Lifestyle & Culture
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »MoHo: At Last, A Politically Correct Term For “White Trash”
[ Comments Off ]Posted on May 17, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Monday, May 17th, 2010After extensive research and market testing, we came up with a term to give white trash their pride back: MoHo. Along the way, we discovered Dreadnecks, Pillbillies, and Whinorities.
 As you can see, a “dreadneck” is nearly indistinguishable from a “redneck” |
In our most recent piece on the white American subcultures referred to as Rednecks, Hillbillies and White Trash, we observed the fact that the latter of the three were the only ones that lacked pride in their culture, partly because of the fact that the very definition of their life is based on aspiration, but also in large part because of their moniker. We said we’d work on a nicer term than “white trash” to help them reclaim a little pride. Well, after extensive research and market testing, we think we have it, and the winner is… “MoHo”. It’s the perfect term, because – much like bobo or fauxhemian – it evokes urbanism, aspiration, and desperation all at the same time, but while handily including a contraction of “mobile home”, the cornerstone of MoHo culture. As you might guess, we kicked around a lot of other terms along the way, and were a little surprised that some of them were being used seriously. Especially disturbing was “pillbilly”. Partly because it was so commonly used, but mostly after watching one of them in action, smoking a prescription pill in a sort of chasing the dragon style. And although Urban Dictionary defines “whinority” in a racial way, I’m going to start using it to refer to any white person in America that complains their life is hard. See our short list of other terms we passed over below, and feel free to share any we haven’t covered. Read the rest of this entry »
The Death Of Meta-Ironic Hipsterism. No Really, I Mean It.
[ 4 Comments ]Posted on May 11, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010Do hipsters really even exist? If so, share your definition. We’re drowning in the recursive irony.
 This rather pervasive and uncredited graphic sums up my image of a hipster pretty well. |
Today I ran across one of my favorite pop culture phenomena, the “meta-hipster reference”. It all started with a Village Voice blog post called The Most Epic Hipster Break-Up Text Message, Ever: The Interview!, which, since I don’t live in Williamsburg or Portland or wherever hipsters live these days, I might have found incomprehensible, but instead just found kind of yawn-worthy. But then a friend asked what a hipster was, and I realized that although I had some media-driven sense of what I thought a hipster was, that in fact perhaps no such thing exists, except when some hipster blog entry denies it’s existence, thereby confirming it. So I of course turned to the most trusted source on the internet for this sort of information. No, not Wikipedia – although the entry there amusingly paraphrases this 2007 Time Out New York piece thusly: “hipsterism fetishizes the authentic elements of all of the fringe movements of the postwar era—beat, hippie, punk, even grunge, and draws on the cultural stores of every unmelted ethnicity and gay style, regurgitating it with a winking inauthenticity and a sense of irony“. Which – while a mildly amusing take on hipsters, hardly captures the spirit. I mean, it misses the whole “death of irony thing” caused by the recursive meta-irony of being intentionally ironic while actually just being an educated but utterly unoriginal millennial. No, for a more insightful look into what hipster really means, I turned to Urban Dictionary, which has over 170 entries, featuring such gems as “twenty-something stroketard whose style of clothing conflicts with their demeanor, thus resulting in a spicy pseudo-intellectual with more flavor-of-the-month conversations than a long island prostitute“. Many of the definitions could have only been written by a hipster. I mean, who else would know what a conversation with a Long Island prostitute is like? If you’re not sure if you’re a hipster or not, there is of course a quiz. And to skip the whole hipster phase and become a meta-hipster straight away, familiarize yourself with Look at this Fucking Hipster (often NSFW). And please, for the love of God, if you know what the hell a hipster really is, enlighten us with a comment.
Vampire Squids Causing American Brain Death Epidemic?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on May 5, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010Will the SEC’s investigation into Goldman Sachs finally help Americans pull their heads out of their asses and right some of the wrongs with the virulently corrupt banking and insurance industries? No.
Do you know what frightens me more than any terrorist ever could? The average American these days. They’re a scary bunch. Hostile, frustrated, and often either misled or just plain ignorant. And the scariest part? I think they actually mean well. I was reminded of this the other day as I took a train to Chicago. The passengers in the seats on both sides in front of me were pretty average married couples in their seventies. They had just met on the train, and as they started talking, I was suddenly overwhelmed with a strange queasiness. I usually tend to get along really well with most people of their generation, because I’m a bit of a cultural/moral Luddite myself; I think making money through the misfortune of others is bad, I think we should help each other out when needed, I have a practical level of materialism, and an old-fashioned work ethic. So what caused the queasiness I’m referring to? Well, the utter loss of hope for humanity any rational person might feel as a result of simply listening to their conversation. They started their dialog by agreeing how terrible it was that our president isn’t a US citizen. And then lamented that he had already destroyed the economy and the American way of life with his evil socialist agenda. I knew it would be an exercise in futility, so I didn’t bother asking them why the judicial system and congress and all of Washington was letting a known illegal alien run the country. I also didn’t ask them why, if the president was a socialist, he had so many bloodthirsty capitalists working at his side to prop up the biggest capitalist fraud in history and thereby Read the rest of this entry »
There’s More To Being A Hillbilly Than Marrying Your Sister
[ Comments Off ]Posted on April 29, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Thursday, April 29th, 2010There may be some basis in reality for the joke “Now that we’re married, does that mean you’re not my sister?”, but without inbreeding, the masterpiece “Dueling Banjos” – and perhaps country music itself – may have been impossible.
