dumb question

[xatalantax]

Ok, you know how on various snotty LJ rating communities people are always attacking each other for being too "scene" or criticizing how someone looks because they're "just another boring scene girl"? Or maybe you don't know, if you never browse the rating communities as I do on snowed-in weekends when I should really be working instead. Anyway, my question is ... what scene? They talk like there's just one. Which one? General trendy indie electro-emo kids? As far as I can tell that's what it means, since they seem to be referring to girls with teased spiky black hair, lots of makeup, and little shirts with stripes or 80s themes of some kind. I am clueless.

Comments

[bostonista.livejournal.com]

Um ... maybe the type of person who frequents Start!/The Pill?

This would be a person of either sex with dyed black (or blonde) spiky hair in a fauxhawk and/or mullet, streaks optional, wearing tight low-slung jeans with an asymmetrical shirt (stripy or pink or red or a combination thereof), studded belt/wristband, etc.

In a nutshell, Kelly Osbourne (but thin).

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

so, Hot Topic nouveau punk? is that cool now?

[bostonista.livejournal.com]

Yup. This too shall pass.

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

Huh. I didn't know. I can see how it might have some classic rocker charm that could be retained for a while, but as a trend it's a little old, isn't it? I shouldn't complain though - as long as the 70s stay away I'm happy.

Wow, almost everyone on those face-rating communities looks exactly alike. not every single person, but most of them. Especially the male members of "atraktiv" - looks like they have 20 pictures of the same guy with slightly different hair.

[bostonista.livejournal.com]

That trend is really a 70s trend. I mean, every publication calls it 80s, but it's really late 70s CBGB Debbie Harry/David Bowie hey-let's-go-to-the-Mudd-Club. It leaves out all the bad 80s stuff like big shoulders and high-waisted pants and frizzy big hair.

I don't get rating communities.

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

yeah, it's turn-of-the-decade. if you have to generalize, though, it fits "80s" better than "70s." i'd just rather have everyone in punk/postpunk fashion than hippie fashion, that's all.

but I can't appreciate a lot fo the 80s stuff either since it just reminds me of junior high.

[bostonista.livejournal.com]

Too true. I'm with you on both counts.

[k8tey.livejournal.com]

oh - that's been making me nuts - it's late seventies new wave...it just didn't hit the 'burbs til the eighties!!!


i have also wondered about this "scene" moniker. I think it is the 2003 equivalent of when my friends and I used to call someone "trendy" with a sneer of derision for wearing neon, stirrup pants, and mall bangs. Following the crowd, being unoriginal.

[cassel.livejournal.com]

That's because we're old, and therefore no longer part of "the scene."

[heresiarch.livejournal.com]

Seriously, this is what I want to study in grad school -- comparative subcultural studies. Everybody uses the term "scene" like theirs is the only one -- I actually think it's pretty interesting. But maybe I've just been working on my statement for too long....

[debbie.livejournal.com]

"the scene" is a social group you want to be a part of. "the other scene" is a social group you don't want to be a part of. i think.

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

yeah .. she _is_ very attractive (and doesn't look like all the others). plus she's not skinny, which is nice.

[n-o-m-i-c.livejournal.com]

I've always taken this as something general. Whatever the scene may be, someone is "scene" if they're cluelessly wrapped up in their favored little trendstream, and order their universe around it.

Of course, that's just my "armchair cultural anthropologist/linguist of the internet" interpretation.