Band Rivalry -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 11:26:29 04/30/08 Wed
Author: Jonathan Dunn
Subject: Band Rivalry

I came across an instance of mimetic rivalry today. I'll change the names to protect identities. There are two bands on campus who both want to see themselves as quirky, sophisticated indie-rockers who rock hard on the one hand but, on the other hand have reflective, subtle, and beautiful melodies.

On of these band, "Cherubim" created a band profile on Facebook and took some rather campy photos around campus to which they applied rather campy effects in Photoshop. The other band, "The Straits," derided this campiness and then made their own Facebook profile complete with lofty and meaningless statements of purpose. The Straits then forced their members to participate in a campy photoshoot, to which pictures an overwhelmingly campy effect was applied in Photoshop. Thus, The Straits mocked Cherubim's imitation of Radiohead, etc while at the same time participating in that same imitation.

Cherubim was known to put on pretentious concerts in downtown apartments in an attempt to mimic a trendy and urban "artist's loft" gathering where sophisticated people enjoy sophisticated music. A private music club where the educated city-folk could hang out without the normal bar crowd. The Straits rightly mocked these shows until, one day, they decided to participate in the mimetic rivalry by throwing a far more pretentious "warehouse" party complete with a mod-themed costume element.

The point is that The Straits understood how campy and pretentious the other band was, but that even while understanding this they decided to participate in the rivalry of external mediation, creating a distinction by going further in the pursuit of pretension. This situation could have been saved by an element of parody and mockery; but it turns out that The Straits couldn't resist the pull of the mimetic rivalry.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]