Whitechapel - Where's the weird gone?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T06:36:36-07:00

Now, this may be just me, but the world seems to have got less weird lately.

The days leading up to the turn of the millennium weren't just dark, they were positively bugfuck with a mixture of apocalypse fetishism, psychedelic monstrosities, anally probing aliens, cults, crop circles and craziness busting out into the mainstream just about everywhere.

Now, of course, you do still get all of the above. But that's the trouble. It's all just watered down versions of all of the above. Serial killers, perverts and abductees are all just a bit rubbish these days. It's like they're not even trying. And even Julian Cope sounds like he's been stuck on repeat since 2004 or so, like he's well on the meds, when his missives used to be outstanding slices of mad cool.

And not to take yet another shot at a popular target, but whilst kids bestseller lists are full of tales of darke creatyres, they're all totally fucking nutless, with vampires just standing in for the 'Aristocrats' of Jane Austen type stuff and 'Gypsies' and 'Swarthy types' of Enid Blyton.

Even the bloody 'Otherkin' just aren't entertainingly mental any more, and they've all decided they're 10 foot blue 3D motion captured effects now, not folktales filtered through fairytales via Disney and anime, as they used to be (although, the dragon dildo website's copy writer did cheer me up for a while, and no way I'm finding that site to link to for you lot whilst I'm slacking here at work... find it your damn self).

So, here's me clinging to www.forteantimes.com and the Anomalist's and my beloved Centre for Fortean Zoology except they all just aren't doing it for me and I either need a bigger hit, or they've subtly switched to decaff weird, not the proper stuff.

Has everyone just grown up? I have to admit, people like Ben Goldacre, Derren Brown and Penn and Teller hold my attention far more these days, when dismissing ridiculous claims than the makers of said claims do, not because I've got any more or less of a 'skeptic', but because the nutters just aren't doing it for me, and I'm not rooting for them anymore because they're boring, not because they're actually nutters.

So, please use this thread to discuss the empirical of levels of weirdness in the world today, providing examples, charts, graphs, diagrams and images of centrifugally examined Sasquatch stool samples.

I'm not interested in debates between proponents of parabugfuckery and science-ists, I only want teh gud wierd.

The really good weird. Seriously. I shall throw a giant hissy strop if someone posts a picture of an orb or a mainstream news report about a funny shape in the sky. If it's something a news anchor would make a pithy comment about on seeing, rather than tearing his eyeballs out over, or resigning on the spot, shitting his suit, and saying 'well, that's it, you may as well all do it in the road, as we're all fucked now' and meaning it, then I don't care.

Those of us who used to breath this stuff are suffocating.

Aerate us.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T08:36:52-07:00

You know how Coilhouse says it's a love letter to alternative culture (because it doesn't exist anymore), well, I think that's what you're seeing.

All of that stuff that was so edgy and cool and has been splashed across the tabloids, so now even regular folks know what A Rusalka is (OK, maybe not that), or about Crop Circles, or the things you mention above. The X-Files dragged this stuff into pop culture, and now it's passé... until remakes start up in five years or so.

Then again, maybe They are putting something in the water that makes us less inquisitive, and you're resistant to it.

I personally think Katie Price is an Elder God... but everyone thinks I'm mad.... meh.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T08:44:19-07:00

Did you see the second X-Files movie? Are you even aware it existed?

Quite...

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T08:55:53-07:00

Thoughts coming straight through fingers here...

The X-files, in the 90s, didn't make this stuff pop culture, it's what it was and the x-files held up a mirror to it. You'd often get stuff in the X-files that was lifted wholesale from alt.alien.visitors and the x-files' narrative about the greys vs the clones and the supersoldiers and the alien database culled from smallpox vaccine samples wasn't authored by the script-writers, it was pulled straight out of the zeitgeist, and people really, really, really, really believed it, before it was even on TV. Dark Skies was the programme that probably did the most 'accurate' take on the 20th century Alien narrative that started with Betty and Barney Hill, was exploded by Whitely Strieber and coloured by Bob Lazar, rather than the X-files, but that's the point. But it's all just faded like morning mist at noon. There's no 'narrative of the weird' anymore. The 'birther' and 'truther' shite doesn't count, because really, it's just dull.

I have to admit, I haven't given Coilhouse the time I should have, but even that concept depresses me slightly. Maybe all this is my loveletter to it though. Or eulogy.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T09:00:34-07:00

No millennial pressure.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T09:09:23-07:00

What he said.

Heh.

Come 2094 we'll all be worrying about nanite enemas from Beta Centurii, and quantum fuckery that does/ does not happen when you turn the bedroom lights off. Or Sarah Palin's thousand year old tits.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T09:11:00-07:00

Yeah. No cold war either. And the 2012 stuff is fairly half-hearted.

I'm almost-expecting something to happen, or be imagined, which will take the place of all that.

Is the future really over? Not just 'not the future you expected', but one with absolutely no milestones ahead?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T09:13:29-07:00

Well,

Looks like we need to take this bull by the horns and create another pandemic of fear. I vote for finding some scientist to tell people that the earth is actually losing air- and we won't have enough to breathe by 2035. Get all the presses rolling. Then people will get weird again.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T09:18:09-07:00

Weird to think we're catching up to Blade Runner (2019). Minority Report is set in 2054.

Suddenly a Philip K Dick tangent Universe doesn't seem so bad when Palin running for President and insane UK austerity is all we have to look forward to...

Of course, we'll never catch up to A Scanner Darkly – it's set 'Seven years from now...'

I fear I've gone off topic.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T09:21:51-07:00

Even in my head it sounds a bit trite, but here's an idea:

The 90s were, in a lot of ways, a good decade. Tech boomed, first world economies generally looked good (unless you were in Japan), the Gulf War went ok and didn't turn into another Vietnam, the internet started to go online, Clinton rode his bike around the White House, etc. In this climate, people turned their interest to weird things - to find something compelling to worry about, you had to stretch - obscure conspiracies about governments in league with aliens, abductions by strange grey creatures, time travel experiments gone awry, and so on.

Come that fateful day in September 2001 (plus the USS Cole bombing in 2000, not to mention the US African Embassy bombings in 1998). All of a sudden, the priorities for worry and speculation were different. I imagine that these days the first stop on the conspiracy theory circuit, for someone who has only just realized a proclivity to disbelieve authority, is the 9/11 Was An Inside Job topic, followed by Obama Is A Terrorist, and whatever else. Aliens come a distant second - these days, if you're worried about being abducted and subjected to bizarre and unpleasant procedures, your best bet is the CIA.

In summation: Another fucking casualty of the (War On) Terror.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T09:24:28-07:00

Weird. I was just thinking about something similar this very morning.

Music when I was growing up (like, a little kid -I'm 40, btw) was "soft rock"*, things like Bread and Badfinger and James Taylor and ... what have you, which gave way to Punk which was pretty diametrically opposed to all of that. Cut to the '90's/00's, - "It's Tough To Be A Pimp", everything's all bitches-this and ho's-that, WHEN DID WE GET SO CYNICAL? Answer : the Eighties, which is when Nuvlear Armageddon was a very real possibility.

You'd think, with all our tech whiz-bangery, we'd be able to locate a measly chupacabra, wouldn't you?

*-For the most part. I'm thinking of Top-40, A.M. radio kinda stuff. Songs were about Love, not Intercourse With You.

This probably made no sense....

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T09:30:47-07:00

'1999' by Prince from Sign O' The Times is (as far as I'm concerned) about hedonism in the face of nuclear annihilation. A more classic 80s pop song you couldn't hope for.

That is to say you raise a really good point Mister Hex.

