Unrelenting Steve
13th October 2003, 00:12
have i screwed up? (continued form description)
PROJECT:
The Superficial, the façade, and the covering.
Which of these three would you wrap yourself with?
The coverers; you wear clothes to be un-naked, this doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t think people can make no conclusions about you through your dress, you might be making some kind of statement through being devoid of any “intentional” kind of statements; this “statement” would remain constant for all covers: What you wear is not sufficient enough to express someone’s being and should therefore not be attempted (basically it’s a poor media to work in, so don’t even try to work in it). And probably also; people can communicate things through their dress, but such things are so general that they are too harmful rather than helpful in the communication process (for example, people might never talk to each other even though they could have had a very good relationship with one another, as a lot of properties people possess aren’t communicated at all in the superficial doctrines* and so these people will, in our society not engage or avoid each other (*will be talked about further on)).
This view is too idealistic in what it tries to promote in terms of what it accomplishes, which is not without its irony. Just because you don’t play by the rules doesn’t mean other don’t when relating to you. To the people who are superficial in their judgment of people, coverers are just some other caste of people in the whole superficial domain, often misunderstood as people who don’t have style or who have no fashion sense (as true coverers don’t technically believe in these superficial ideologically vague terms).
Just to get some cover some zealous dissent of my categorization of this specific group, coverers will not have no problem with wearing everything, a male is not expected to be unflinching in a pink thong to be a true coverer, as that dress would be considered to imply some message, the whole point of only having a covering is to say as little or as close to nothing as possible (if not nothing at all). So dress used to signify anything in the general superficial culture is avoided unless unavoidable. Absurdity is perhaps a method of showing the futility of dress, but this only works if done subtly, as we live in an age when arbitrary is the norm to some extent, and arbitrary is its own superficial caste (the people who like to shock people), a good example of a subtle method would be, a Che T-shirt with a Kelvin Klein belt with a big logo buckle (if such an item exists, but I think you understand my example; the two opposing ideologies produce a null effect, but I would say the effort into producing such an outfit would only be performed by a border line coverer, who is on the on the cusp of superficiality).
The superficial; are those defined by expressing themselves through their appearance, we have those who show their mood (or at least think they are showing people their mood) through how they dress, people telling their onlookers what they believe in, people telling other people who they relate, who they “hang around with” (the group identities; example Goths), and those people conforming to the most traditional form of superficiality, working towards what is conventionally thought to be, in that specific culture, beautiful, pretty, attractive and socially acceptable (the later is even implemented by coverers, because not to be constrained by these limitations might put you in the superficial category (which they are trying to abolish by never utilizing (yes it is slightly hypocritical)).
The people who wear brands because brands make them feel especially good about themselves are also in this group. These people have bought into this concept not because of their own indoctrination, but because of their peer’s indoctrination, which is in turn because of the original persons own indoctrination (is it confusing, or just very clever marketers and advertisers?). They showed us on TV how our friends accepted us when we wore the right clothing, how we fitted in, how we were calm, comfortable and deserving of respect or awe (well maybe only subconsciously) when we looked the part, the look only they could sell to us. We weren’t indoctrinated, but our friends were perhaps, so why should we take the risk, hurry before they start giving you queer glances!
This image of being comfortable, laid back and restrained is broken when you go out and buy something so you can feel calm and stop wondering about your friends judging you for what you wear (covering beginning to look better than superficial dressing?) What is funny is that this simple truth of how absurd and stressful the whole laidback image is to maintain (in this culture of superficiality that is) is not ignored by its very followers, they are never ones to profess ignorance of this practice, they say honestly and without hesitation how they detest that fake idiotic practice. Always quick to add how they were born in Nike or Island style shoes, and this expensive brand is the only thing that will last them a 24-hour period, their pants are naturally baggy and there shoes have always been tied in that unique special way. This is the Façade.
Optional paragraph…….
Clothing is the most obvious and easy to point out to people where they have bought into some feeble advertising concept, but similarly to the brands, specialized slang (not jargon) and behaviour (how the clothes are worn for example; cap at a specific angle and/or direction) go hand in hand with their superficial culture, where there are different castes; that all profess their intrinsic individuality under the same banner of ignorance and idiocy. In South Africa, we don’t have so many different superficial castes, perhaps because there is enough feeling of the “excluded other” in demographic regions where these popular cultures lie. In other societies a Goth will only talk with Goths, a punk only with punks and so on. Perhaps here we could divide us up into races but, but in a place like Cape Town, race has specific class and cultural implication, and I am only familiar with the western superficial popular caste groups, so I we are an interesting region. So I must say this essay is only relevant (if its relevant at all(hopefully it has a lot of correct formulated ideas)) to a very small portion of the youth in my country, and perhaps a lot of the western world- interesting, it means very little to my country as a whole, what a waste of time. (I feel I can go off on a bit of a tangent as this project is so free and I can just say this is an interpretation project and not a research formal one (smug laugh)).
plz bear in mind, its 2am and i did this in 2:30 hours. and we were given a month, so i had to make it look like i had thought of a lot of differant topics, so i dont think the ideas flow so well, but what do u think of the little bits of intangled content??? thats wat i really would like to know.
IF ne was wondering wat this has to do woth the questionaire, i got a lot of the the inspiration for what this has from the questionaire, and i am going to highlight things in ur answers and say hy i think thats particluary interesting with a key thing, but i can tshow that online, so this is all u get :(, neway I hope to get some interesting feedback.......
