A fleeting personal pleasure to be had mainly alone
March 24, 2024 2:58 AM Subscribe
But the underlying online vs. real life opposition is harder to dispel. Here it is attached to consumerist identities, like an exploded version of the chain stores vs. mom-and-pop stores opposition from the No Logo era. There is a genuine, authentic way to make a spectacle of the self, but it needs to tap into a rooted habitus and recondite practice (a “context”), and not simply reflect haphazard free play with readily available cultural signifiers (mere “content”). That is, the correct and real self is rooted in distinction (in Bordieu’s sense) and not differentiation. The internet is supposedly undermining the kind of distinction that should matter and proliferating the kinds of differences that are superficial rather than culturally binding. from Spacing the cans by Rob Horning
Does the frenzy for naming and “curating” on online platforms make in-person meet-ups seem less desirable? Do kids turn to posting and online sociality because of restrictive parenting and the failure of society to provide them with other territories where they can experiment with identity and community? Are algorithms making kids too addicted to phones to be present in reciprocal friendships? Does the phone as an interface habituate kids to solitary solipsism? Are online spaces inadequate for identity formation because the stakes there are too high, too low, or both simultaneously? Can you have any subcultures without a mainstream for them to define themselves against? Is the mainstream, if it still could be said to exist, more or less hegemonic?
Sir, this is an Aldi's.
posted by AlSweigart at 5:40 AM on March 24 [27 favorites]
Sir, this is an Aldi's.
posted by AlSweigart at 5:40 AM on March 24 [27 favorites]
I happen to like Happy Harvest tomato paste...
posted by Czjewel at 6:13 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]
posted by Czjewel at 6:13 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]
habitus
Bourdieu
You have my attention. Thank you for this post!
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:58 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]
Bourdieu
You have my attention. Thank you for this post!
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:58 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]
Reading No Logo as a teen had a hell of an effect on me, to the point that I (still) do my best to avoid brand logos, especially any products that seem to only exist to advertise the brand itself (mostly clothing). Clothing that leaves no doubt what brand it is because the logo is plastered all over it sets my teeth on edge, and has for most of my life.
What I find fascinating, now, is the explosion of bullshit brand names all over any kind of online marketplace, but especially Amazon. Usually a string of nonsense consonants, with no real attempt to capture any nuance or image, advertised right alongside established brands, often much cheaper, and often of the same quality (whether that's just brand name goods becoming steadily poorer in quality or not is a different topic). And honestly, I kind of love it, in a weird surprised sort of way. It's utterly not the way I thought things would go, but it's nice, once in a while, to see the generalized enshittification of things to hit in a way that is novel. Brands themselves seem mostly to be in a death spiral of profit seeking, degrading their product, or even removing themselves from production entirely, seemingly having forgotten the central concept of this sort of race to the bottom: there's always someone willing to do it cheaper.
So, now, hallowed brand names, from any product line you can imagine, are right there with utter nonsense-named non-brand brands, and there's just nothing to tell them apart anymore, other than being willing to pay a little more to have a name that has less and less meaning. It would be nice, sure, if there were trustworthy brands out there making decent and reliable products, but that era seems to be fading. At least we'll be able to get the same crap cheaper.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:59 AM on March 24 [8 favorites]
What I find fascinating, now, is the explosion of bullshit brand names all over any kind of online marketplace, but especially Amazon. Usually a string of nonsense consonants, with no real attempt to capture any nuance or image, advertised right alongside established brands, often much cheaper, and often of the same quality (whether that's just brand name goods becoming steadily poorer in quality or not is a different topic). And honestly, I kind of love it, in a weird surprised sort of way. It's utterly not the way I thought things would go, but it's nice, once in a while, to see the generalized enshittification of things to hit in a way that is novel. Brands themselves seem mostly to be in a death spiral of profit seeking, degrading their product, or even removing themselves from production entirely, seemingly having forgotten the central concept of this sort of race to the bottom: there's always someone willing to do it cheaper.