 The musical genius of dueling banjos would have been impossible without inbreeding. |
I knew when I embarked on the challenge of defining the difference between rednecks, white trash, and now hillbillies (although we’ve touched on the hillbilly tongue before), I had a tough row to hoe. As the spawn of a white trash background myself, I think I’ve finally hit upon one of the most important distinctions. It’s cultural pride. The fact is, there’s no-one more proud than a redneck showing off his new dually at a weekend bonfire or a hillbilly that has finally nailed that banjo riff or nabbed that prize possum without even leaving the porch. Say what you will, but I think we can safely say that hillbillies are a proud lot. And that they only become “white trash” when attempting to become urban. Yep. “White trash” just means “hillbilly with aspirations”. Which gives me, as white trash, additional license to speak freely on this whole topic without being vulnerable to being accused of bigotry. My roots run deep. All the way up the hill, and onto the porch. Because to me, that’s the definition of “hillbilly”. A rockin’ chair, a gun, a banjo, and a porch. And maybe some hooch and some snuff. I mean honestly, what more could a person want than some music and a nice place to reflect on their simple life? Oh. And maybe shoot dinner if it passes by. And shoes? They’re overrated. I would assert that the cultures that have been the most obsessed with footwear also have caused the world the most grief. Frankly, the only negative result of this lifestyle is the inevitable inbreeding that occurs as a result of not wanting to leave the porch just to go get some sex. And while that has unfortunately made it so that many of us cringe when we hear the words “uncle” and “shed” in the same sentence, on the other hand, it also makes possible the sort of musical savant that can play dueling banjos at 240 beats per minute (clip below). And on a slightly serious note, the fact is that the entire multimillion dollar industry that we now call “country music” would not exist today if it weren’t for hillbillies. We’ll be back with one more piece on the broader topic of these white American subcultures, because there are two things we’ve neglected so far. One being a drier anthropological description of the activities of these peoples, the other being a better term for urban hillbilly than “white trash”. There are at least two cities in Michigan that have nicknames that end in “tucky” because of the hillbilly version of pursuing “spatial mobility”; Ypsitucky and Taylortucky. I think it’s time these people had a name that instills a feeling of pride. Read the rest of this entry »
Rednecks, White Trash, And Pabst Blue Ribbon
[ 3 Comments ]Posted on April 22, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010Someone ’round here ain’t showin’ their true colors. Or: You can take the beer out of the redneck, but you can’t take the redneck out of the beer.
 Don’t be fooled. In spite of the crappy decor and a mouthful of Pabst Blue Ribbon, this is not a redneck. Source |
Recently, as I disclosed some of the truth about my white trash origins, I lamented that hillbillies and rednecks were always co-opting my heritage. But rednecks probably have it worse these days. You know your legacy is really dying when hipsters in Portland are adopting your beloved Pabst Blue Ribbon as their own . Which is a tragedy, because rednecks – in spite of your probably superficial impressions – have a rich cultural history that runs much deeper than you’d imagine. Just read Donald K. Burleson’s Understanding Redneck Philosophy . No, it’s not a book, it’s a web page. Not many rednecks publish books. Something we’ll get back to in a bit. Burleson paints a picture – one that may be fairly accurate – of rednecks as almost spiritual people, unencumbered by a longing for wealth, living in a day-to-day fashion with seeming detachment from external concepts of time. Of course this is all just another way of saying they’re broke, have no plans, and have at least one car in the yard on cinder blocks that has been getting rebuilt for the last three years, but the fact is, that all does take a certain zen-like detachment to be comfortable with. Which describes part of the essence of what I think being a redneck is really about. It’s about freedom. To shoot things. Mostly beer bottles. On fences. Or to stand next to a bonfire in the yard talking about your dualie long enough that you get a sunburn. Or to even know what a “dualie” is, in which case you probably spell it “dually”. In spite of the long-winded and politically correct definition of redneck that you’ll find on Wikipedia, rednecks are proud to be rednecks. Go ahead and call a redneck a redneck, and they’ll probably raise a beer at you and yell “h-e-e-e-e-l-l-l-l-l-l yeaaaaah!” and down the rest of it as a toast to you. And as far as rednecks being southerners? Another profound misconception. I’ve met rednecks as far north as any northern US border in Minnesota or Michigan, and they didn’t seem to be thinning in numbers if you gazed over into Canada. They just start talkin’ kinda funny north of about 40N in latitude. And the Jeff Foxworthy “you know you’re a redneck when…” approach fails miserably too. In my opinion, he’s usually describing hillbillies. Which we’ll get to in the next installment. ’cause I’m a little white trash, and we do everything on installment plans. Read the rest of this entry »