I always enjoy it when weirdo ideological alarmists try to write about pop culture. There’s something that’s just so, well, adorable about someone spewing forth angry, pompus tirades, full of bluster and overwrought prose, on the alleged culture-destroying properties of, say, Miley Cyrus.
The recent Return of Kings post “5 Things Wrong With Modern Music” is a lovely example of this genre of criticism, even though one of its points, that modern pop music is too clinically perfect for its own good, and could use a few more rough edges, is actually pretty much on the mark. But even when what author G.W. Rees says is more or less correct, the way he says it is risible. Also, he’s wildly incorrect most of the time.
So without further ado, here are My 5 Favorite Overblown Pronouncements from the Return of Kings post “5 Things Wrong With Modern Music.”
1) “Have you ever seen a room full of women in their twenties singing along to filth this shameless, while grandmothers stare catatonically on in horror, parents guffaw and smirk in direction of the floor, and the more “enlightened” boomers laugh delightfully as if the behaviour their daughters are displaying is of no significance at all?”
I’m going to go with “no” here.
2) “Whores, whores, and more whores. It seems like every other contemporary popstar parades herself with more zeal than a common street hussy.”
“Hussy.” Haven’t heard that one in a while, but then again I don’t usually spend a lot of time hanging out with 90-year-old misogynists.
3) “A dystopia where all things sexual have been reduced to an amoral form of childish amusement, and the segment of the population who have historically been the nurturers and caregivers of a society have decided to shirk the honourable traditions of their forebears and turn feral.”
It’s true. Most female pop stars are not socialized to humans and do not feel comfortable around them. They do not like to be touched. They are unlikely to “meow” in their attempts to communicate with humans. Many live in colonies with other feral pop stars.
4) “Blue jeans, fast food, Walmart, Hollywood, suburbs, and…”sick beats.” These are all emblematic of the colossally hideous Jabba The Hut-like behemoth—known as globalization—currently devouring tradition and genuine cultures.”
So you’re complaining about Hollywood colonizing the world … using a metaphor based on Jabba the Hut, a character from a blockbuster Hollywood movie that colonized the world?
5) “[T]he broadcasting of such content via mass media in conjunction with the female proclivity towards herd mentality spawns a toxic synergy. Such a combination ultimately results in debased sexual moral standards for young women and the normalization of slatternly behaviour, in turn sowing the seeds of cultural rot and the decline of our once mighty civilization.”
Ok, but it’s got a good beat, and you can dance to it. I give it a 72.
Oh, and speaking of Miley (which at least one of these quotes was doing), she’s not the only one destroying culture.
Why do these people have problem with women being “whores” again? I thought RoK was founded by a certain someone whose goal it is to dip his diseased taint in as many women as possible.
Besides the obvious double standard, isn’t it kinda moronic to both want women sex-happy AND virginal. Seriously, it… just doesn’t WORK.
The entire lot of them are utterly baffled by the modern world.
“Blue jeans, fast food, Walmart, Hollywood, suburbs, and…”sick beats.”????
Besides the use of the word “sick” to describe beats, are any of these things new?
“Hussy”? “Slatternly behaviour”? How old IS this guy? He even uses the word “gal”, with that exact spelling, in his post.
I’d also like to take this time to point out that after several collective hours of trawling Facebook and arguing with MRAs, has anyone noticed the habit they have of using really unflattering close ups of themselves as profile pictures? Usually just their heads, sometimes the shoulders, but always with bad lighting and bad angles and the fact that they just make no effort to look reasonably attractive at all in these images.
REALISM IS MISANDRY!
Hussies and slatterns and whores! Oh my!
Modern music? Blue jeans? “slatternly”? Settle down, there, Grandpa. I believe we have a photo of G.W. Rees: http://i.imgur.com/91sn32Q.jpg?fb
Rock n roll, gyrating hips (elvis) and the showing of a woman’s ankle will all destroy society.
I was going to leave a comment, but then I heard something knock over my trashcan. It’s probably just the colony of feral popstars that live in my back yard. I’m pretty sure it was the Sev’ral Timez clan. They’re always causing trouble. And if you got that reference, you win the Internet.
I don’t know about anyone else, but it’s hard to get worked up by these moral panics any more. Every year there’s some reason why the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and yet, it keeps turning.
I love how he assumes that old people are looking on in abject horror.