So, now, hallowed brand names, from any product line you can imagine, are right there with utter nonsense-named non-brand brands, and there's just nothing to tell them apart anymore, other than being willing to pay a little more to have a name that has less and less meaning. It would be nice, sure, if there were trustworthy brands out there making decent and reliable products, but that era seems to be fading. At least we'll be able to get the same crap cheaper.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:59 AM on March 24 [8 favorites]
This is definitely targeted directly at the MeFi crowd: overthinking a can of beans.
posted by rikschell at 7:00 AM on March 24 [11 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 7:00 AM on March 24 [11 favorites]
Usually a string of nonsense consonants
I think this NYT piece has come up before when we've talked about these Amazon-located brands, but just in case anyone missed it: All Your Favorite Brands, From BSTOEM to ZGGCD. (Also available in this knock-off version.)
posted by mittens at 7:13 AM on March 24 [5 favorites]
I think this NYT piece has come up before when we've talked about these Amazon-located brands, but just in case anyone missed it: All Your Favorite Brands, From BSTOEM to ZGGCD. (Also available in this knock-off version.)
posted by mittens at 7:13 AM on March 24 [5 favorites]
And yet it appears that kids today are unhappier than kids yesterday.
Just as when everyone finally hears about the CIA and abstract expressionism and decides that abstract expressionism was therefore an op, there's this thing of assuming that because people talking about various golden ages are full of shit, therefore all ages are equivalent.
The world is a lot smaller for everyone now and they've swapped in a lot of fake world in the hopes of making up for it. The fake world would be pretty cool if we had it in addition to the real one, but as a replacement it's garbage. It's great to be able to make friends online, it's fun to identify and participate in micro-trends and internet jokes and so on but if there's nowhere to go outside except your back yard (if you're lucky enough to have one) or a heavily surveilled, heavily focus grouped commercial environment, that's a deprivation.
I was thinking about this with those idiotic AI goggles they're selling now - certainly fine if you're stuck on a plane and have the room to wave your arms around, but when you're walking down the street there's the whole world right there in front of you, with its infinite richness and complexity and its capacity for chance and the unexpected. I live on a street that's pretty grim right now, frankly, and yet it's still a genuine rich pageant worth paying attention to; it's not improved by putting an internet overlay on it to distract me from what's really there.
The whole point of the internet as it exists today - and the surveillance/focus-group commercial world - is to prevent chance and the unexpected by subtracting or canalizing richness and complexity. We're all getting more and more fenced off from chance, richness and complexity by the substitution of surveilled and monetized spaces and technologies. It's awful for everyone but it's particularly awful for kids who haven't had the chance to choose.
The thing of the subcultures was not their oppositionality, per se, and TBQH a number of the punks I knew back in the day were the children of hippies, artists or just nice parents and had happy even if not affluent homes. People with happy homes and good relationships to their parents were envied; that didn't have much to do with whether you wanted to hang out at the infoshop or learn screen printing. The thing of being able to rent an itty storefront in an out of the way location and basically have an art space, or to live in a big old house with a shifting cast of your closest friends - the point there was not that you were sticking it to the man, it was that you had a chance to try stuff out, form new kinds of bonds, work on your art, etc. The internet in addition is great; instead, it's pretty bleak.
To the extent that people my age think it's cool or essential to "rebel" in a formulaic sort of way, they might find that ur text of our youth, The Conquest of Cool, to be of interest.
Also, frankly, it's nice not to be surveilled every waking minute, I typed on this our internet, and a big thing with "scenes" was a kind of privacy, whether that was privacy from the Man or privacy from your parents or privacy from the mean kids at school, etc etc. Privacy became an open theme as we were losing it in the late nineties, but there was always an idea of privacy - you could go to the event or the place to try out new things with people who would be at least marginally sympathetic, you could get a little relief from being looked at by a hostile world. Now, of course, we're all performing in front of a basically hostile world all the time, and I don't think that's especially great for art.
posted by Frowner at 7:46 AM on March 24 [23 favorites]
Just as when everyone finally hears about the CIA and abstract expressionism and decides that abstract expressionism was therefore an op, there's this thing of assuming that because people talking about various golden ages are full of shit, therefore all ages are equivalent.
The world is a lot smaller for everyone now and they've swapped in a lot of fake world in the hopes of making up for it. The fake world would be pretty cool if we had it in addition to the real one, but as a replacement it's garbage. It's great to be able to make friends online, it's fun to identify and participate in micro-trends and internet jokes and so on but if there's nowhere to go outside except your back yard (if you're lucky enough to have one) or a heavily surveilled, heavily focus grouped commercial environment, that's a deprivation.