PROJECT:
The Superficial, the façade, and the covering.
Which of these three would you wrap yourself with?
The coverers; you wear clothes to be un-naked, this doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t think people can make no conclusions about you through your dress, you might be making some kind of statement through being devoid of any “intentional” kind of statements; this “statement” would remain constant for all covers: What you wear is not sufficient enough to express someone’s being and should therefore not be attempted (basically it’s a poor media to work in, so don’t even try to work in it). And probably also; people can communicate things through their dress, but such things are so general that they are too harmful rather than helpful in the communication process (for example, people might never talk to each other even though they could have had a very good relationship with one another, as a lot of properties people possess aren’t communicated at all in the superficial doctrines* and so these people will, in our society not engage or avoid each other (*will be talked about further on)).
This view is too idealistic in what it tries to promote in terms of what it accomplishes, which is not without its irony. Just because you don’t play by the rules doesn’t mean other don’t when relating to you. To the people who are superficial in their judgment of people, coverers are just some other caste of people in the whole superficial domain, often misunderstood as people who don’t have style or who have no fashion sense (as true coverers don’t technically believe in these superficial ideologically vague terms).
Just to get some cover some zealous dissent of my categorization of this specific group, coverers will not have no problem with wearing everything, a male is not expected to be unflinching in a pink thong to be a true coverer, as that dress would be considered to imply some message, the whole point of only having a covering is to say as little or as close to nothing as possible (if not nothing at all). So dress used to signify anything in the general superficial culture is avoided unless unavoidable. Absurdity is perhaps a method of showing the futility of dress, but this only works if done subtly, as we live in an age when arbitrary is the norm to some extent, and arbitrary is its own superficial caste (the people who like to shock people), a good example of a subtle method would be, a Che T-shirt with a Kelvin Klein belt with a big logo buckle (if such an item exists, but I think you understand my example; the two opposing ideologies produce a null effect, but I would say the effort into producing such an outfit would only be performed by a border line coverer, who is on the on the cusp of superficiality).
The superficial; are those defined by expressing themselves through their appearance, we have those who show their mood (or at least think they are showing people their mood) through how they dress, people telling their onlookers what they believe in, people telling other people who they relate, who they “hang around with” (the group identities; example Goths), and those people conforming to the most traditional form of superficiality, working towards what is conventionally thought to be, in that specific culture, beautiful, pretty, attractive and socially acceptable (the later is even implemented by coverers, because not to be constrained by these limitations might put you in the superficial category (which they are trying to abolish by never utilizing (yes it is slightly hypocritical)).
The people who wear brands because brands make them feel especially good about themselves are also in this group. These people have bought into this concept not because of their own indoctrination, but because of their peer’s indoctrination, which is in turn because of the original persons own indoctrination (is it confusing, or just very clever marketers and advertisers?). They showed us on TV how our friends accepted us when we wore the right clothing, how we fitted in, how we were calm, comfortable and deserving of respect or awe (well maybe only subconsciously) when we looked the part, the look only they could sell to us. We weren’t indoctrinated, but our friends were perhaps, so why should we take the risk, hurry before they start giving you queer glances!
This image of being comfortable, laid back and restrained is broken when you go out and buy something so you can feel calm and stop wondering about your friends judging you for what you wear (covering beginning to look better than superficial dressing?) What is funny is that this simple truth of how absurd and stressful the whole laidback image is to maintain (in this culture of superficiality that is) is not ignored by its very followers, they are never ones to profess ignorance of this practice, they say honestly and without hesitation how they detest that fake idiotic practice. Always quick to add how they were born in Nike or Island style shoes, and this expensive brand is the only thing that will last them a 24-hour period, their pants are naturally baggy and there shoes have always been tied in that unique special way. This is the Façade.
Optional paragraph…….
Clothing is the most obvious and easy to point out to people where they have bought into some feeble advertising concept, but similarly to the brands, specialized slang (not jargon) and behaviour (how the clothes are worn for example; cap at a specific angle and/or direction) go hand in hand with their superficial culture, where there are different castes; that all profess their intrinsic individuality under the same banner of ignorance and idiocy. In South Africa, we don’t have so many different superficial castes, perhaps because there is enough feeling of the “excluded other” in demographic regions where these popular cultures lie. In other societies a Goth will only talk with Goths, a punk only with punks and so on. Perhaps here we could divide us up into races but, but in a place like Cape Town, race has specific class and cultural implication, and I am only familiar with the western superficial popular caste groups, so I we are an interesting region. So I must say this essay is only relevant (if its relevant at all(hopefully it has a lot of correct formulated ideas)) to a very small portion of the youth in my country, and perhaps a lot of the western world- interesting, it means very little to my country as a whole, what a waste of time. (I feel I can go off on a bit of a tangent as this project is so free and I can just say this is an interpretation project and not a research formal one (smug laugh)).
plz bear in mind, its 2am and i did this in 2:30 hours. and we were given a month, so i had to make it look like i had thought of a lot of differant topics, so i dont think the ideas flow so well, but what do u think of the little bits of intangled content??? thats wat i really would like to know.
IF ne was wondering wat this has to do woth the questionaire, i got a lot of the the inspiration for what this has from the questionaire, and i am going to highlight things in ur answers and say hy i think thats particluary interesting with a key thing, but i can tshow that online, so this is all u get :(, neway I hope to get some interesting feedback.......