Acculturated: The New Edgy Conservatism

[Loony Le Fist]

Has anyone heard of this rubbish site named Acculturated (http://acculturated.com/). Sadly it seems that conservatives seek to infect the arts as well as the political sphere. You have to love the motto of the site: pop culture matters. No, pop culture is shit.

See this article (http://acculturated.com/conservatives-and-the-pop-culture-divide/) for example. Ugh. I'm so pissed.

[Creative Destruction]

the first article that popped up on their site is kind of interesting in a round about way:

http://acculturated.com/when-did-tv-get-so-dark-and-twisted/

i think our shows and movies are a barometer of how we're feeling at any given time as white society. and the 90s is usually seen as a carefree time for white folks, as the author notes (ironically, many conservatives like to try to paint that decade as one of complete disaster and moral decay for mainstream america, for which the congressional Republicans at the time did very little to ameliorate.)

what's interesting about it is how fucking white TV was and still is. if our television culture is a reflection of anything, it's generally a reflection of white society. so something is in disarray with white people and -- goddamnit -- we need to pay attention now! meanwhile, other peoples in the country are locked out of the culture stream and their stories are basically denied until deemed appropriate by white people to pay attention to. and it's usually treated as a revelation (you can see this with the white fan culture surrounding The Wire.)

there could be some stuff to pick out of this site which would be useful to critique. i think conservatives are generally fucking horrible at "culture" (anything culture), especially comedy. a good microcosm took look at is christians and rock music. gah. so fucking horrible. but that aside, this might be interesting to look at from time to time from an outsider's perspective.

eta. lol. their writing staff is exclusively white. the ones they provided pictures for anyway. that's not surprising i guess, but i figured they would've tried to throw in a token black or latino contributor.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

Ha, well shit I found myself completely agreeing with the article about how Iggy Azalea is a fucking racist and consumer drone.

But yes, the site does seem super conservative. But shit, I really agreed with that article bashing Azalea.

In fact, the writer of the article did NOT seem conservative at all. He or she bashed her for making jabs at gays and black people.

[Loony Le Fist]

Ha, well shit I found myself completely agreeing with the article about how Iggy Azalea is a fucking racist and consumer drone.

But yes, the site does seem super conservative. But shit, I really agreed with that article bashing Azalea.

Well broken clocks are right twice a day. I find myself agreeing with particular points with caveats. The problem is that partial truths are more dangerous than complete lies.

[Creative Destruction]

this article isn't half bad, if a bit short and simple:

http://acculturated.com/overcoming-the-attractiveness-bias/

that's an issue, but it's more helpful if they had gone a step further and interrogated the idea of "attractiveness" in the first place and what social factors go into determining something like this.

[Loony Le Fist]

this article isn't half bad, if a bit short and simple:

http://acculturated.com/overcoming-the-attractiveness-bias/

that's an issue, but it's more helpful if they had gone a step further and interrogated the idea of "attractiveness" in the first place and what social factors go into determining something like this.

No, it's not terrible. I actually read that one. I suppose I have an extreme bias against pop-culture; I feel has already been infected with right-wing garbage. You are correct though, you can find a good one once in a while.

[Creative Destruction]

No, it's not terrible. I actually read that one. I suppose I have an extreme bias against pop-culture; I feel has already been infected with right-wing garbage. You are correct though, you can find a good one once in a while.

well, if we're to take all spectrum of capitalist ideologies as right-wing, i'd agree with that. but it's still useful to use pop culture as a lens for analyzing society, especially since it is one of the more frank expressions of society.

for example: i've been getting a kick out of weird al's little publicity stunt, mainly because i just like weird al. but i had never heard "blurred lines" or "fancy" before this week, and have now because of the weird al parodies. "blurred lines" is some misogynistic dreck, which is interesting because i think i've heard robin thicke being described (or maybe described himself) as a feminist or saying feminist things. if i'm remembering that correctly, then it's pretty telling that a "feminist" would put out a song like "blurred lines" and it kind of just tells you/confirms what the mainstream thinks feminism is. and "fancy" is just overinflated horrible pop music, which lets me know where pop culture thinks its music should go.

so, it's helpful to know where everything is at and how far it could be pushed. i know that any conversation about feminism is probably now going to be tainted further because, apparently, according to some male pop star, feminism is only about sex with women, rather than it being about a whole host of different issues related to equality. and i also know now that white people are continuing to ruin hip hop while getting crazy rich doing it.