I was thinking about this with those idiotic AI goggles they're selling now - certainly fine if you're stuck on a plane and have the room to wave your arms around, but when you're walking down the street there's the whole world right there in front of you, with its infinite richness and complexity and its capacity for chance and the unexpected. I live on a street that's pretty grim right now, frankly, and yet it's still a genuine rich pageant worth paying attention to; it's not improved by putting an internet overlay on it to distract me from what's really there.
The whole point of the internet as it exists today - and the surveillance/focus-group commercial world - is to prevent chance and the unexpected by subtracting or canalizing richness and complexity. We're all getting more and more fenced off from chance, richness and complexity by the substitution of surveilled and monetized spaces and technologies. It's awful for everyone but it's particularly awful for kids who haven't had the chance to choose.
The thing of the subcultures was not their oppositionality, per se, and TBQH a number of the punks I knew back in the day were the children of hippies, artists or just nice parents and had happy even if not affluent homes. People with happy homes and good relationships to their parents were envied; that didn't have much to do with whether you wanted to hang out at the infoshop or learn screen printing. The thing of being able to rent an itty storefront in an out of the way location and basically have an art space, or to live in a big old house with a shifting cast of your closest friends - the point there was not that you were sticking it to the man, it was that you had a chance to try stuff out, form new kinds of bonds, work on your art, etc. The internet in addition is great; instead, it's pretty bleak.
To the extent that people my age think it's cool or essential to "rebel" in a formulaic sort of way, they might find that ur text of our youth, The Conquest of Cool, to be of interest.
Also, frankly, it's nice not to be surveilled every waking minute, I typed on this our internet, and a big thing with "scenes" was a kind of privacy, whether that was privacy from the Man or privacy from your parents or privacy from the mean kids at school, etc etc. Privacy became an open theme as we were losing it in the late nineties, but there was always an idea of privacy - you could go to the event or the place to try out new things with people who would be at least marginally sympathetic, you could get a little relief from being looked at by a hostile world. Now, of course, we're all performing in front of a basically hostile world all the time, and I don't think that's especially great for art.
posted by Frowner at 7:46 AM on March 24 [23 favorites]
The internet in addition is great; instead, it's pretty bleak.
QFT.
posted by chavenet at 8:06 AM on March 24 [6 favorites]
QFT.
posted by chavenet at 8:06 AM on March 24 [6 favorites]
What I find fascinating, now, is the explosion of bullshit brand names all over any kind of online marketplace, but especially Amazon. Usually a string of nonsense consonants, with no real attempt to capture any nuance or image, advertised right alongside established brands, often much cheaper, and often of the same quality (whether that's just brand name goods becoming steadily poorer in quality or not is a different topic).
With the caveat that I don't buy clothes online, it's been my experience that the wacky brand names are mostly on far-east-cloned products and/or lame attempts to fake a 'brand' reputation. In some cases the clones are near-equals, more often they're markedly inferior, and the difference becomes stark if you need warranty support after the exchange/refund period. And there are a few instances of new China-based brands developing and earning a good brand reputation in a niche (eg Deity mics).
On a tangent, I'm finding Amazon to be more expensive these days. Certain big brands are now more expensive at Amazon, and as these brands and some retailers are developing their own efficient onĺine sales capabilities, Amazon is no longer the no-brainer choice.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:20 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]
With the caveat that I don't buy clothes online, it's been my experience that the wacky brand names are mostly on far-east-cloned products and/or lame attempts to fake a 'brand' reputation. In some cases the clones are near-equals, more often they're markedly inferior, and the difference becomes stark if you need warranty support after the exchange/refund period. And there are a few instances of new China-based brands developing and earning a good brand reputation in a niche (eg Deity mics).
On a tangent, I'm finding Amazon to be more expensive these days. Certain big brands are now more expensive at Amazon, and as these brands and some retailers are developing their own efficient onĺine sales capabilities, Amazon is no longer the no-brainer choice.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:20 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]
I'd been hoping for an entire piece about Aldi's weird lame (but oddly comforting) branding
Aldi's house branding always bears more than a passing resemblance to the market leader's, skating right on the edge of inviting trademark infringement lawsuits. There is no doubt in my mind that they do this because they understand very well what makes people reach out to a shelf and put an item in a trolley.
