What Is The Mark Of Greatness?

And what exactly does he look like?

Last week’s hipster post sparked off some interesting debate – similar conversation is still happening at the original ADBUSTERS post – and I wanted to use this opportunity to segue into another loosely related topic. While compiling my “research” for said post, I read another contemptuous denunciation of hipster culture - this time in Time Out New York, by Christian Lorentzen, titled “Why The Hipster Must Die.”

Let’s try to get off the subject of hipsters for a bit. Although the article is doggedly focused on the topic, he manages to mix in this zine [specializing in hipster-type stuff] critique:

“…The Believer lavishes its literary and pop-culture idols with a uniform layer of affection that renders it near impossible to distinguish the great from the mediocre. This aesthetic of relativism grants everybody an A for effort and allows anyone projecting the image of an artist to conceive of himself as such.”

If you ask me, it’s a clean and solid blow. His assessment of The Believer might be apt - I wouldn’t know, I haven’t explored the site yet - but I’d apply his critique in a larger perspective. The way I see it, the whole “A for effort” doctrine has distilled much of the current cultural crop - migrating out of nursery schools and pee-wee soccer fields to become the mantra of a generation.

While this is great for those with low self esteem, what does it mean to the critics of the world? I’m only half-kidding... It seems we live in a time where rambunctious self expression is welcomed by all would be trend-setters (and followers) as an adolescent rite of passage. Rock and roll camps for kids, anyone? How punk rock is that?

This support for creative output, no matter what the quality, has got to be a direct response to the lack of arts education in public schools. That’s my best guess. And at its core, I would agree that it’s a good thing. However, every coin has a flipside and in this case, side B is just a bunch of filler.

I have a theory that this blind acceptance of amateurism (musically speaking, anyway) is the inevitable evolution of Punk Rock. On an old blog, I wrote an essay titled: The Unspoken Influence of Punk Rock: The Hacker Years. The basic premise: One thing that made Punk exciting was the idea that anyone with the will could do it - three chords and the truth, etc. Almost thirty years later, the bar for even the most rudimentary skills has dropped pretty low. The rule today seems to be that it’s the self-expression that has value, not the actual craft. It’s kind of reminiscent of the abstract expressionalism argument, now that I think about it…

(On a completely side note: two funny books that play on the abstract expressionalism debate – Tom Wolfe’s The Painted Word and Kurt Vonnegut’s Bluebeard. Good stuff.)

So what is the critic to do? And by critic I mean anyone with tastes that don’t mirror popular culture (or ALT culture for that matter). If you read Portland’s local weekly papers, you’ll see that critical evaluation has largely given way to a more syrupy and caffeinated form of hype. This manufactured excitement has the ability to instantly legitimize any artifact, no matter what the dimensions or quality. This legitimization strengthens with each subsequent blog post, Myspace hit and party pic. The mediocrity becomes transparent when shared across the spectrum - since all compatriots are fashioned from the same cloth.

Lorentzen is not impressed. He does not find the nurturing of adolescent creativity a valid artistic genre. He takes a stand against the “A for effort” artistes and their calls to arms. He writes:

“…It proliferates as a social plague among hipsters who invite their entire address book to readings, shows and art openings. The e-mails arrive, and though it is known in advance that the art will be nothing much, the trek is [hopefully] made. The avant-garde illusion ultimately sustains itself on free beer.”

I remember reading one of our weekies’ recap of the 2008 PDX Pop Now! Festival where the author, after surviving a week’s worth of original bands du jour, and upon hearing the final act (whose name I can’t remember) who apparently could play their instruments quite well, felt compelled to remark: “Wow… and they were like, real musicians!”

Wow, indeed.