100 Counter-Cultural Signifiers That Are So Ubiquotous/Played-Out/Subsumed By The Mainstream That They've Lost Their Resonance

93. blue/green/purple/etc. hair coloring.

Would you say The Bird counts or does this still piss people off?

what counter-culture

How about my friend's Jimi Hendrix T-shirt that plays a MIDI of Purple Haze when you press this button on it?

I mean there IS no counter-culture now - everything is just fragmented into their own little circles, there isn't even really a clearly defined mainstream culture to be AGAINST anymore

The t-shirts with no MIDI culture. Fuck that non-noize!

hahaha

http://www.catbirdseat.org/catbirdseat/bingo.jpg

list threads

remember when we could stick it to the man by listing our favorite bands?

http://m.assetbar.com/achewood/autaux?b=M%5ea11f09b8576e606bcb5038dfdb92fb821&u=http%3A%2F%2Fachewood.com%2Fcomic.php%3Fdate%3D09182003

1. Long Hair (just to get that one out of the way)

95. Black Chuck Taylor Converse All-Stars

Dude, that's like saying blue jeans have lost their resonance. Chucks will be around after we're not only old and uncool, but probably after we're dead.

I'm also not sure Motorhead t-shirts belong there. Not as a counter-cultural signifier, just as a bad-ass logo for a fucking awesome band.

xx. any song older than cellphones that has been made into a ringtone

But Wham's "Careless Whisper" was my ringtone!

Do you know what is so PUNK ROCK and DANGEROUS and RADICAND BADASS about Chuck Taylors? They fucking ruined my feet, that's what. Beware of foot tendinitis!

92. Circumcision
91. "Thinspiration"/anorexia bbs
90. Magic
89. Andy Warhol
88. Boob job
87. Shaved head (now RX for all balding mang)
86. Penny stocks
85. Organic food

84. Dropping out of high school
83. Hating the John Birch society

82. Withnail & I

81. Macs

80. Virginity promise rallies
79. Wanting to see buttsecks on film

78. threads about who you would fuck

some of these are not counter-culturally significant

not like handjobs to 'more than this'

77. animated gifs

76. Crass and/or Misfits tees. (Minor Threat is getting there. Op Ivy is past there.)

the following words:

75. "ass"
74. "bitch"
73. "damn"

72. motorcycles

I would distinguish between things that have merely lost their status as counter-cultural, and things that have no reason to exist now that they are no longer counter-cultural.

i'm surprised you're not holding forth on boob jobs

No, a motorcycle will not make you Rob Halford, if it ever would have, but it's still not a shameful thing to have. Nor is organic food, or a Mac.

if we go back really far:

71. t-shirts
70. baseball caps
69. jeans

i'm surprised you're not holding forth on boob jobs

that one confuses me. Boobs jobs were never a statement against The Man. Bralessness, maybe. Mayyyybe.

They were once not as socially acceptable.

I see where you're coming from.

But I think Alex in his ire was trying to get at things that should go away because DUDE, that is not making you look cool.

68-1. Every "counter-cultural signifier" either belongs on this list or will eventually.

Boob jobs count there too, IMO!

xp

Right, but they were never counter-cultural. They were/are pandering to the patriarchy, if anything.

Boobs.

you said it, sister.

67. williamsburg. shit, ANYWHERE in manhattan.

66. being into "edgy" socialites & their vanity projects.

65. Dads

baseball caps on backwards
(my mom still thinks I'm trying to start something when I wear a cap backwards)

like a frat?

63. earrings on dudes

williamsburg is in manhattan now?

62. Cussing/cursing/using profanity

gabbneb, pretty much.

61. supermodels

I'd like to see the flip side to this thread and find out exactly what is truly subversive any more (discounting, you know, child rape and that crap).

I wish having your boxer-clad butt hanging out of the top of your saggy pants would lose its resonance. I've stopped saying anything about it to my older son, because each protest from me will only prolong the butt-display phase another YEAR. Christ, is it stoooopid lookin'.

I'm also not sure Motorhead t-shirts belong there. Not as a counter-cultural signifier, just as a bad-ass logo for a fucking awesome band.

Nine times out of ten, sported by someone who couldn't hum a few bars of "We Are the Road Crew" if you put a loaded .44 in their mouth.