When did people really lose faith in politics? Perhaps it's when we thought all the people in charge wanted nothing more than to vaporize the planet because of ideology and commerce. The Cold War really f*cked us up.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T09:34:41-07:00

Geekification. Everyone's online, the fantastic is possible. Humanity has slowed down light and teleported particles, and it's not even front page for most newspapers, let alone top headline.

Plus, a lot of the millennial cranks are now Tea Party cranks. They've found a new outlet for their anti-Christ LOLz.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T09:40:25-07:00

I actually just started re-watching all of the Xfiles off of nextflix last weekend for this same reason.

I used to think my slight facination with cryptozoology was odd but damned if there wasn't a whole show on the chupacabra on the National Geographic channel last week. It's just all out there now. The only messed up (for me) stuff I see anymore that's out there are the hostel/saw slasher movies, etc.

Back in the day (crap didn't even realize I wrote that until it was too late) it wasn't easy to get to the weirdness which made it fun. It was a vhs someone brought over to your house. It was a newsletter someone actually mailed to your house. Or it was out there on usenet or a bbs. I feel like after writing that I'm one step closer to being on a rocker on my front porch telling stories.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T10:18:14-07:00

The internet's doing the same thing that newspapers did for the British public in the 1800s - drawing them away from urban mythology and hearsay, and bringing a sort of era of enlightenment to the public at large. I dare say that access to so much knowledge at the push of a button means there are far less crazies in the status quo who would otherwise have been inclined towards being batshit insane (this is of course a huge generalisation).

We're also largely desensitised to the outright scientific fucking miracles that take place almost every day. Completely artificial bacteria made by man? A milestone that marks the beginning of a path towards custom-built bacteria that will be able to target cancer cells and HIV and destroy them outright? That will one day be able to make renewable fuels out of a few arbitrary elements? Meh, fuck that. Maybe I'll be impressed when it's sentient and I can have sex with it.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T10:26:54-07:00

On topic, please, all.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T10:32:40-07:00

James Hetfield of Metallica said, in 1998 or so, that metal hadn't gone away, it just wasn't the mainstream anymore. It's always there, bubbling under the surface, waiting for its turn. It's a good thought for this topic, I think. Just because Art Bell is semi-retired doesn't mean people aren't still talking about weird shit. You just have to poke around for it more if you want to find the really outlandish stuff.

Interestingly, I think less of the weird is coming from fiction (or fiction pretending to be nonfiction) but from science itself. We're coming into a lot of things that we used to consider science fiction--as is the way of things--so now we're just in a lull where we're trying to find the impossible. People think it's entirely possible that entire gene sequences can be built and replicated in a lab (because they can) and that one day in the near future we could be producing clones for organ harvesting (because we're pretty fucking close already).

What's more weird than a warehouse of mewling abominations that live solely so we can harvest their ears for burn patients? What's more weird than having the knowledge that more than 50% of the mass in our universe is unobservable and may, in fact, not actually be there, even though by maths it should be?

I think this is a big reason Tesla and Lovecraft and all that shit is becoming so popular lately. There's really nothing that the public wouldn't believe inside the realm of science, and the only things that seem interesting to us are the ideas so far-fetched as to seem impossible. (Throw some cosmic dread on that for the Lovecraft flavor. Non-Euclidean geometry? What the fuck is that?)

Nobody bats an eye when Doktor Sleepless begins infecting people with a virus that makes them see angels, but as soon as his parents get devoured by extradimensional beings, then it goes from being sci-fi to flat-out weird. Nobody's afraid of the cartoon mad scientist, everyone's afraid of the cartoon mad scientist that believes in fucking Cthulhu.

ETA: I apologize if I'm reiterating what people are saying, and I especially apologize if I'm being off-topic. I was typing this up and once I had finally finished not sounding like a moron, there were two more posts, including the one from the landlord.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T10:47:15-07:00

Personally speaking, most "weirdness" in the sense I think you mean has kind of lost its fascination for me. It seems like there's a sort of zenith of weird that anybody can reach in their search, beyond which the scope of possible random mixtures, distortions and exaggerations of culture/reality just come across as a muddy mix that's a bit banal and pick-and-mix-unimaginative. It's been a long time since I've said "that's just weird" and really meant it, although I'll come straight to this thread on the next time it happens! I also feel that getting a grasp on reality (as rationalists and sceptics like the people mentioned do) introduces a more subtle and disturbing type of weird that's all the more odd because it's in line with reality rather than a flagrant distortion of it.
I don't know if there's been a general migration away from the weird that doesn't involve my personal filters though?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T11:07:13-07:00

I was going to call out the shift in the last decades bogeyman/men but @256 beat me to it. We went from looking at the skies and our machines for signs of something going horribly awry to fearing our neighbors would drive a bomb to a bustling metropolis, instead of wondering if the government is conspiring to put mind control substances in our food we're freaked out that it's rewriting laws to suit itself and screw us over, and instead of fearing someone or something will reach through the computer and take us over we fear that our identities will be compromised for such banal use as theft.

It's the lack of millenial pressure, sure. Also, this new century/millenium/whatever really has brought a shitload of things to ponder and worry about and aclimatize to. What I see is that we're adapting to the New World. Give us a (figurative) minute and we'll soon find the cracks that lead to something really mindbending. (Remember the "your problem is you live in a reality-based world"? Yeah.)

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T12:45:05-07:00

Maybe we're all just not looking for supernatural bogeymen in our closets so much anymore because there are plenty of real ones out there. You know, crazy fuckwhits blowing shit up, flying planes into buildings, shooting up hotels in Mumbai. The last decade has been more about real weirdos doing real weird shit just because they take old religious texts way too seriously. You want weird? The richest countries in the world can't even get one bugfuck bearded crazy out of his cave.......huff pant rave.....

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T13:02:42-07:00

Re: No Millennial Pressure
20 Premises

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T14:12:07-07:00

I think your definition of "weirdness" is far more narrow than mine. I'm persistently startled by the weird things that have been happening in the last few years.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T17:25:36-07:00

Top things that killed the weirdness.

1) Monoculture. When everything is the same everywhere, what is weird?

2) Repetition. When something new comes along, it's generally copied, satirized almost in uniform. Lady Gaga springs to mind at the moment.

3) And the worst? Acceptance. The Breakfast Club angst kids had is drying up, or at least harder to come by. Most the kids now are part of the broad internet culture, listening to all kinds of music, dressing in a myriad of ways, learning that they share so much of the same ideas, doubts, desires, etc.

You really have to stretch the boundaries to be weird now. Perhaps a good example is the modern Hipster...

Why create something like this for no other reason to be weird or different? I mean, they had to put effort into looking like that. Unfortunately the irony is running out on them rather quickly.

I understood the hatred Spider Jerusalem required to work to be the same thing many others need to function and appreciate themselves; A unique outlook no one else has and a public acknowledgment of that uniqueness, usually brought forth by sneers, gasps and wide-eyed shock.

I suppose one could always move to certain parts the Southeast. There's still plenty of 1950s/60s uniformity in areas that would allow modern weirdness to permeate forth and be appreciated...

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T17:47:26-07:00

You really have to stretch the boundaries to be weird now. Perhaps a good example is the modern Hipster...

Agreed. When I watched Lady Gaga’s new Alejandro video I was amazed to see how much of it could have come right out of 1990s underground/alternate/porno comic catalog from SQP or Kitchen Sink Press. And as weird as Gaga is, she’s also the queen of mainstream pop. We’ve just hit a point where being really weird isn’t possible without also being really annoying.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T17:47:42-07:00

Where's the weird gone?
Same place it always was; away from the eye of the pubic, doing it's own thing where it doesn't have to worry about people giving a damn and ruining the fun. Time change, people change, the weird's likely changed as well, as what we thought of as weird when we were a kid becomes more mundane and looses some of that spark. Some of it's growing up. We know there's a man behind the curtain, stage magicians aren't really magic, and there isn't a Santa. We no longer expect to see the strange, so we no longer see it. Some things are like a first roller coaster ride. You can never get back that first moment.

