - and if so, what exactly is included?

Depends how broad you are being.

Definitionally, we all contribute the greater culture; but in this context I would say an audience is required and specifically that that audience influence what culture is produced in the future.

Eg, GRRM? Producing Culture. Christopher Rowley? Not producing culture. Osamu Tezuka? Culture. Deen? No culture.

Audience measuring is a tricky business. Justin Bieber probably has much bigger audience than Marcel Proust. But if we measure by audience, there are millions upon millions of people spending billions of dollars on cultural products made by thousands upon thousands of producers. Again, "vanishingly few" does not agree with that.

I don't really care if you're a professional or a hobbyist, hobbyist frequently have more interesting things to say anyway.

I don't really care if what you're producing is culture either. I prefer to hear about your new sales plan to what it was like at the Met. Consumption is uninteresting, people who define themselves by consumption are uninteresting, people who define themselves by consumption they engage in for (mostly) performative reasons are the epitome of uninteresting.

Disagree again then.

If the most interesting thing about you is a 'sales plan', you aren't interesting. Most work is brain dead easy because most people aren't in the top percent, by definition. There is usually nothing there of interest or of value; unless you are in the arts or the sciences. I'd much rather talk about something other than the rote and routine drudgery people have to do to not die. Almost anything other than that, really.

He said "producers" not "the top 1% of producers", so I don't see why hobbyists shouldn't count.

And if for whatever reason you want to stand by the distinction, his point that they're more interesting still stands.

within the cultural upper middle class I find the consumers of low culture more interesting

There are a ton of PMC dudes from perfectly decent upper (middle) class backgrounds who just watch basketball, smoke weed and play GTA (etc) in their free time, I don’t think this is really uncommon.

It isn't, those are just on average more interesting than the one that consume "high culture". If I have to hear from one more person who "went to a really intimate and casual concert where they sat on the floor right by the performers" then just fucking shoot me.

I don't care about what you experienced at the museum or concert or whatever, because you didn't either. People who engage in performative hobbies are boring as hell, regardless of whether that is culture, hiking, wine tasting, marlin fishing, traveling etc. It's not that these are by definition soulless activities it's that they attract empty people like moth to the flame.

Few people play GTA and watch basketball for status (although these people exist, I've met them) which makes it preferable for me to hang out with them rather than the "refined" crowd, even if the latter occasionally pay me to engage in my hobby.

Ultimately of course you want to hang out with nice, interesting people; it's just that I don't find consuming high culture an indicator for any of that, it's a mild red flag.

People hike for status?

Absolutely, not as much for thru-hiking but that happens as well. It's kind of the same as traveling.

A lot of hiking is not for status though and perhaps it shouldn't have been on the list, it feels a bit borderline. I originally included hunting as well and it's similar. There are people (primarily city) people that hunt mostly for status but the majority of hunters just hunt in their area, don't have access to some exclusive hunting lodge and they don't really care to tell anyone about it.

In a sense it's similar to golf. Many people play it for fun but in some circles it's an advantage to socially to do so, which means that some people will do it for social status.

I don't know about hiking in particular but there's a conformity to a lot of these activities that at the most charitable are reflective of status and at the least charitable are indicative of pretense. A reasonable rule of thumb is whether a local could do it cheaply, an outsider couldn't do it without paying, and the modest locals might arbitrage their resource to the wealthy outsiders. The status anxious locals save up to imitate being a wealthy outsider, often somewhere else, and the wealthy outsider is already partially imitating the modest authenticity of a locale. It wasn't a PMC careerist who came up with fishing, horse riding, making wine or any of the other stuff that is typically for toffs and peasants, but PMC careerists do come up with sales plans and can probably demonstrate a level of critical insight into that activity that is potentially more interesting than recycling what they've been told about a wine's terroir.

I think a lot of the people haunting museums and art galleries couldn't care less and are doing it for the clout, or at least because it's expected of them.

Not all, but a large fraction.

I don’t think so, most of the people in regular galleries (as in exhibition spaces rather than sale spaces, usually) and museums are retirees who have tons of free time, also watch TV / do gardening / look after the grandkids but then maybe visit a museum or gallery once or twice a week. Art scene for living artists in London/NYC/other big art cities is young rich people living off their parents (since working in the arts doesn’t pay unless you’re in the 99.9th percentile of luck/success) but these are themselves usually fine, too often with minor-major substance abuse issues but overall typically more interesting than their peers or siblings who go into consulting or law or finance.

re cultural activities: Agree that if you only do/consume one thing, it's probably bad

re how people spend money: cultural elites just waste money on different stuff ime (in LA, mostly with entertainment folks, which i guess can be elite or not. Big diff is they can get free things vs the rich ppl in "lower brow" activities)

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