Uniforms and Rituals

Humility was apparently a big concern in my family, because growing up there were two sayings I used to hear more than any other.

"Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back."

-and-

"You think your shit doesn't stink, but your farts give you away."

[insert clever segue here]

The above advertisement was found in Issue 87 of BPM magazine, a magazine dedicated to "music, tech, nightlife and style" according to their subtitle. According to me, the magazine's main interest is style, because this is a mag about electronica music, club culture, and the hipster kids who indulge in in those things, and like most other "scenes", it always seemed to me that fashion/style and one's "rep" or "cred" within any given scene trumps all else. We wear the appropriate fashions, we use the oft-inclusive vocabularies, we dance/react to the chosen music in the approved manner (headbanging, breakdancing, etc), and we glorify our own scene while typically ridiculing all other scenes.

If we don't abide by the uniforms and rituals of our chosen scene, we risk being ostracized by the group (or never gain admittance in the first place). At best, our reputation within the group suffers.

Apparently, within the club culture, making a stink when one makes stinky can damage one's reputation...

I kid, I kid. For all I know this advert also ran in The Source and Kerrang.

(They still publish Kerrang, don't they?)

Anyways, I didn't start this post to rank on club kids and their lifestyle, but rather to simply point out that this is apparently where we now are as a species. Natural bodily functions are now so grotesque to many of us that even the faintest whiff of them (literally) is unacceptable.

This saddens me. It also makes me laugh.

Hotcha! Hank