Most of it, I think is ourselves, and that sense that there is nothing new under the sun. We convince ourselves that we've done it all, seen it all, or known someone who knew someone who knew someone... we loose the ability to imagine the horrible and the wonderful, the infinite possibilities...and the world becomes a SSDD, same old dull grind.

And even with the internet and all it's glory, sometime you just have to go out into the world, look at it upside down, backwards and sideways, before you'll get what you want. Or what you think you want. You don't find those marching to the beat of a different drummer by listening to a drum machine all day.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T18:43:24-07:00

My theory: A lot of the weird stuff from the 90's was a rehash of the 70's obsession with the occult. It's all seems benign, if not quaint, now that we know about things like Godzilla bukakke, extreme body mod, etc.

I remember absolutely loving exposes on "REAL teen vampire cults", "is YOUR CHILD a SATANIST?" and all the other fear-shlock the evening news magazine-format programs would broadcast. The over-exposure at the time actually added another level of enjoyment for me.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T19:05:14-07:00

I find the new government a little weird, sorta creepy you know. UK government that is. Can't put my finger on why exactly . . .

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T19:30:44-07:00

The weird grew up and moved to Florida. We have tea parties, oily beaches and a new law that says I can't ride my bike on city streets. I'd rather have Chupacabra and Bigfoot setting up house in my spare room centrifugally examining their stool samples than some of the real world weird that is coming out of every corner now a days. I do agree though that vampires and werewolves are being turned into emo wusses for 12 year old girls to fawn over. Thank god for zombies.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T20:16:08-07:00

yes..the zombie outbreak is the fantasy that keeps me going..weird?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T20:16:10-07:00

yes..the zombie outbreak is the fantasy that keeps me going..weird?I agree that as you age weird can just become.. crap? it used to be cool to be weird but now...seems kids prefer to carry a knife than a Satre novel.Maybe we overdosed on performance art in the 80's..i forget that for something to be weird was usually an uncomfortable experience

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T21:07:14-07:00

@Oddcult: Kenji Siratori is pretty great. I wouldn't call him weird, but that's probably just because I don't use the word that much. Hardly at all.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/litarchives/2002_jun/interview_kenji_siratori.html

3AM: The world is a place where violence seems to be everywhere -- and is taking on new meanings -- from September 11th type stuff to the Sarin gas attacks in Tokyo to Israel: is your book a response to this? Are you trying to find out what language can do with this new world? Are you positive about the world or is there something too negative about everything now? Do you think as a novelist you should try and answer such questions such as 'How should we live', like Tolstoy thought novelists had to?

KS: We must control a different vital language cell in the world, so the world is exposed to more physical gene dub. I practice hardweb of the creature intensity as the data mutant of the world -- the new world is resisting our evil gene dub with the era respiration byte. The echo archive. As all the data of the human body flow backward to our global hardweb.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T21:17:06-07:00

Perhaps my suggestion wont answer the interesting questions raised by everyone but may offer another train of thought as a possible example of how we think about 'the weird' now.

I often go on a digital dérive. Through my fingers, I embody myself into the screen of my laptop and see where I end up. I occasionally stumble across things like http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/ or http://www.timecube.com which make no sense to me. They're brilliant in their weirdness.

Now I can appreciate that they're neither spectacularly mind-fuck weird nor will they ever physically infect you with anything [so says the Linux user, apologies if any of you visit those and get screwed] but that's my point. With the advent of the all-encompassing digital, we have newly nuanced weird to find. Those flutters of signal that when you call someone and all you get is some long, dark growl after they pick up that seems to stop when you talk and respond to you after a moments silence. It is these corruptions and malfunctions that open up to give us an entirely new element of weird.

One last quick example: at a conference the other month on Cultures of The Body, I brought up the posthuman practice of implanting magnets into fingertips [for digital culture's affect on the body and the other/the inorganic becoming an everyday part of our organic lives, if anyones got the inkling] and everyone there held their breath after I'd finished. I could tell just by looking at these excellent people that a good proportion felt that what I just said was outright weird. The conference attendees were all either dancers, academics, writers or artists but only the one philosophy student of the group seemed to enjoy it. He was weird in all the best ways. We find The Weird in the nuances of liminal experience - whether that liminality be the organic/inorganic, the traditional clashing with the new or simply an unexpected experience of The Other...I think it's still there, we just have to know how to look.

The weird has never been truly open for everyone to see. If it were then writers wouldn't have so much fun finding it and readers wouldn't have so much fun discovering it through the works. It always takes an enquiring mind to find his or her own weird - it is as @Rootfiremeber said, away from the public eye...look at it upside down.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T21:46:18-07:00

Maybe we just got jaded. When I was a kid I was fascinated with the weird - read everything I could get my hands on about the occult and paranormal. Stuff like the Bell Witch, Gef the talking mongoose and possession victims throwing up pins would give me an addictively visceral shudder of horror - could such things be?

But I read too much. Burnt out the weird receptors in my brain. Nowdays you could show me a video of a crop circle appearing in solid concrete and a four headed David Bowie jumping out bearing a birth certificate proving Barack Obama was born on Saturn, and I'd just say 'meh'.

Edited - I misspelled the mongoose's name :)

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T21:52:18-07:00

@ Ben

Jodi is weird, yes. It generates far more nostalgia for me, though. It reminds me of a busted Atari 800. :)

On the latter part, I definitely agree that the weird involves enjoying time alone and becoming content with one's own interpretations of life, the universe and everything.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T22:24:08-07:00

FredG- explain this no bike riding law to me. I'm baffled. Certainly fits into my idea of weird!

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T23:44:27-07:00

I remember this news item being pretty explosive in 2006: a UFO sighting at the Chicago O'Hare airport. And as quickly as it appeared, it dissolved into the collective unconscious.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-10T23:52:57-07:00

I just wanted to say I have been feeling the same way lately and it's nice to know other people feel the same way too. On the other hand it's harder to write the feeling off as one of a cranky nerd. I get this feeling every few years. In the past at least it has been a real push to my creativity. I have to try harder than ever (though not yet succeeding) to make something I truly consider weird.

What do we have now? Post millennial anxiety? Info-shock? The future is scaring the shit out of people so they look to the past for stability? That would explain mustaches, I guess.

I think that when(if) language translation software is up to snuff we will see some really amazing things. Culture clashes seem to have a way of spurring good ideas. Artistically and musically there has been a conversation going on for a long time, but as far as language goes progress has been much slower.

I know I'm going all over the place on this, but how about drugs? A new drug usually shows up with weird outbreaks. What is the drug of the '00's?

@256
What about the 80's? I don't really recall them (too young). But a lot of people that were adults then seem to think it was a pretty shitty time. Plenty of awesome "weirdness" came out of them. The 60's had tons of really terrible shit happen, but was also quite "weird". It appears to me that in general conflict has appeared alongside spurts of weird and maybe even helps it. Why that seems to be less true now is a good question!

@datarez
I used to get my info of the weird mostly from newsgroups on a dial-up modem when i was about 14 (27 now). The demographics have really changed in good ways. Back then most people online were a bit odd. I wonder too if the current ease of access to so much information has made it feel less important for me to seek out the "alternative". I remember it felt like treasure hunting. Ordering bootleg VHS tapes, mail order zines and strange unfriendly software to install. Now there is google, I dunno. It is quite possible I just don't know where to look, but the internet now feels like a vast body of water that is only a few inches deep. I'm not nostalgic for configuring TCP/IP or anything like that though, don't get me wrong.