Finding their branding comforting isn't "odd", it's the intended outcome.
posted by flabdablet at 8:23 AM on March 24 [9 favorites]
What work is the “Happy Harvest” brand doing on this can of tomato paste from Aldi? It’s not competing with other brands of canned tomatoes, because Aldi pretty much sells only its own house brands.What it's doing is signifying "tomato paste". It's not competing with other brands of canned tomatoes so much as mercilessly ripping off enough design elements from those brands' packaging to be able to free-ride on all their advertising, so that Aldi's customers subconsciously both recognize a can of tomato paste for what it is and impute high quality to it.
Aldi's house branding always bears more than a passing resemblance to the market leader's, skating right on the edge of inviting trademark infringement lawsuits. There is no doubt in my mind that they do this because they understand very well what makes people reach out to a shelf and put an item in a trolley.
Finding their branding comforting isn't "odd", it's the intended outcome.
posted by flabdablet at 8:23 AM on March 24 [9 favorites]
I like rhapsodizing about empty signifiers as much as the next semiotician, but the repetition is not working for me:
“As brands become more valuable in and of themselves, distinct from the material products they are branded onto, they also approach a cipher-like nullity in which they can’t signify anything but themselves. The stronger the brand in itself, the less it indicates about the products subsumed under it. At a certain extreme of self-referentiality, the self disappears. The brand becomes a pure vacuum, a representation that doesn’t represent.”
I think this piece could do with a little more air and some editing. Save some of these clever lines for another paragraph or different can of beans
posted by xtian at 8:44 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]
“As brands become more valuable in and of themselves, distinct from the material products they are branded onto, they also approach a cipher-like nullity in which they can’t signify anything but themselves. The stronger the brand in itself, the less it indicates about the products subsumed under it. At a certain extreme of self-referentiality, the self disappears. The brand becomes a pure vacuum, a representation that doesn’t represent.”
I think this piece could do with a little more air and some editing. Save some of these clever lines for another paragraph or different can of beans
posted by xtian at 8:44 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]
(...aaand I'm WRONG; Deity was started in California. Sorry, I was confusing them with another brand. Thesis not proved.)
posted by Artful Codger at 9:14 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]
posted by Artful Codger at 9:14 AM on March 24 [2 favorites]
I'm 99% sure that the overworked, extremely underpaid, tired designers of Aldi's inhouse brands will be reading this article and weeping
On a sidenote - it's not as if Aldi isn't engaging in bullshit marketing tactics which this article seems to imply. Their whole 'non-GMO, natural food dyes' only type schtick is very much leaning hard into that 'health' conscious foodie space. There's a reason why the Aldi I knew growing up that my mom shopped at existed as a space for the working class, the poor, the immigrant families and the Aldi of today is frequented by the millenial middle-class. There's a reason why the more expensive, the more middle-class-targeting Lidl and even more bougie Trader Joe's have emerged in urban markets everywhere.
In our Dickies or sports wear, driving utility vehicles and trucks, we head into these spaces drossed in working class signifiers, an empty practice of aesthetic class solidarity and the target consumer in a post-Costco world where you're able to market bullshit signifiers of quality to the lumpenproletariat and petit bourgeoisie so long as you're not the most exploitative of all the grocery options.
This omitting of class-conscious criticism in an essay about branding, sub-cultural identity, and modern spaces is the missing 'hegemonic influence' that this essay hints at. The signifiers of wealth - good health, ability to be highly selective with your choices of food, sometimes ownership of luxury brands (though social capital plays so much a role here - instead of Prada or Chanel, the 'old money' types seek buy-it-for-life brands like Patagonia, itself prohibitively expensive but carrying with it the ancient cultural signifier of 'tasteful' and 'rational' too) - these all exist in spades and is the essence behind so much of modern day branding.
posted by paimapi at 12:17 PM on March 24 [7 favorites]
On a sidenote - it's not as if Aldi isn't engaging in bullshit marketing tactics which this article seems to imply. Their whole 'non-GMO, natural food dyes' only type schtick is very much leaning hard into that 'health' conscious foodie space. There's a reason why the Aldi I knew growing up that my mom shopped at existed as a space for the working class, the poor, the immigrant families and the Aldi of today is frequented by the millenial middle-class. There's a reason why the more expensive, the more middle-class-targeting Lidl and even more bougie Trader Joe's have emerged in urban markets everywhere.
