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.
I’m 34, almost 35 and my parents are baby boomers. Counting up from when I got my first period, I could in theory have a 19 year old and I was born in what is commonly thought to be the final year of Gen X. So yeah,I’m thinking most early to mid twenties people have Xer parents.
*Does best (still bad) Cher impersonation*
Hussies and slatterns and whores
We’d hear it from the MRAs in town
They’d call us hussies and slatterns and whores
But every night all they’d come around
And we would turn them down
I tried to give some feral pop stars a good home but I had to surrender them. Katy Perry kept hissing and scratching. Lady Gaga peed all over the place and Azalea Banks shredded all my furniture. I tried!
I never understood this talking point, of saying women have a herd mentality. It really boggles me where they got the idea. I can only guess. It may be this: They see themselves as intellectually and morally superior to women and minorities, and part of that idea is drawn from American ideals of being individualistic, hard-working, and wealthy. For the right wing, nightmarish straw men of communism and socialism is a foil, and they lump people who are “inferior” to them, like women and minorities, in it. Just my little theory.
If anything, in my personal experience at least, women are better at thinking critically and handling stressful situations. Men are the ones who are dogmatic and react disproportionately to stress. The manosphere and GamerGooper clans are mostly made of guys who act like an angry mob or, more fittingly, like anonymous drones in a hive mind. I don’t see women goose-stepping en masse to the whims of a dictator. It is wealthy and powerful men (in politics, religious, or otherwise) who set up strict dogmas for other men to conform to, and punish them severely for deviating from the “one true path”.
Women, however, are more nuanced and more capable of taking other people into account. While men force a dogma, or a false dichotomy, women present more options. While men follow rules better and fit into boxes better, women are more liquid and slither between the cracks, partly because they are neglected, considered of being of no consequence.
Forgive me if I am being a bit “misandrist” right now. I don’t believe men and women are naturally like this. It has to do with patriarchy as an order. However, I am simply sick of the whole “women are hive mind” talking point. It’s so obviously false and the people who say it are so obviously hypocritical, because they act like drones, follow a strict dogmas, and are intellectually and emotionally limited. The projection is just insane. I have never seen people more pathetic and dishonest in my life.
@Kane Thari
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tumblr.com%2Ftagged%2Fgnome-puking&ei=H4ULVbrFJpD-8QWSsIDADw&bvm=bv.88528373,d.dGc&psig=AFQjCNFP-KtEhCQplVyUo1yuacRAtQkAxQ&ust=1426904717915186
I’m 39 and an Xer. The parental units are Boomers. This guy has no idea (Surprise!) what he is talking about.
And apparently:
5 things wrong with the modern DIET:
Women.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/16/paleo-isnt-a-fad-diet-its-an-ideology
you’d think the paleo guys would take note of the fact that women live longer than men in virtually every developed society and start cribbing some notes.
@Viscaria – Throw in some references to the rottenness of Western culture and I think that dog will hunt!
Oh, wait, I guess you’ve already got that covered: it’s due to women.
Oh, these fellas and their herds of women stampeding across the plains!
The manosphere likes to claim that women being herd animals is merely an indisputable biotroof, but I wish to propose an alternate source for the idea. My pet hypothesis is that this chestnut came from MRA’s/PUA’s who watched 80’s stand up comics too frequently and too seriously as kids. For some reason, they completely internalized every tired wisecrack about women going to the bathroom in groups (amirightfellas?). They accepted what was supposed to be a throwaway joke as an undeniable truth that proves the true nature of women. In their experience, this has been backed up in real life by a bunch of uncomfortable girls in clubs and bars insisting that “it’s been great to talk to you, creepy dude who doesn’t respect my boundaries and is trying to isolate me, but I need to get back to my friends.” Herd mentality!
My cherished wish is that other jokes from forgettable 80’s comics have also taken root in their minds. Maybe one day we’ll see articles on RoK about the end of civilization due to airline food, and how the moral decline of Europe began with the roll out of Yugo sedans.
