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Culturegasm: Where's the weird gone?

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  1.  (8392.101)
    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.
    •  
      CommentAuthorglukkake
    • CommentTimeJun 13th 2010
     (8392.102)
    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?
    •  
      CommentAuthormattrd
    • CommentTimeJun 13th 2010
     (8392.103)
    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.
    •  
      CommentAuthorcurb
    • CommentTimeJun 13th 2010
     (8392.104)
    @roadscum - yeah, I remember that hep cat! Some football pundit appears to be dressed as him on a recent Ladbrookes (?) commercial.
  5.  (8392.105)
    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.
    •  
      CommentAuthorsseloske
    • CommentTimeJun 13th 2010
     (8392.106)
    @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.
    • CommentAuthorHelljin
    • CommentTimeJun 13th 2010
     (8392.107)
    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?
  8.  (8392.108)
    Helijin-
    they're over here. They regularly stop at our local hospital, then zoom off to wherever.
    •  
      CommentAuthorapefist
    • CommentTimeJun 13th 2010 edited
     (8392.109)
    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.
    •  
      CommentAuthormattrd
    • CommentTimeJun 13th 2010
     (8392.110)
    @ 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.
    •  
      CommentAuthormattrd
    • CommentTimeJun 14th 2010 edited
     (8392.111)
    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.
    • CommentAuthorScrymgeour
    • CommentTimeJun 17th 2010
     (8392.112)
    @ helijin
    They fly over london every monday. Dont know why, but theyre huge great twin rotored things. Not too subtle
    • CommentAuthorVerissimus
    • CommentTimeJun 17th 2010
     (8392.113)
    Oh yeah the black helicopters!

    I wonder if people would have been less scared if they had painted them any other color.
  14.  (8392.114)
    @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.
    • CommentAuthorVerissimus
    • CommentTimeJun 17th 2010
     (8392.115)
    True...maybe it's the pink helicopters who have been doing the real sinister stuff....because people would never suspect them.
    • CommentAuthorSpenceball
    • CommentTimeJun 17th 2010
     (8392.116)
    Maybe the helicopters were painted by Vorticists for camouflage.
  17.  (8392.117)
    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.
  18.  (8392.118)
    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.
    • CommentAuthordemjod
    • CommentTimeJul 15th 2010
     (8392.119)
    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! ,)
    • CommentAuthorOddcult
    • CommentTimeApr 29th 2011
     (8392.120)
    Just wanted to bring this back up for a revisit. Anyone got any new thoughts?

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