In our Dickies or sports wear, driving utility vehicles and trucks, we head into these spaces drossed in working class signifiers, an empty practice of aesthetic class solidarity and the target consumer in a post-Costco world where you're able to market bullshit signifiers of quality to the lumpenproletariat and petit bourgeoisie so long as you're not the most exploitative of all the grocery options.
This omitting of class-conscious criticism in an essay about branding, sub-cultural identity, and modern spaces is the missing 'hegemonic influence' that this essay hints at. The signifiers of wealth - good health, ability to be highly selective with your choices of food, sometimes ownership of luxury brands (though social capital plays so much a role here - instead of Prada or Chanel, the 'old money' types seek buy-it-for-life brands like Patagonia, itself prohibitively expensive but carrying with it the ancient cultural signifier of 'tasteful' and 'rational' too) - these all exist in spades and is the essence behind so much of modern day branding.
posted by paimapi at 12:17 PM on March 24 [7 favorites]
OK so I've finally read the linked piece. It lost me about halfway, when he started discussing the "teens".
But, back to branding. Costco has their housebrand Kirkland. Even in a chain so clearly oriented at the most stuff for the least $$$, you apparently can't just stick on a white or yellow label with a generic name rendered in black sans-serif and compete. (Though we do also have discount chains like No Frills where generic labelling is a virtue)
I also wanted to mention the late Dave Nichols. Prior to Dave, supermarket generics were the mediocre, self-consciously inferior products you bought because you needed to save money. As president of Loblaws (a Canadian grocery chain), he flipped that on its head, turning the new store brand ("President’s Choice") into a curated range of often innovative and superior products. Together with clever promotion via their flyer campaign ("Insider's Report"), Loblaw's new house brand became a signifier of quality,
posted by Artful Codger at 1:50 PM on March 24 [2 favorites]
But, back to branding. Costco has their housebrand Kirkland. Even in a chain so clearly oriented at the most stuff for the least $$$, you apparently can't just stick on a white or yellow label with a generic name rendered in black sans-serif and compete. (Though we do also have discount chains like No Frills where generic labelling is a virtue)
I also wanted to mention the late Dave Nichols. Prior to Dave, supermarket generics were the mediocre, self-consciously inferior products you bought because you needed to save money. As president of Loblaws (a Canadian grocery chain), he flipped that on its head, turning the new store brand ("President’s Choice") into a curated range of often innovative and superior products. Together with clever promotion via their flyer campaign ("Insider's Report"), Loblaw's new house brand became a signifier of quality,
posted by Artful Codger at 1:50 PM on March 24 [2 favorites]
There's a reason why the more expensive, the more middle-class-targeting Lidl and even more bougie Trader Joe's
guess what? scroll to #4
posted by chavenet at 2:14 PM on March 24 [2 favorites]
guess what? scroll to #4
posted by chavenet at 2:14 PM on March 24 [2 favorites]
Incidentally (and I was reminded of this by the article chavenet links above), there are actually two different ALDIs. They’ve been rumored to be planning a merger, but that hasn’t happened yet AFAIK. (Although, and this is a bit more on-topic, they did merge their in-house brands four years ago. Presumably that Happy Harvest paste now sits on shelves the world over.)
posted by non canadian guy at 5:10 PM on March 24
posted by non canadian guy at 5:10 PM on March 24
So, now, hallowed brand names, from any product line you can imagine, are right there with utter nonsense-named non-brand brands, and there's just nothing to tell them apart anymore
But seriously, enough about NBC News.
posted by non canadian guy at 5:20 PM on March 24 [1 favorite]
But seriously, enough about NBC News.
posted by non canadian guy at 5:20 PM on March 24 [1 favorite]
Presumably that Happy Harvest paste now sits on shelves the world over.
That won't happen until capitalism finally achieves total homogenization of the world's entire food supply. In Australia, for example, Aldi tomato paste carries the same Remano label as all its other Italian-adjacent foods like pasta and olive oil.
The market leader in tomato paste in this country is Leggo's.
Leggo's tomato paste branding
Remano tomato paste branding
As another example: San Remo is a well-known Australian pasta brand. It's in every non-Aldi supermarket, typically priced maybe 50% higher than the house brand.
San Remo pasta branding
Remano pasta branding
Doesn't take a lot of scrolling through that Remano image search page before Google starts including San Remo imagery in amongst it.