@Ben Gwalchmai
I mean timecube is 13 years old. Maybe the slickness of web 2.0 is hurting the weird? Is there a higher expectation for the information to look professional? I also have to take into account that when I first started using the internet it was like a massive brain dump of all kinds of cool things from the past and now that things are at a more sensible level I have unreasonable expectations.

@Val A Lindsay II
The mono-culture is a "western" one, right? Is it possible for people to fight back you think, or is it over? Hipsters I don't think look weird. To me they are retro as all hell. Shock and offend me, please.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T00:16:10-07:00

One problem with Weird in pop culture is that it's worn as an outfit. Weird isn't something to put on or take off, it's a state of being. Lady Gaga or the hipster kids in the picture above aren't weird at all, they just don't know how to dress themselves. (Says the guy wearing jeans and a t-shirt)

Two of my favorite forms of media have a good supply of weird- comics and video games. Jim Woodring's Weathercraft isn't normal by any stretch of the imagination, Ted McKeever is back with Meta4 as of this week, Tales of the Beanworld had a new release this year, etc. It's normal to us (or at least a decent percentage of us) because we're used to it.

Thing I find weird- the way the world is being sanitized for your protection, won't everyone think of the children at all times? Why would people do that to themselves? It makes "magnets in the fingertips" (which makes perfect sense to me) sound downright normal by comparison.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T01:04:57-07:00

There are lots of weird thing out there still, always have been, always will. We just think it should exist on screens at the end of the work day for our entertainment. The problem isn't that we're tired of aliens, the problem is we're tired of looking. Our society is not Mulder and Scully anymore, we don't go looking for weird things. We build platforms for aliens to land on, now, for godsake. We're Weird's shitty friend - we expect him to come over, bring the drinks and the party, leave when it is past our bedtime and clean up after himself on the way out. We could be arsed to put any effort past reading our google feeds, and then we get upset when the wierdest thing that Boing Boing can offer us is 'Cakes That Look Like Meat!' Start with 'Conan! What Is The Best In Life?' posts Mr.Ellis makes if you want to increase your weird intake with minimal effort.

Someone above on the thread mention contemporary vampires fiction as an example of how lame 'weird' has become. They got lame when they got sexy. They've always been sexual, as a rule, but they were never sexy until they became a form of mainstream entertainment. It wasn't the Romance or Young Adult genres that turned Count Dracula into Edward Cullen, (although they've been courting him like a fang-toothed Mr.Darcy,) it was the desire for vampires to be made into popular entertainment as the concept became more popular in the public, and one way to ease a pants-wettingly terrifying monster into the lime light is to put him in a tight pair of tight fitting jeans and a leather jacket. And people are reading that, and enjoying it, much like how people like to read about desserts shaped like drumsticks. And you know what? Whatever humps your dog, man. If you enjoy it, all the power to you. Have your cake.

But if you don't? Don't blame the Hipsters. If you're bored with the Edward Cullens and you miss the Fox Mulders, it's your own faults for not finding/writing something better yourselves!

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T01:52:05-07:00

I wonder what would happen if you stuck someone from 1995 in front of today's Internets. I'm not sure whether it would freak them out completely, showing how immune we've become, or whether they'd already be used to the kinds of things that are common today.

I'm afraid I can't even really be bothered with the BME zine stuff anymore. Anyone can fuck themselves up in a vaguely artistic way, but so what? I think that any political points about body ownership have been made and virtually anything that can be done to a penis, has been done (that's not, by the way, a challenge!).

Maybe the whole environment we're working in *is* so fucked up that we just can't tell the difference any more? Maybe we've all turned pro, as St Hunter might have put it?

Even that Human Caterpillar film thing made me wonder 'wasn't that on the WEF some time back? I'm sure I remember that...

But yeah, point taken about not having to look for anything any more. There's no dark underbelly, that appears when you hear that popping, hissing and beeping tone of a diallup modem connecting and it feels like your hit is about to slide sideways into your system.

I'm here at work, in a modern office, and within minutes I can get to any number of the kinds of things that I used to have to take a train to various well-hidden bookshops to locate, and I can probably arrange a hook-up for even the most esoteric kind of kink.

Is this why all the cool kids have gone back to knitting and making bloody cupcakes? Because there's just no point trying any more?

I wonder if I should be careful what I wish for...

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T02:04:21-07:00

As others have said there is a whole combination of factors at play here - there is still plenty of weird stuff it's just simultaneously more mainstream and more hidden, the internet truly reaches everyone, I've talked about the Cern supercollider with an old indigenous bloke on san pedro in the Bolivian altiplano (I'm aware of how pretentious that sounds and I appologise).

Science can do anything, millions if not billions of people believe 9-11 was an inside job, two apocolyptic cults (al-queada and the Christian fundies in the US) have the power to kill thousands at a time of imagined insults or the struggle for control of whats left of our oil, and can both rally hundreds of thousands to their causes.

Thousands of people flock to see David Icke speak and buy his books and videos, in Britain we now have an MP from a party that until this year had strong policies on promoting homeopathy (and which might still as far as I know), not to mention the 900,000 people happy to vote for lying nazis.

Conspiracy theories used to be for fringe nutcases and fringe geeks like us - now they are generally mainstream, christ even my brother and his mates (all in the British forces) believe the US never landed on the moon!

What happened to the weird? It went viral and infected everything everywhere...

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T02:04:29-07:00

Is this why all the cool kids have gone back to knitting and making bloody cupcakes? Because there's just no point trying any more?

Damn kids, with their music not loud enough and undisturbing hobbies!

I'm actually enjoying seeing certain practical hobbies becoming slightly cool. It's good to know that anything is rebellion when done right. :)

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T02:13:37-07:00

And rebellion is practical when done right.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T02:24:57-07:00

This is proper weird!

Just now i was reading my Rough guide to unexplained phenomena, the section on coincidences has a photo of some bees that collected on a wall outside the bee keepers funeral in Ludlow shropshire so i look up the place on Google streetview (dunno why lol (I need gainful employment i guess)) . Meanwhile i'm listening to PJ Harvey 'Pocket Knife' and just as the picture of the location of the bees rezzes she sings

'And the bees keep coming'

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T02:37:55-07:00

Thousands of people flock to see David Icke speak... ...Conspiracy theories used to be for fringe nutcases and fringe geeks like us - now they are generally mainstream, christ even my brother and his mates (all in the British forces) believe the US never landed on the moon!

I wonder how many people who used to be your 'fringe geeks' are now out through the other side and, having looked at all this stuff, have a wide enough knowledge of it to be able to reject the rubbish and objectively criticise the claims that are being made.

I get really pissed off with people I know, in real life, who are lovely folk, but not overly bright (and yes, I'm being a tad condescending here... okay...) paying for things like Reiki 'treatment' and when I try to discuss it with them, reply with things like 'well, that's just your opinion' and don't even want to hear about stuff like double-blind tests, or even have any kind of grasp on the reasons why it's a load of old toss, but they just accept it.

Did 'weird' win?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T02:55:07-07:00

@Oddcult

well, I think you are being a tad more than condescending to those you consider you intellectual inferiors.

I don't find alternative therapy to be useful to me but If it is of benefit to someone then that's justification enough? It doesn't need a scientific basis. People will put their faith in all kinds of things 'fringe' or otherwise. Be that political ideologies, hedonistic practice art, comics even . . .
It is easy to scoff at anything that conflicts with your reality tunnel. You should do as Robert Anton Wilson suggests and embrace the Reiki and the whole lifestyle and world view for a while.

Last year I was a communist, this year I am a right wing conspiracy nut. Knoworramean?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T02:56:31-07:00

The world is getting increasingly weird, so the weird is increasingly normal.

