BITCHES AIN'T SHIT

Below:

excerpted transcript of an interview between myself and one Jennifer Yang about ideas expressed in a long piece I wrote, on Foucault, Audre Lorde, culture capital, resistance, and power. She's from the Women's Studies Department at UC Berkeley and knows a woman whom I studied under (fer Poststructuralism an' New Media.) 

Her research involves new media art and issues of female representation. My research involves money, hipsters, and how shitty everything is, and how much I hate everything, because it is shitty. 
Together, we discovered new heights of depraved pretension--though, we did also laugh a bit, as evidenced by the parenthetical inclusion of this verb.

(ok, straight up: I initially wasn't going to put this on the internet, because it's self-referential, probably boring, and really long. but, I know so many incredible female artists, and the dichotomy between gender "expectations" and the reality of our social position doesn't get enough ink. so, yeah.)


also, homegirl edited the fuck out of my expletives. WAHT. 


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[…]

[In your essay] you referenced Michel Foucault and Audre Lorde and their responses to capitalism and feminism, which I want to talk about a little later. Can you talk about some of the other topics in “Utopia Unsketched”?

It was (I think) an attempt to analyze the “hipster” subculture’s political economy, and how their emerging consumption ethics diverged from those of their parents…hyper-materialism has always been in-line with American social values, and previous subcultures have rejected that, obviously…but among 21^st-century hipsters there’s been a denouement of that ethos. We’re buying, selling, and transcribing an aesthetic within a virtual network, as opposed to the dimensional sphere. And, through that network, hipster-consumerism has been made less visible, but it has in no way decreased—“hipsters” are now equitable with “hyper-consumers,” which has never been the case before in the history of that subculture.

It’s changed the semiotic game, as well—we allow ourselves to be objectified to prevent ourselves from being interpreted. We’re walking signs, all of us, yet there are no concrete signifiers embedded or attached…like with the whole vintage aesthetic, that represents something that none of us have lived through, it’s an empty sign. A bankrupted existence. That’s why, I feel, “hipsters” are loathed to an almost comic extent in our society.

I am going to try and combine some of my questions, here…How do you define a hipster? Do you self-identify? Or do you feel loathsome towards them? Parts of your essay, I felt, had a cynical tone.

That’s because I’m very unprofessional (laughs). No…it’s weird, because while I condemn the apathy and pseudo-intellectualism, and the pop-cultural fetishism…and I don’t generally relate to them on, uh, a lot of levels—I don’t have that hostility, or derisiveness, that I see as emanating from the dominant culture. Of course, in their critiques, the mainstream gets it completely wrong, which is not surprising. To me, hipsters are merely a self-satisfied, culturally-aware group who find themselves to be very creative and unique, when they’re really just like everybody else. And I do not feel that I am a hipster, because I know that I’m just like everyone else. I make conscious attempts at aesthetic conventionality, as a form of resistance to the phony “weird” ideal.

I am never being creative enough. Never unique enough. Never satisfied with myself. But I guess I embody that aspect of “cultural awareness,” so I would be tagged as a hipster, because, hey, it’s easy. And that impulse is reflective of the easiness with which one may enter that culture—that’s the only real point of contention I have. You have an internet connection? Ok, you can be a hipster. ------, but true. And I think a lot of the interpersonal anxiety that’s almost palpable in that environment stems from the epistemological uncertainty and instability of their whole project. There’s nothing protecting your tribe, no defensive wall of culture-specific rites or codes that requires more than minimal effort to break through. So you can’t be too precious about your aesthetics, obviously—but that’s what your average hipster does. His leverage in “mainstream society” is so low that he has to lock his entire identity into a sub-sphere, a genre, where he can feel secure. Because otherwise, what are you, to “mainstream society”? A college student? An unknown writer? An unsuccessful musician? No one ----ing cares. But I'm not criticizing that inclination at all...moreover, I'm criticizing how the mainstream is so hostile to self-expression. If you're not pandering or obsessed with money, you're nothing to the "big culture."