- Flapper bobbed haircuts.
- Feather boas.
- Raccoon coats.
- Hip flasks.
- Talking with a toothpick sliding back and forth in your mouth.
- White spats.

Nine times out of ten, sported by someone who couldn't hum a few bars of "We Are the Road Crew" if you put a loaded .44 in their mouth.

How would you hum that, exactly? You ask too much.

How would you hum that, exactly? You ask too much.

oh, kenanpaws ...

60. "oh, kenanpaws ..."

I guess you could just hum the same note over and over, super-growly-like.

Why is that a dumb think to say? It is not Gershwin. It is Motorhead. You do not hum it.

I was going to say "It's like trying to hum..." but then I got stuck. I'm hard put to think of music with less melody.

Quick: hum "Overkill" to yourself

It would be hard enough to hum anything with muffling of a .44 in your mouth, not to mention the insane psychological stress. Unless the .44 was made of chocolate.

It would be hard enough to hum anything with muffling of a .44 in your mouth, not to mention the insane psychological stress. Unless the .44 was made of chocolate.

http://filmsdefrance.com/Un_chant_d_amour_1.jpg

fightclub.jpg

Whoa, is there a chocolate gun in that movie?

You can totally hum both "We Are the Road Crew" and "Overkill". Honestly, I'm not asking that much. "Orgasmatron" would be tougher to convincingly hum, I'll say that.

100. Mohawks

I'd say the really long and spiky mohawks, and mohawks on girls still carry some resonance. It's not like you see those on your average teenager.

yeah but having a mohawk won't necessarily get you harassed or beaten by redneck cops like they once did

some people got murdered for being goths in like, nottingham or somewhere, the other week, seriously.

I failed to get a job about three years ago because I have a nose piercing (I've had it for ten years now, and am 37). The guy interviewing me went through the interview, everything was fine, and then he said, "oh, by the way, if we were hosting events in the office, would you be okay to, um..." and he put his finger to the side of his nose. I had no idea what he was talking about. He said "would you take your nose ring out?" I thought about it for a second and then said "I suppose," while thinking "fuck off! I'm not working here!" I did not attend the second interview.

yeah, stick it to the man.

This is like that Shania Twain Ramones t-shirt thread all over again. Most of these things have lost their resonance because they are OLD. Otherwise you might as well go 'Stravinsky's Rite of Spring' and lock the thread.

http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/news/headlines/display.var.1643390.0.skatepark_youth_may_face_murder_charge.php

Matt, work with us here.

Smashing up guitars?

Or anything to do with rock music at all really.

Everyone I know who has a nose ring has to take it out for work, although I wouldn't say it's subversive in a normal social context.

If you go old enough, it gets subversive again! I mean, hip flasks are pretty sketchy nowadays.

Piercings so should not be on this list.

I failed to get a job about three years ago because I have a nose piercing (I've had it for ten years now, and am 37). The guy interviewing me went through the interview, everything was fine, and then he said, "oh, by the way, if we were hosting events in the office, would you be okay to, um..." and he put his finger to the side of his nose. I had no idea what he was talking about. He said "would you take your nose ring out?" I thought about it for a second and then said "I suppose," while thinking "fuck off! I'm not working here!" I did not attend the second interview.

I'd have thought he was suggesting a coke party.

52. blue jeans

quote from some old academic geezer whose name i can't remember, ca. 1966: "i walked around the harvard campus today for the first time in a decade and all the students were dressed like miners"

My mum still sort of thinks that jeans are a bit counterculture. hahaha

I'd have thought he was suggesting a coke party.

Yeah, I wasn't a bit sure either.

The point is that I am not, and have never been, trying to stick it to the man. I have my nose pierced because I like it and because I thought, when I got it done, that it was kind of acceptable now. I was surprised to find this was not the case. I've only ever had one other person comment on it negatively, and that was an older male relative who still finds it shocking when women smoke or swear or drink pints.

I'm actually glad he asked me about it in the interview, because it gave me the opportunity to discover it was a place I didn't want to work without having to actually go and work there.

What's with those people who put those uh very large earrings that create an XL hole in your lobe? What ARE those things called anyway?

i don't know, but i hear people refer to them by diameter size or something

Whenever I'm talking to someone with those... things... I can't help looking at their lobes. :-(

It's probably already been posted, but Che Guevara to fucking thread x ten million

Flesh tunnels (xpost)

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/2/24/180px-16mm_Flesh_Tunnel-sharpened.jpg

If my daughter comes home with this or a boy/girlfriend wearing a flesh tunnel, she can pack her bags. ;-)

what the fuck, i have never seen one of them (outside, like, documentaries on the amazon tribes).