Science is talking about things weirder than anything Sci Fi used to be able to come up with on a daily basis. Quantum entanglements, other dimensions, etc. Heck if you read sci headlines, you'd see they created a black hole the other day (of course the truth is slightly different, but that is not the point). It is not the realm of the learned elite, nah, you read about it on the Register or Science Daily, or whatever.

People seem to be behaving in weirder and weirder ways, and even if they are only outliers, due to the intertubes, we actually hear about it all. It is hard to come up with things that are crazier than the shit people REALLY do. Browse through FARK for a few days and you might as well give up fiction, nothing beats the Florida tag.

Music and art is everywhere. Again, somewhere, someone is making stuff that is crazy. But it is available. It is not whispered about in hushed voices in underground clubs, it is up for grabs at myspace.

Weird is no longer hard to find, it is everywhere. The world watched two girls get off with scatplay. Fetish clubs are mainstream. Esoterica is fashionable. Hey you aren't hip if you dont have some kind of magic crystals or collection of alien buttplugs these days. It is virtually impossible to stay ahead of the weird curve now.

So. I dont think fiction or art is any less weird than it was in the 80s or 90s, but it just doesnt have the edge anymore because we all talk about and look at pictures of things too bizarre for words on a daily basis. We are addicted to that edge, and like any self respecting junkie stereotype, we need bigger and bigger hits.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T03:18:07-07:00

@BettyBoolean - I think that a belief in Reiki doing anything over and above placebo + mild psychoanalysis is a pretty good yardstick for measuring whether someone is an intellectual inferior or not, however, if you do want a discussion about stuff like that vs not stuff like that, maybe you could start another thread?

However,

You should do as Robert Anton Wilson suggests and embrace the Reiki and the whole lifestyle and world view for a while.

I did. Nothing happened. Although, reiki specifically was the one thing out of all that lot which was the most flimsy. Anyway - to another thread with it, should you so wish!

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T03:35:27-07:00

@Oddcult

Why would I start another thread when i can gawk at your weirdness here ?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T03:37:31-07:00

I can understand a longing for a bit of wierd proper. When someting crops up, a boring explanation is too readily available. Would be more fun with a few doomsayers.

It's hard to invent anything worse than depleting oil reserves, increasingly aggressive religions and the realization that the future doesn't seem to hold any of the promised cool hovercrafts and trips to mars. Just not enough room for wierd.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T03:46:12-07:00

@BettyBoolean - because if this turns into a Woo Vs Science debate, it'll get stomped on and the thread closed, as they always turn ugly.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T04:05:08-07:00

@oddcult

well I don't want a fight so I dont need a thread :)

how about illuminati symbolism in the new Lady Gaga Vid? is that permissable weirdness?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T04:09:48-07:00

Just a quick tuppence-worth from me: everyone on this thread is enmeshed with net culture, has spent years looking for the weird, so even if they are looking for it just to scoff at it and debunk it, it is a part of their discourse... However, many, many people I know (lovely people, intelligent people) just switch off at any mention of the weird. Not just occult / space alien weird, but bleeding-edge sci-weird. I've been in conversation with people who asked me to stop talking about the LHC because it made their brains hurt. I don't know if your average layperson is that acquainted with the weird, or that desensitized to it... many, many more people give more of a shit who's winning X Factor or whatever. I guess what I'm trying to say is... maybe we have all the weirdness we need right here? Maybe it's us? Because when I venture outside of Whitechapel and talk about the stuff I see and read here, people just tell me I should get out more.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T04:16:17-07:00

See you and raise you:
KLF - the Rites of Mu

The 'Illuminati' is really just a convenient explanation for some weird memetic trigger images that some people just mildly upset by, so it's not really surprising that someone who's doing the whole art as pop culture thing is going to get accused of being in league with them. However, that just looks more Thin White Duke to me than Illuminati. All that Bowie and Iggy and Lou Reed Berlin era stuff.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T04:20:33-07:00

@oddcult

im big bill drummond fan :)

see the light of illumination burn through lady gagas vid at the end?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T04:23:26-07:00

@Oddcult

I'm also playing poker at this moment HOW WEIRD IS THAT!! u make that joke

and i was reading about coincidences just this morning (see my earlier post in this thread)

see proper pure weirdness all over the shop

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T04:31:02-07:00

I think there's something weird round here, yeah...

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T04:57:19-07:00

@Rootfireember I didn't mean to get off topic with the bike comment, but State Representative Gary Aubuchon from swanky Cape Coral decided to solve a local "problem" of bicyclist using A1A (a beach highway for those of you not in Florida) and slowing down traffic. He inserted a rider into a recent bill that changes the state law allowing bikes full use of the road as any other vehicle, to using only bike path and side walks. It passed despite the protests. Cities like Orlando are not bike friendly to begin with. So as I commute through downtown with no bike path and sidewalk full of people I need to stop and walk my bike for 3 miles?

If weird is all about WTF moments this is a big one for me.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T04:59:14-07:00

@texture

i think most people tune out the weird because they are goal oriented and subjects that might interest you and eye have no currency for them?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T05:16:31-07:00

*chuckles*

"Weird" was the last great marketable "cool" subculture to be flogged and it had a prime slot for the pre-millenium. Then some real fucking weirdos took charge of the worlds most heavily armed superpower and some other real fucking weirdos started flying planes into buildings and blowing themselves up. This real world weirdness devalued the manfuactured coopted "weirdness" and suddenly people who in their 20's/30's thought they were crazy and radical turned just to be people with too much metal in their face, shoddy haircuts and a lot of black clothing.

There is weird out there. Salvia divinorium is utterly bizarre. The Camelot project's crazy assed aliens spirit guide 2012 horsehit videos are a scream as they try as everyone's story is increasingly elaborate.

I guess that the last place people are going to here about any emergent "weird" subculture is on the web though. Outsiders tend to stay outside.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T05:19:52-07:00

yeah! global weirdness was an inside job! wake up ppl!

There is weird out there. Salvia divinorium is utterly bizarre.

whilst logged into Second Life having smoked salvia i thought i was talking to little people on my desk
:)

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T05:30:34-07:00

yes..the zombie outbreak is the fantasy that keeps me going..weird?

Does anyone else case out their neighborhood for places to hole up in and/or escape from in case of a zombie apocalypse or is that just me?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T05:37:11-07:00

@William George

can remember doing that with friends waaaaay back in the 80s after watching Night of the Living Dead :)

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T05:48:39-07:00

I think every online forum has a 'What's your zombie apocalypse plan?' thread every six months or so.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T06:34:13-07:00

The world is getting increasingly weird, so the weird is increasingly normal.

Yeah, that sums it up I think...

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T06:45:32-07:00

Quick Aside:

If I couldn't see Lady Gaga, she would be nothing special. All of her cache is in her visual presentation. Without it, she's an updated version of the Stock-Aitken-Waterman productions of the late 80's. I do not see her as weird, because she lost that for me when she decided to play in the pop arena. I don't see her as the shining beacon amidst the dross, I see her as a Hot Topic version of "weird", to be on all the t-shirts that Evanesense isn't on now. Lady Gaga bores the piss out of me, because I've lived through Nina Hagen, Karen Finley and Diamanda Galas, all of whom tear the roof off of Gaga's little house of cards and piss all over it.

Please return to main topic...

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T06:59:23-07:00

@Paul Sizer

ok mr grouchy, so what did u think of all my weird coincidences today? (besides any involving Lady GaGa)?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T07:09:31-07:00

To, um, return to the original subject - I think - I'd have to disagree. I don't think the world has got any less, or more, weird post-millenium. I think that the perception of weirdness, and this point is written pretty large throughout this thread, is almost completely subjective. What we're talking about is trends, memes, however you want to phrase it.