I know plenty of old folks who are too old to give a fuck about “common decency” anymore.
are boomers really the parents of 20somethings now? I come from a place where people have kids young, granted, but most of the people I know with 20something adult kids right now are Xers, not boomers.
If I wanted to hear old people grumble about the youth I’d just go sit in a local café. Anyway, there is going to be a solar eclipse tomorrow and I have no special glasses nor any real idea where to get some. 🙁 The last eclipse in the UK was in 1999 but because I was a kid and at a weekend away camp we were forced to watch it on TV instead of outside. This is my one chance until 2090 to view one properly.
I’ll have to get up early and check the local corner shop, I guess. Which means going to bed now.
@ceebarks
Most boomers have 40 somethings but I have boomer parents. I was simply born when my mum was older. Someone made a good point on a forum board once which was that in 10-15 years said boomers are going to be needing care homes and society is NOT equipped for that yet!
sunnysombrera
Do you have any of that old-timey film for cameras? I remember seeing the 1999 eclipse by looking through the end of a roll of film.
I don’t think the speed of the film matters – if this makes any sense. I bet no one uses film for cameras any more! I think we used normal film for viewing the eclipse. It works really well.
@scarlett
My parents might have a bit hanging around. Good idea! Another tip I’ve picked up while reading is to simply fill a bucket with water and watch the reflection. Or use binoculars to project it onto a piece of card.
The RoK post is from 93 years ago decrying those new-fangled flapper girls, right? Please?
I guess even that would show their cultural opinions to be more up-to-date than their social or sexual attitudes.
@sunnysombera yeah, we probably are not ready. lol
I’m in my 30s; my mom’s currently in her mid-fifties and an edge case between boomer/X (and so much about her really reflects that!!)
I guess when I think of “parents of wild early 20somethings” I’m mostly thinking of my husband’s childhood friends and cousins, who are my idea of classic Xers from my area… mostly in their mid-forties now. But not people older than my mother! Even the youngest of my siblings turned 30 last year.
But of course there must be also 50 and 60somethings with young adult children out there, too.
I think the RoK guys seize onto grudges and don’t update them, maybe because they really often seem to lack any meaningful contact with the world outside their little echo chambers. At least update the dance party tableau to include GenX parents’ ironic detachment from the spectacle of their daughters twerking or something like that, lol
I love how these guys want all the conveniences of modern society, but don’t want the society bit.
Tell ya what, I’ll give up my bodily autonomy and my access to birth control and all that jazz if they give up the internet, satellite television, porn, microwaves, and the polio vaccine.
Is he talking about PUAs? Because it sounds like he’s talking about PUAs.
Huh. I wonder why all the neighbours’ dogs just started barking.
5 Things Wrong with Modern Music:
– women
5 Things Wrong with Modern Cinema:
– women
5 Things Wrong with Leaving my House:
– women
Did I do it right? Can I write for RoK now?
@sunnysombrera
Here are some other ways you could view the eclipse. I think my favorite is the colander method because it makes multiple images.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11483950/Solar-eclipse-how-to-watch-the-eclipse-safely.html
I’m just hoping it won’t be cloudy tomorrow.
Ceebarks, I’ve been completely confused by that as well — I turn 38 soon, my parents were born in 1950, and virtually everyone my age I knew growing up also had parents born in the 50s, while all of the Gen X cousins I have that reproduced did so in the 1990s (producing today’s college & twentysomething crowd).
I’m also a bit baffled by the fact that twentysomethings back around 1990-1994 were the people originally dubbed Generation X, while the book & other articles referred to the “young teens” of the day (like me) as another generation (Generation Y/’Why’)… Yet now we’re being called Generation X (which I feel like I have nothing in common with), relatives up to 35 years old are Millennials (which is ticking the older ones like my brother/SIL off due to the traits Millennials are being bashed for, which their age group lacks). Bah!!
@magicat: Right, I was a little miffed and astonished to discover I’m an old Millennial, because I think of them as being at leeeeast five years younger– an alien culture of sriracha and smartphones and earnestness. ha
Feeemale? Herd mentality?
Is he confusing us with cows?
http://rsmg.pbsrc.com/albums/v738/LadyFire/Toy%20Box%20Items/cow.gif~c200
This is how my hair looks in the morning, but my eyes are much puffier. Clearly, not a cow. I cannot match the majestic beauty of this cow.
http://imgc.allpostersimages.com/images/P-473-488-90/28/2814/84KOD00Z/posters/mark-hamblin-highland-cow.jpg