So, yes, one needs a network to monitor and validate his or her activities—this is a human truth, not just a “hipster” one. But, weirdly, competition and subterfuge are endemic to many hipster enclaves, because a good deal of their output is, well, social surplus. They’re not out building houses, they’re taking photos and making collages and writing poems, and trying to gain recognition through that. So naturally there’s a lot of competition to be legitimized, to be seen as relevant amidst all this cultural debris…to answer your question, I am mystified by them more than I “loathe” them.

[…]

How does gender function in hipster society?

I like how you call it a society, that’s great (laughs). Um…my opinion on this issue is not very popular, probably because it’s so critical. I believe that among hipsters, sexism is rampant, covert, and has the capacity  to be even more damaging than in “normal” society, because to call it out would make you—not a hipster! Because identifying gender inequity is not very cool, man. Those politics ain’t cool. Feminists listen to Ani DiFranco, who is not cool. Hipster women have had to adopt de Beauvoir’s stance of “I want to be equal to a man—I want to be a man.” Men will only take you seriously if you meet them on their own terms. I’ve discovered this through hanging around men—who are intelligent, lovely people—but who can be slightly misogynistic, and this comes out in their attitudes and their words, whether consciously or subconsciously. And they cannot abandon their gendered preconceptions when engaging with a woman, it’s impossible. So, as an intuitive reaction to this, my female friends and I unthinkingly call one another “dude,” and that’s to distance ourselves from the ways in which society views and treats women—ways in which we are not represented, at all…I don’t care about high fashion, I don’t care about “cute” things, I’m not outwardly emotional, and so, god ---- it, I want a word that can communicate that, without cancelling out the feminine component…because, I am a woman, and I want to “own” that in the way that a man feels the need to “own” being a man. But, no such word exists in our vernacular. So failing that, “dude” is our colloquial substitution for “person”—that doesn’t make it gender-neutral, however. Males do not refer to one another as “chick,” or what have you. Think of how bizarre that would be…and that, that disconnect exists because—young, modern, progressive, and “liberated” as we all are, right?—there still exists a patriarchy which engineers our behaviors and linguistic constructs, however imperceptibly.

Of course, women have greater mobility and latitude within subcultures, within “the arts,” the hipster’s domain…but take, for example, music: a man screaming into a microphone will not have to confront gendered expectations of civility and domesticity while he performs. Freed from those constraints, he can analyze all the multiplicities of his human experiences—whereas, with a woman, her anger is performative, it is spectacle, and therefore cannot be taken seriously by the masses. The audience fixates on the delivery, not on the content, the true locus of her expression. The artistic act is received as, “Wow, she’s ‘ballsy,’ because she’s not caring about being pretty for 3 minutes of her life.” Men can emote very effectively and not worry about being so superficially received. Like, remember riot grrrl? I loved that [stuff] as a teenager, but where did it get us, really? Were people really hearing it? By contrast, late-70s punk was totally phallocentric, and as a movement it completely blew up. It’s still economically and culturally viable, even if the original politics and fashion have been exploited. By contrast, authentic, justifiable female anger never enjoyed that kind of cultural relevance, and probably never will.

In my own experience with “gender politics”: every utterance is a performance. I am starting this fledgling little career writing, and talking to people about writing, and media, and theory. But often I know the content of my work is given less regard than the “tone,” the “performance.” Paradoxically, this is the only arena I’ve found where my values and theories—as a woman—are given attention, however insufficient. On the outside, people could give less of a ---- about things like what I wrote in the essay you read. And because I have to maintain this very “professional” demeanor, academia is a very awkward space for me to be…you can’t be profane or funny or weird here, it’s alienating…(laughs).

[…]

What are some of the other gender-related problems you’ve found, in your experience as either a writer or a member of a subculture?