Other points: The millenium was a nice frame to hang more outlandish news stories on. Also, there's always new column inches and more and more digital tv channels to fill. No one made a whole show about the chupacabra before? That just filled someone's deadline.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T07:14:41-07:00

1. What @Aike said, on page 2, i think.

and

2. a blog post from Mr. Gibson (recently!) that, in case anyone missed it, gives some perspective on a similar, if not exact, notion: http://blog.williamgibsonbooks.com

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T07:22:03-07:00

Weird, like the Force, will be with us always. For example :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill

This guy fought in World War Two with a sword. He joined the commandos, not knowing what they were, only that it "sounded dangerous". When the war ended, he expressed disappointment, saying he "could have gone on for another twenty years." He finally died in 1996.

Don't know if that's weird, bloody odd or just CRAZY AWESOME.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T07:29:59-07:00

Maybe there's an island in the Pacific that's keeping all the weirdness in check, sorta like a cork on bottle...

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T07:34:32-07:00

Tangent #2;

If I couldn't see Lady Gaga, she would be nothing special.

I liked Bad Romance so much, I got really good at it in karaoke. True story.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T08:43:09-07:00

@ William George - you're not the only one, we've drawn up our zombie plan, went back to include other monster/supernatural disaster-instances, put it through Illustrator, and have it on our wall. A room mate incorporated it into the local university emergency response system posters, and hung them across campus. Some people notice the weirdness, some don't.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T08:55:57-07:00

@shannonc - is this online anywhere? mewannasee!

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T09:06:16-07:00

2. a blog post from Mr. Gibson (recently!) that, in case anyone missed it, gives some perspective on a similar, if not exact, notion: http://blog.williamgibsonbooks.com

more strange coincedence . . . I was once mentioned in a william gibson blog post

well when i say I . . .
here

who can guess which post on that page im talking of?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T10:09:12-07:00

@mister hex

I see you Mad Jack (my hero) and raise you Fritz Duquesne (My other hero.)

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T10:20:08-07:00

I believe I am the Guff... is that weird?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T10:31:37-07:00

I used to be in a dada-esque comedy troupe called Fukermann. Our "thing", if we had one, was to be intentionally crappy. Bizarre sketches (Britanny Spears sells her soul to the Devil, who needs the money to pay gambling debts, thwarted by Shama-Lama-Ding-God ... and that was one of the mild ones). Nobody really got what we were doing and we liked it that way. We had the Twelve Rules of Drama (there were only seven, one of which was "No Felching"), our shows were sparsely attended, if at all. More than once, we were threatened with violence. I tend to get the feeling we'd have been more popular had we done this today instead of ten years ago.

The general consensus is that the world is objectively weirder today or maybe people are just harder to shock.

ETA - spelt "dada-esque" wrong. Fish.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T10:59:37-07:00

@Hex
-Dada is dead. long live Dada!

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T11:03:24-07:00

@ Roo - My heart belongs to dada.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T11:34:43-07:00

So, please use this thread to discuss the empirical of levels of weirdness in the world today, providing examples, charts, graphs, diagrams and images of centrifugally examined Sasquatch stool samples.

Ummm...aren't we standing in it as we speak?
I mean, seriously, isn't a community of artists, writers, thinkers, photographers, models, painters, musicians, DJs, technologists, and whatever the hell is around here the big pool of "weird" that we're searching for?

I don't say this to be ass-kissy, but Warren has about as close to an online artistic "movement" here as it gets. It has a manifesto, it's volatile, it produces equal parts shit and gold, its content shocks and scares people, and it asks one thing of the people involved: "show me something I haven't seen before". We may be hip deep in the new "Weird" right here.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T11:53:53-07:00

@ Paul Sizer:

I do believe you've hit it right on the head.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T11:55:15-07:00

@ pAUL sIZER - WE'RE SOAKING IN IT! (ala Madge on the old Palmolive commercials)

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T13:21:11-07:00

@Hex- I plan on eventually getting a tattoo of one of Tristan Tzara's designs. ;)

@Paul - you're giving us cooties. Mushy mushy weird <3 cooties. But you do have a point. And if we are the weird we might not be seeing it because to us it's our normal.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T13:22:25-07:00

The old weird. Dodgy photos of big cats in your seaside resorts, alien hoaxes and getting het up over what a few lads in a field did with some rope and a bit of corn and some careful planning? Well, it was bullshit, wasn't it? Anyone with half a brain could see that. But we played along because we 'Wanted to believe'. We wanted, for some reason or other to have a mystical world. Maybe because we were still teenagers and didn't want to quite grow up? Maybe because we were scared that technology was getting ahead of us too fast? Maybe because the millennium was coming up and there were just too many voices already telling us to freak out, already?

And then? It wasn't so bad. There was no global conspiracy. There was just obvious greed. We grew out of it and hit our late teens and had to get on with making money and keeping a roof over our heads. We didn't need to act out, because we didn't need that attention anymore. Fucking and falling in love and breaking hearts and trying to get away with it was mystery and cloak-and-dagger enough. And really, the mystery of the fortean was too shallow. It was easily explicable. We were fascinated because we were inquisitive, and there simply wasn't anything there to explore aside from wishful thinking and a tragedy of desperate, lonely pattern recognition.

What's left then? I'd say real mysteries: science, electronics, art. How we live. Why we live. Weird is out there, waiting in the rock for us to carve it into a new kind of sculpture.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T13:28:04-07:00

The new weird is probably just the news feed from PhysOrg.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T13:29:34-07:00

"It is the business of the future to be dangerous, and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties." -- A.N.W.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-11T13:40:30-07:00

ive stayed out of this because theres a lot to process, and i think about this stuff A LOT. the most concise way i can phrase it is that weve all gotten numbed to a lot of information, so the truly weird ISNT that weird-seeming and things hae to be totally batshit nuts for us to look at it sideways.

but the internet is a strange, strange thing. sizer hit a parallel point on the head-WC itself is almost like what the basis of some 70s/80s sci fi is like. this gang of international nutjobs trading information. fuck, im on this from my phone most of the time, and i dont even have a 'smart' phone. a lot of shit gets lumped into normal, that even 15 years ago would be insane.

in closing: i just dont know maaaaaaaaaan

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-12T03:29:48-07:00

I'm nearly 40, and when I was a kid, me and my two friends dubbed ourselves Weird, capital 'W', and in cartoons and our play with rubber space aliens and Star Wars figures, opposed ourselves to the Square (championed by a figurine of Dudley Doright, I believe). We had an entire alternative cosmos invented where we ruled.

What happened? We won, I think. We were the disappointed romantics who *wanted* to believe with the X-Files. And now, people are more willing to believe, and we don't have as much to fight against anymore.

I thought for a long time that we the Weird were the cynics. But cynicism was the mainstream cultural norm from the 70s right up through the 00's, as the disappointed Baby Boomers got old and dealt with the fact that the 60's were really bullshit after all, elected Regan and Thatcher and nearly sent us all to hell. Who could believe in anything while surrounded by a world where this thing called the 60's had supposedly changed everything, but people still seemed to be obsessed by shirts with little green alligators on them? Clearly something was amiss.

But then Y2K and 9/11 came and went, and now suddenly *events* were happening again, world history did not in fact end like Francis Fukiyama predicted, and there was an awful lot to concretely believe in and care about again. And while nobody was really looking, those of us who still struggled with "wanting to believe" also wound up running the world.

The lack of millennial pressure that Mr. Ellis pointed out is certainly a huge factor, but the new cultural sincerity that actually *won* shouldn't be underestimated. We don't just want to believe any longer; we * do* believe, even if all we believe in are our tools and skills. The appeal of the cultural geek, the weirdo otaku, is in our utter sincere dorkiness. We are incredulous to metanarratives, it is true - but that is because we sincerely want to see a *good* one.