Don't you ever go out? They're everywhere.

i guess not, but can you blame me, with this kind of nonsense going on out there?

Cool. You can put tent pegs through those things if you're sleeping in a windy field.

You can get flesh plugs too, same thing but without a hole through the middle, I think.

http://www.bodyartforms.com/gallery/uploads/star.jpg

Yeah we used to do that to cattle all the time.

60. Soup. Shut up about your fucking soup already.

59. Sleeping on a bed of nails.

58. The Julia Child Real Doll.

57. Writing thinly-veiled roman a clefs exposing the tissue paper industry.

56. Backwards numbering.

55. Ironic male chastity belts.

54. Potato famine.

53. Seeing how many college students you can fit into a telephone booth and then submerging it in Hormel Chili.

52. Flaunting your heterosexuality.

51. Dryhumping in protest.

50. Machismo and true grit.

slow day, nick? :)

49. Wondering how Ronald Reagan felt about Jelly Bellys.

48. Exposing the canards of the Brazilian space system.

47. Hiding your Easter eggs two months in advance.

46. Frittering.

45. Creating the perfect recipe for toad cracklings.

thinly-veiled roman a clefs

is that redundant?

44. Living in a hut spun out of marzipan.

43. Toadying up to your inferiors.

42. Arranging your chess pieces by weight.

41. Crossing the rhumba with a bossanova beat.

40. Teaching your aunt how to wakeboard.

39. Using nonsequiters as a substitute for actual humor.

38. Publicly self-deprecating while privately knowing you are awesome.

37. - 2. Cheating to get ahead.

1. Starting threads about how great you are because you are so over "played-out" countercultural signifiers.

36. black leather jacket

Oh son, you are a bad-ass. (xpost)

lock thread, plz

97. Ramones/Motorhead/CBGB t-shirts (rock t-shirts in general?)

It'll be fun the day Alex's kid comes home with blue hair and throws him into a rage. "Played out cultural signifiers? Not under my roof, young lady!" "Fuck you, dad!"

lols

35. Burning Man

# 100 Counter-Cultural Signifiers That Are So Ubiquotous/Played-Out/Subsumed By The Mainstream That They've Lost Their Resonance [Started by Alex in NYC, last updated 35 seconds ago] 130 new answers
# New Apple Lust Objects [Started by Ed (dali), last updated 41 seconds ago] 48 new answers

apple hasn't been counter culture in, like, a decade or something.

This one is serious:

34. Joking about how Alex in NYC is going to react to his children's whims as they enter the rebellious teenage years.

Jot that one down somewhere. It's SERIOUS.

Nine times out of ten, sported by someone who couldn't hum a few bars of "We Are the Road Crew" if you put a loaded .44 in their mouth.

-- Alex in NYC, Tuesday, September 4, 2007 8:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

Please post .wav of Charlotte humming Motorhead, plz.

jaymc.xls gettin' jiggy with the OLE imbeds!

not 33 at all. shade tippin'

hahaha did jaymc just recommend that alex put a gun in his daughter's mouth?

32. Ice Cube

TRIBAL ARM BAND TATTOOS

Definitely not Confederate flags!

except yes actually

:/

let's name one that hasn't lost its resonance, eh? assless chaps?

Has anyone EVER seen chaps that HAVE an ass? I'd wager not.

you, my friend, have not lived.

31. Buggery

where's the part where alex says how great he is? I mean I see the part where n/a is a buttmunch, but i missed that part.

perhaps he should've instead started a thread about how he's so great because he doesn't want to move to NYC like everyone else.

This is a fun thread, but some of these posts just sound like people starting to get old:

62. Cussing/cursing/using profanity

I wish having your boxer-clad butt hanging out of the top of your saggy pants would lose its resonance. I've stopped saying anything about it to my older son, because each protest from me will only prolong the butt-display phase another YEAR. Christ, is it stoooopid lookin'. <-- sounds JUST like something my dad would say.

Not that there's anything wrong with it! It's just different from the mainstream/counter-culture topic.

30. UFOPORNOO!

1990 / Time For The Souffle