Well…I’ve noticed that there is a problem of pathologizing female artistic expression in sexist ways. I’ve flippantly coined it “Sylvia Plath syndrome.” Students, writers, and others working in the academy can’t seem to evade this specter of her suicide, yet that isn’t really ineluctable for a writer looking at, say, Hemingway. That’s only one example of a female’s complexities being neutralized, because it’s easier just to write her off as being ------ up. Do people who take art and poetry and literature seriously do this? Not necessarily—at least, I would hope not—but I’m looking at the issue bottom-to-top, not from the top-to-bottom. And mass culture is very good at that kind of marginalization. Within “micro-” or subculture, I think these gender issues are reified by many hipsters’ laissez-faire sexual attitudes—you know, that idea is at least 50 years old, the whole “free love” idea of overthrowing traditional sexual mores—but I think, until men consciously displace their entrenched and socially-proscribed attitudes towards women as a sex, as people, that healthy, constructive—yet non-committal or non-monogamous—sexual relationships won’t be possible for hetero women.

So are you a supporter of non-monogamy? Do you think that monogamy is antithetical to feminism?

That’s a really good question. I support doing whatever feels right, in an open, transparent, mutually beneficial way…I say “mutual,” but I’m not trying to limit this idea’s applicability to only two people—as long as we’re being insanely PC, here (laughs). As for the question of feminism: we, as rational, thinking beings, should not assume that the aggressively monogamous domestic landscape of the past, that left so many women stifled and unfulfilled, “equals” anti-feminism, and polyamory “equals” liberation, which is feminism. It’s not binary, in my opinion. “Feminism” constitutes whatever empowers women to be productive and independent and happy. There are so many factors that influence a woman’s happiness, and thinking that her romantic proclivity is the determining factor is, well, repressive. And antiquated. That said, I think non-monogamous situations should, ideally, afford women agency and control in her life, even though reality is often not congruent with this ideal. But, I don’t think I’m qualified, intellectually or experientially, to say more about it than that.

Okay. To conclude, what advice would you give to young women in the arts?

Oh man...speaking of being under-qualified (laughs). Well, the most important thing is to always listen. Filter through the background noise, cut through pretense. Don’t be surface. Practice not talking. Listen hard, take everything in. Read the newspaper. Deconstruct things in your mind. Write about things that are real, issues or problems that really affect other people…oh, and I say “write,” and I mean that, because I view everything from musical scores to blueprints to paintings as “texts.”

Most importantly, think outside of yourself. The only time I know my work, whether it’s visual art or music or a piece of writing, is successful, is when I feel like I’ve effectively nullified myself as the artist. I hate talking about myself in personal or emotive ways. I’m often afraid of myself. I have a lot of internalized violence. This is all very contradictory of course, I mean, I’m aware of the irony in stating “I hate talking about myself,” but I’m integrating that maxim into something more universal and didactic. It’s something I exercise within my art. I need to see you, the viewer, in the piece, before I see myself.  Women are so often the center-pieces of the image, through the male lens—and they are actually the architects of the viewers’ experience; they, as human subjects, generate the piece’s meaning just as much as the “artist” does—so removing your image or your sex from that frame can be very political and effective in and of itself. In minority discourse, we often hear the word “visibility.” But that can come across as over-compensation, you know? Don’t use your gender as an avatar for your artistic persona, because that speaks directly to the patriarchs. Don’t allow them to think that you view yourself as a marginalized entity, because then your art extends into their system. That’s the Foucault, right there. Instead, ignore them. Assert yourself in more inventive ways, rather than through your biology.

But, back to what I was saying about self-representation, there’s an emergent form of narcissism that’s been brought about by social media. Well, it’s relatively new, anyway, and it’s had a huge impact on contemporary art: how artists are dealing with issues of public vs. private space, surveillance, anonymity, and so forth. And that’s fantastic. Yet what I find so criminal about all this social networking crap is not that it merely exists—but that it allows people to run monologues that they’re no longer accountable for. They will just be displaced by the next self-centered thought an hour later…what I mean to say is, if you spend a lot of time constructing your “self” it’s easy to forget about, you know, the “grand scheme.” And that, if you’re trying to be a serious artist, is something that you always need to be mindful of. Even meta-ironic net artists are engaging that other sphere, even if it’s not immediately apparent, or even a conscious decision.

well! that wasn’t very gender-specific advice…but I guess that’s the point, right?