The downside is that our beloved weird pursuits have been professionalized, industrialized, and weaponized. They aren't folk or fringe any longer. The circus sideshow isn't on the edge of town, it is on the 3rd stage at a huge concert. The performers have health insurance. Tiresome lectures and dorky PSA's are given on how to accomplish insanely painful and dangerous stunts, safely and by minimizing risk.

So while there's still plenty of sincerely dorky weird around, it just isn't that risky any longer. Weird comes with a business plan, 401(k) and a rope safety workshop.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-12T04:02:45-07:00

I guess weird is all relative.Some people think i'm weird.I saw someone on my estate (council) yesterday who was acting well weird.. talkin to a fucked fridge!

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-12T04:03:24-07:00

I guess weird is all relative.Some people think i'm weird.I saw someone on my estate (council) yesterday who was acting well weird.. talkin to a fucked fridge! Its also weird that i keep repeating myself. thats 2 weirdz in 12 hours!

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-12T04:25:16-07:00

@Flecky: That poor fridge. It was probably bored out of its mind.

And of course weird is relative. Traditionally "weird" is at the opposite end of the spectrum to "normal". The confusion starts when what used to be labelled "weird" (in no particular order): matures into a subculture, is commercialised, seized by one generation, ridiculed by the next, analysed, satirized, plagiarised...

And then it's yesterday's news and nobody gives a shit.

The entertaining part for me is watching "normal" things start to become "weird". Not having a TV, a mobile phone, the internet. Making all of your own clothes from scratch. Riding a horse to work or school. Going to church and believing in heaven and hell. Embroidery. Archery. Spending friday nights playing boardgames with friends, or considering ballroom/barn dancing to be the big weekly get-together.

That said, I do think this forum is definitely a centre for weirdness. Art tends to work that way- if it's "mainstream" then it loses its "credibility", and, let's face it, interest for the viewers. Unless the "art" is a soap opera, in which case I have not the foggiest idea as to why such humdrum mundane beigeness is so attractive to viewers.

But then again, life being predictable is a pretty weird idea too.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-12T04:57:09-07:00

Just been to shop for milk..the fridge door was slightly ajar..to scared to investige. no sign of El Weirdo!

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-12T04:57:53-07:00

Just been to shop for milk..the fridge door was slightly ajar..to scared to investige. no sign of El Weirdo! Bugger.. another repeat.sorry.I blame the phone i'm using

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-12T08:38:58-07:00

So my Dad and I just finished a conversation about philosophy, religion and the shortfalls of education in the USA. One reason we can't "find" the weird is that we no longer recognize it. Our schools are where we build our citizens. And over the past 20, 30 40 years or so, we've been building crappy citizens. We've switched from teaching analytical skill to informational content, because it's a fuckload easier to test for informational content. It's easier to ask "What year did the War of 1812 begin?" as opposed to "Compare and contrast the situation just prior to the War of 1812 to current United States foreign policy."

We as a nation, through apathy and ignorance have decided that it's more important to create a generation of good little worker drones than citizens who can truly think for themselves. And if you can't really think for yourself or analyze the information that you receive then you won't recognize the weird even when it jumps out at you, probes your anus and bites your throat out.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-12T09:37:09-07:00

It seems like any art that is successful in being weird now will be sold back to you by a corporation within a few years or sooner. I remember Warren has made few posts about it in regards to the cinematography on CSI and the plot lines on shows like SVU among other things. Clayton Cubitt's tumblr often has posts about the issue too. It would be one thing if the people that originated these ideas were at the very least getting paid, but it's getting copied and used to sell bland commercial junk. When you are taking ideas from another artist you are at least engaging in a conversation of sorts. With a corporation they are likely to sue you. Very disheartening. I guess it could be considered juvenile, but I can understand why people would want to keep things private. Now, I occasionally find myself thinking things like: "if this was used to sell cereal, would it dilute the message?"

@finagle
I'm not so sure we won. I never even felt like it was a war until I started paying attention to the likes Douglas Rushkoff and Thomas Frank. I'm sure it's just a funny coincidence that I took all this stuff in around 99-2001, but maybe there is a little something to it.

@Paul Sizer
Re: pop weirdness.
Laurie anderson. Kate bush!!

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-12T22:03:31-07:00

Flecky- I have to admit it. I took all the Weird and sold it to the gypsies, but all I got in return was a lousy t-shirt.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-13T06:02:30-07:00

Weird now is a happy couple with two kids, a cat, a dog and a suburban house with a white picket fence. A stable nuclear family played straight and legit without problems or broiling tension under the surface would be about the most fringe you could get nowadays. Leave it to Beaver is just plain weird.

Weird always exists, it's just that its definition changes with the zeitgeist.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-13T07:48:21-07:00

I often think the most rebellious thing left for me to do would be to finally grow up and act like adults used way back whenever adults behaved like adults

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-13T10:42:49-07:00

Anyone remember Max Normal from 2000AD?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-13T11:11:59-07:00

I am reminded of a story I wrote in High School, about a child who was being made fun of on the playground
because he hadn't ever been piddled or molested. He was led to believe that there was something wrong
with him.

I think a big part of the disappearance of weird is saturation. We're inundated with the fantastic 24/7,
often times we don't even get time to have something sink in before the next thing comes up. People
don't get angry about things anymore. What today is a shrug inducing headline would have caused
heads to roll 20 years ago. I do find it a bit weird that society just started accepting everything and
stopped asking why. I also thought the Norway Spiral was the biggest story of 2009.

Wonder if it has anything to do with all of our brains being at a slow bleed from all of the
wireless radiation we bombard ourselves with.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-13T11:13:04-07:00

I'm a bit confused about the question.

Is it that we're wondering where is someone/something that we can point at and be like "they're doing something weird!" or is it that no one is pointing at us and saying that and we need to raise the bar? Are we just trying to find something new that we can feed on and join in and say that we're being unique because it's not on the teevee yet? Trying to find something to get excited over in our world where all information is accessible and everything has a website on it? Finding something to be angsty and rebellious over? Celebrate for being different in the way that we approve of?

I always did what I wanted to do and for a while I was called weird over it, amongst other words that still send shivers down my spine. I'm really happy that I don't have that happen too often, save when I wander into certain areas that haven't already been overrun by colorful people. I also still meet a lot of people outside of this community where what I'm doing is unheard of, slightly frightening and at some times shut down as being the stupidest thing they ever heard of. And I'm sure many of you are the same way outside of our internet/society bubble.

So, uhm, what feeling are we trying to illicit out of ourselves?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-13T12:15:18-07:00

What about the human feet washing up along the shores of BC? That garnered a lot of press and interest. Why is it when something "weird" is picked up in the news the reaction is always to make gags about it in the actual delivery. Fear of the unknown?

I also wanted to add, having thought about this... is weird a primarily western concept? I mean "weird" as a distinct separation from everyday reality. Are such things regarded in the same way as somewhere like, say, India? I don't think so.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-13T13:29:28-07:00

@roadscum - yeah, I remember that hep cat! Some football pundit appears to be dressed as him on a recent Ladbrookes (?) commercial.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-13T13:54:26-07:00

A lot of 'weirdness' is based on intolerance. Pointing to someone else, how different they are, how strange they are, how Not Like US they are. Perhaps some of the change isn't that the weird is gone; but our reactions to it have tamed as society's progressed.

And I don't think that it's necessarily a bad thing.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-13T16:07:45-07:00

@mattrd

I'm sure non-western cultures have their weird too. I can think of an example specific to India: the aghoris. Japanese horror flicks are weird even to domestic audiences. Dog ownership in east Africa is considered weird.