Because, you know, prehistoric humans and people in third-world countries without access to modern processed food never starved/starve to death! [/s]
Giggles at “HUNTED THE MAMMOTH” aside: FALSE! There’s much more proof that women helped hunt and men helped gather than there is otherwise; the “Prehistoric gender roles” bizzo came from patriarchal anthropologists projecting what they knew instead of looking at what they saw (par for the course *coughs* historical whitewashing *coughs*). Prehistoric humans were less interested in flaunting their MIGHTY ALPHANESS and more interested in, once again, not starving to death.
… Also, this shitwit’s name is literally a Pokemon.
http://i.imgur.com/LvjqBCC.png
Palaeontological choir-preaching aside, I can’t possibly take him seriously.
Ceebarks:
Nah… They’d turn it around and just state how superior guys are for dying earlier. (At least, that’s what my herd told me.)
How do you tell if popstars are feral or socialized? One of my pop stars is sitting on my lap right now, making it hard to type. Is this proof that she is socialized?
O/T: I found a dramatic reading of an MRA begging for free work from his supporters. It is hilarious:
If all women gave up sex work, wore clothes that covered head to toe and waited till their married, Doosh here will be complaining about that too.
Let’s face it, puas and other Misognists will never be truly happy because they don’t see us as people they need us if they didn’t they wouldn’t spend all their time complaining and giving all their attention to us.
Lea
“Feeemale? Herd mentality?
Is he confusing us with cows?”
Some of us are but I’m a Llama
http://media.giphy.com/media/ws1eTpLPkYKoU/giphy.gif
From the paleo article, bolded parts my emphasis:
What the hell?!!
@Vanir,
Because it’s not about sex. It’s about winning.
I’m 26 going on 27 and my parents are in the baby boomer generation – averaging their ages, they’re 35.5 years older than me.
I followed the link out of morbid curiousity. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that they’re pitting Johnny Cash against contemporary pop music as if you can’t like a bit of each. Never. That would be too confusing. You have to take sides. Men good, women bad; young bad, old good (except when it’s old good, young bad), etc.
(I meant “old bad, young good” there in brackets. I need sleep.)
From the paleo life article:
This is such a horribly worded sentence that after reading the rest of his beliefs, I’m going to interpret it in the least charitable way.
“…while grandmothers stare catatonically on in horror…”
Nope. I was born in 1962 and lots of their grandmothers are my age and some of their grandmothers are even younger. Their grandmother grew up listening to even worse filth, I can testify to the fact. These girls grow up listening to music much of which is made by young women for other young women, whereas their grandmothers (IOW, women of my generation, more or less) grew up listening to music which was made by young (or youngish) men for other young men, because that’s what there was. That’s what was on the radio and in the record stores and in the concert halls. (Recollect that I refer to a bygone day.) Music which is made by young men for other young men (once again I can testify to the fact) is not known for its dulcet sweetness or for its restrained tone, and yet the women of my generation banged our heads to it for years and years without our male contemporaries objecting one whit (or caring very much, I must say). In fact, if our male contemporaries worried about anything they worried that our moral standards were not growing debased enough.
I look back to the guys I knew then and I glimpse at young guys now and I notice that the industry standard hasn’t changed too much — and on that basis I conclude that whatever’s bothering this lad, it isn’t what he says is bothering him. There is no “catatonic horror” which comes of overhearing a young woman listening to dirty lyrics. If there was, the boys I went to high school with would have shown some sign of it, but I never saw a vestige of any such thing. A remarkable bozo might feel catatonic horror at overhearing a young (or youngish) woman singing dirty lyrics, and he might feel dismay at the thought of her being listened to by others of her gender and her age, but (I would bet money) that’s nothing that couldn’t be cured by a dial-down the scale towards a tenor voice: that’s all that would be needed to set his world right again.
Reminds me of Eric Cartman complaining that “all pop music is just chicks singin about their vajayjays.”
“Get off my lawn!”
And everything is going to the beat. I do not believe for five seconds someone who uses the word hussy in ironically understands Kerouac.
*unironically
I’m reminded of the song “Trouble!” from”Music Man”. From playing pool to listening to ragtime, and next thing you know they’re going to dances at the Armory:
“Libertine men and scarlet women/ In the arms of a jungle
Animal instinct / mass hysteria!
Friends, the idle brain is the devil’s playground!”
Basically, any cultural trend that leads women to not obeying men is Eeeevil.
Haven’t these things all been around for decades already???