I am pretty sure that Aldi's ability to free-ride on the reflexive see-it-grab-it effects of market leaders' advertising is worth more to them than global house brand image unification would be, especially for product sourced in the same country it's sold in.
posted by flabdablet at 7:13 PM on March 24 [4 favorites]
That won't happen until capitalism finally achieves total homogenization of the world's entire food supply. In Australia, for example, Aldi tomato paste carries the same Remano label as all its other Italian-adjacent foods like pasta and olive oil.
The market leader in tomato paste in this country is Leggo's.
Leggo's tomato paste branding
Remano tomato paste branding
As another example: San Remo is a well-known Australian pasta brand. It's in every non-Aldi supermarket, typically priced maybe 50% higher than the house brand.
San Remo pasta branding
Remano pasta branding
Doesn't take a lot of scrolling through that Remano image search page before Google starts including San Remo imagery in amongst it.
I am pretty sure that Aldi's ability to free-ride on the reflexive see-it-grab-it effects of market leaders' advertising is worth more to them than global house brand image unification would be, especially for product sourced in the same country it's sold in.
posted by flabdablet at 7:13 PM on March 24 [4 favorites]
Happy Harvest, by the way, strikes this Australian as a name that tries far too hard. I don't think it would work as well here as the vaguely Italian-sounding "Remano"; Australia's mandatory happiness culture is not as strong as the US's.
posted by flabdablet at 7:18 PM on March 24 [3 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 7:18 PM on March 24 [3 favorites]
Nah, we don't demand happiness of our sauces here in the US; for example, at my house, our favorite sauce is Bertolli (which sounds Italian but, on looking it up, was apparently bought from Unilever by Mizkan Holdings). (Also, discovering there's a sauce brand called Leggo's makes one think of some sort of magic square with Lego, Eggo, and L'Eggs.)
(Also also, this thread is the first time I've ever heard of Lidl being a higher-class brand than Aldi? I mean they literally have a dollar store in their freezer section!)
posted by mittens at 4:46 AM on March 25 [1 favorite]
(Also also, this thread is the first time I've ever heard of Lidl being a higher-class brand than Aldi? I mean they literally have a dollar store in their freezer section!)
posted by mittens at 4:46 AM on March 25 [1 favorite]
Happy Harvest, by the way, strikes this Australian as a name that tries far too hard.
For me, it has a very strong “american strip-mall chinese take-out restaurant” vibe. Not a bad thing at all.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:57 AM on March 25 [2 favorites]
For me, it has a very strong “american strip-mall chinese take-out restaurant” vibe. Not a bad thing at all.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:57 AM on March 25 [2 favorites]
> you apparently can't just stick on a white or yellow label with a generic name rendered in black sans-serif and compete.
Once upon a time it was not so. Though at the time, sans-serif fonts hadn't beeninvented popularized by a certain fruit-themed computer company. Fake stencil fonts (emulating the style of spray-painted labels on military supply crates, often with a bar of OD green on the white background so that you were sure to get the point) were the overwhelming choice.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 6:39 AM on March 25 [1 favorite]
Once upon a time it was not so. Though at the time, sans-serif fonts hadn't been
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 6:39 AM on March 25 [1 favorite]
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If I'd been hoping for an entire piece about Aldi's weird lame (but oddly comforting) branding, I was disappointed when the topic turned to teenagers, because there's a significant missing piece from his discussion there: The lack of third-spaces. If there is nowhere for teenagers to go, then there is no possibility for a punk-like aesthetic-in-real-space to take form. But this leads to a misunderstanding. The Gen X parent asks, "Why isn't my child rebelling the way I rebelled," because in that real-space childhood one of the easiest ways to mark yourself was in that opposition to the parental aesthetic. But the modern child creates a sort of fractally-edged camouflage, a rebellion of constantly changing definitions: the older rebel slaps the parent's hand away; the newer rebel slips through their parent's fingers like beach sand. Living within and keeping up with those so-called superficial changes as they burst and coalesce across the timeline is going to turn out to be one of the primary markers of this generation. You, as an old person, will be marked not only by your inability to keep up, but by your clinging to certain signposts from a slower, softer era (perhaps the 'fellow kids' meme, which is now old enough to be clamoring for its own phone). (or by setting a can of Aldi's tomato sauce next to your child, trying to understand the connection.)
posted by mittens at 4:51 AM on March 24 [14 favorites]