Drawing lines between what is acceptable and what is taboo is a cornerstone of organized culture. So therein lies the weird.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-13T18:58:18-07:00

I've been pondering what has happened to all of the President Clinton era "black helicopters", we heard about them all the time from the right wing media.

All those black helicopter suddenly disappearing, now that's weird. Where the hell did they disappear to?

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-13T20:36:40-07:00

Helijin-
they're over here. They regularly stop at our local hospital, then zoom off to wherever.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-13T21:33:02-07:00

People are frightened of the future, of losing all their money, homes, jobs, futures. Fear kills the kinds of inspiration that typically produces weird. When people are scared, it's hard for them to be weird. And then when someone IS weird, everyone just sits there waiting to see what everyone else's reactions will be before providing their own. I miss weird.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-13T22:58:41-07:00

@ sseloske— Yes of course you're right, and thanks for the link. I guess I wasn't thinking along the lines of taboo and acceptable, but more along the lines of the miraculous/diabolical, and the way the west (or simply "developed" society) divorces these things from everyday life. From what I know, miraculous things are simply taken for granted in some societies. Does this leave room for our concept of "weird"?

I dunno, you talk about a word or concept long enough and the semantics start to stretch like taffy. I like the "We ARE the Weird" sentiment mentioned above.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-14T10:14:18-07:00

Aw hell I have a bit of time:

Grabbed this from the AskOxford.com:

weird

• adjective 1 suggesting something supernatural; uncanny. 2 informal very strange; bizarre.

— DERIVATIVES weirdly adverb weirdness noun.

— ORIGIN originally in the sense "having the power to control destiny": from an Old English word meaning "destiny, fate".

There is a distinction from the "weird" of the phenomenon and that sense of otherness based on taboo, fear, foreign cultures and cults. I would posit that the phenomenal weird, the "supernatural" is a western invention and obsession. Maybe I'm flogging a dead horse, no?

ETA: I'm pretty much reiterating what's already been said, but: technology is racing so far past most people's capacity to keep up, the "we're living in science fiction" phrase, that we're now living in a world of magic realism. The foreground and the background have inverted, and the miraculous is an everyday thing for us now. Weird is in your home and when you step out the door, and so on.

That dead horse is now well flogged.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-17T06:15:59-07:00

@ helijin
They fly over london every monday. Dont know why, but theyre huge great twin rotored things. Not too subtle

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-17T09:23:22-07:00

Oh yeah the black helicopters!

I wonder if people would have been less scared if they had painted them any other color.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-17T11:27:07-07:00

@Scrymgeour
-Those black helicopters sure get around, don't they?
@Verus
And I suppose they're black 'cos people would laugh if they were hot pink or purple.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-17T12:11:39-07:00

True...maybe it's the pink helicopters who have been doing the real sinister stuff....because people would never suspect them.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-06-17T14:37:04-07:00

Maybe the helicopters were painted by Vorticists for camouflage.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-07-09T12:01:26-07:00

The wierd has been found. Just read the thread "Other mutants: the Wraeththu by Storm Constantine " and be baffled. It's been explained, and it still baffles.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-07-09T13:29:03-07:00

I think there's always a healthy amount of weirdness going on, regardless of the public perception. We get used to it, like the smell in a monkey house, but you just have to refocus your attention to see the world fresh in all its terrible glory. Stop and smell the flowers, so to speak, but take it a step further. Look very closely at a flower for one hour and I guarantee you'll see something spectacular.

Where's the weird gone?

2010-07-15T09:33:24-07:00

Where'd the weird go?
I am just rereading Planetary, having read #4 yesterday, and today I find this article about a ship that was unearthed after lying in the ground of a before blown up office building in NY. And you tell me there is no weird in the world, any more? Now, that is weird! ,)

Where's the weird gone?

2011-04-29T11:01:31-07:00

Just wanted to bring this back up for a revisit. Anyone got any new thoughts?

Where's the weird gone?

2011-05-02T19:38:03-07:00

Not really, I think this kind of topic has come up once every 6 months to a year for over a decade now.

I think the reason has been mentioned a few times - those who stick around long enough get burned out trying to find that next bit of weirdness to maintain the "high" even as our immunity grows, meanwhile The Weird is chewed up and regurgitated as pap (someone mentioned CSI and Jerry Stahl has made a career out of mining the borderlands for plot fodder and did it well, I remember "Fur and Loathing" in particular, but recently it is a game of "spot the inspiration" like the Ickian "Leapin' Lizards" and the Heaven's Gate-like "Shooting Stars"). It does seem like new generations of sensation seekers/weird hunters come on through finding some exciting new (to them) nugget of nuttiness but it often gets shot down by the more jaded "been there, done that, got the brand on my genitals" crowd (something I've seen, well possibly without the genital branding but you never know).

I also suspect this post-911 world, with its short term austerity misery and medium term climate apocalypse, might be looking for something less... esoteric, more confrontational - a punch in the mouth rather than a tickle of your third eye (something the right in America may have caught onto a few years back, but the demonstrations against cuts and tyranny suggest everyone else is catching up quickly). However, you'd also think such times might call for new myths and stories to take our minds off such unpleasantness or to help shape our response to it. I suspect cleverer folks than me have already applied their considerable collective brainpower to such questions...

So what can we do?

Giving up and walking away is a legitimate option, although it seems a bit of a waste of your time and effort. Instead you could:

Dig deeper - information overload has made a lot of us feel like we've seen it all before and, in some ways, we have. We now have a large dataset of unusual encounters, strange happenings and the like, which does lend itself to analysis (how come the more we know about "alien" encounters the less it seems quite so straightforward?). Of course, you can always dive into the media-saturated memosphere and indulge in some synchromysticism, although I still can't confidently say what it is all about (although I still follow The Secret Sun - the posts on Jack Kirby are... eye-opening).

Go back - in his rush to find the next new oddity it is easy to overlook the classic cases or older reports that got ignored at the time (especially those that seemed too weird, as they didn't fit with the prevailing theories at that time) but which might benefit from a big dose of hindsight, especially as it is easier to spot patterns reoccurring when you can look back over the decades of cases.

Make stuff up - which could go a number of ways: you could go all Ong's Hat/Ummo and just create an elaborate conspiracy theory and pass it off as fact (although I wonder if it could work today with a more cynical/media savvy audience) or you could create a work of fiction (presented as such), after all if people are going to be gutting The Weird for story ideas you might as well get in there first and use your knowledge to make a better job of it. It might be you could also spot emerging trends and stay ahead of the curve: get in, do something clever (some kind of Neo-Borgesian mindfrot) and get out before popular culture catches you up - leave them sucking on your fumes, looking out of date before they've even started. Comics are a good medium for this as you can turn them around pretty quickly if you've got willing partners (or unwilling ones who you can keep away from a phone).

However, you could just hold on for a few years - 2012 will be a damp squib (probably) but I can see The Weird starting to ramp up in expectation of... something happening and it will be worth keeping an eye on, if only to see if it spins off a suitably odd morsel amongst the reheated New Age silliness that tends to accrete around such events.

Or none of the above, by its very nature The Weird is unpredictable and it might just catch us all out with our pants down and a hot piece of metal singeing our nether regions.

Where's the weird gone?

2011-05-03T09:06:49-07:00

Anyone interested in weird should check out Stacey Richter, if they haven't already. She's been around for about a decade now and writes some of the craziest shit, that still gets into all the lofty literary journals and wins pushcart prizes. This is not her best story (in my opinion) but it's the only one I can currently find for free online. Others to check out would be "Goal 666" and "The Cavemen in the Hedges."