This is a Pretentious thread

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Not that the vast majority of you will be able to "get" this thread anyway, but I suppose there's an audience for everything, isn't there?

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:16 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread might have been cool ten years ago, but those in the know have moved on since then.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not even going to lower myself by posting here.

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I was just thinking about this last night at the coffeehouse, when I was writing a blog entry on Derrida and Saussure!

― Prude (Prude), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:19 (twenty-two years ago)

have you ever seen those adorable blue collar types who post over on ILM? how hopelessly cute (and naive, a haha) they are

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:21 (twenty-two years ago)

thank you. all of you. you've made my ~~day~~ ~~week~~ century.

― the angry cowboy (dick), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:21 (twenty-two years ago)

I actually think Stephen King is great... no, I haven't read it myself, but anbody who can get non-readers to pick up a book is fantastic.

Fantastic.

― andy, Friday, 27 February 2004 20:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, i mean, the first post was *alright*...but, fuck, after that it went downhill in a fairly predictable manner. Poseurs!

― billislord, Friday, 27 February 2004 20:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, the upper-upper-upper-upper class is such a bore.

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:22 (twenty-two years ago)

(Why is this not a cut-and-paste thread yet?)

― Tep (ktepi), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:23 (twenty-two years ago)

cuz like omg cutting n pasting is lik so fkn done like wo

― Prude (Prude), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Damn it, this's happened everytime I've crashed an online cabal like this. I end up concluding you're all sadder than I am and feeling sorry for you.

-- MV (wavingadie...),

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Text collage threads are so three years ago, Tep.

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:25 (twenty-two years ago)

So you've graduated from proofreaders to copyeditors? Congratulations; I understand that's two desks closer to the window.

Just a guess: You're mostly 27-35-year-old white, single guys, except for one crucial black guy who's cooler than the rest of you and functions as your alpha male. You've spent so long talking to each other and agreeing with each other that it strikes none of you as at all odd to believe that the quintuple-platinum overproduced stuff you champion is cutting-edge while some hardscrabble labor of love or genius (oops, "No Geniuses"; I forgot)that sells twenty thousand copies represents convention or the status quo.

-- MV, y'all (zoo...),

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:26 (twenty-two years ago)

As if!

oh, wait, this is pretentious, not petulant.

― The Huckle-Buck (Horace Mann), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Since you asked, youngster,--and assuming by "interesting" you mean "good--here is what my 2003 ballot would've looked like:

1) The Shins--Chutes Too Narrow (6)
2) Bonnie "Prince" Billy--Master and Everyone (113)
3) Kings of Leon--Youth and Young Manhood (26)
4) Cat Power--You Are Free (14)
5) Calexico--Feast of Wire (82)
6) Juana Molina--Segundo (91)
7) Lyrics Born--Later That Day... (45)
8) Ted Leo and the Pharmacists--Hearts of Oak (20)
9) Songs:Ohia--Magnolia Electric Company (110)
10) Jay Farrar--Terroir Blues (960)

()=Village Voice Pazz & Jop 2003 ranking

-- Michael Vaughn (wol...),

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:27 (twenty-two years ago)

< /pretentious thread >

(Gear, those posts are so fucking incredible.. OK, let's resume thread)

< pretentious thread >

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm afraid this thread isn't quite what you all think. It is funny how that goes unnoticed though.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:34 (twenty-two years ago)

If you read Foucault you'd understand.

― Prude (Prude), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Have the fat bees NOT discovered that horizontal stripes do *nothing* for their waistline? Those poor slovenly bastards.

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:36 (twenty-two years ago)

ME ME ME ME ME ME

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:36 (twenty-two years ago)

"ME"

only surpassed for sheer idiocy by "This" in the title.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Heavens, that wasn't expected. ;-/

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:39 (twenty-two years ago)

The Croatian coast is the only place I'll go anymore... everywhere else is so... so....

― andy, Friday, 27 February 2004 20:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I was reflecting on the sad state of an ex-girlfriend of mine who actually listened to--get this--country music. I tried to make her listen to alt-country, which is the real stuff, but she wasn't having any of it. She'd rather listen to Waylon Jennings than Son Volt for some reason. All I could do was chuckle and roll my eyes. God, how awful.

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:43 (twenty-two years ago)

haha, shockingly enough, none of ilx has "gotten" this thread yet.

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:45 (twenty-two years ago)

"enough"

― Prude (Prude), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Typical ILX tactics here.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:46 (twenty-two years ago)

the only thing typical here are your tactics

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:49 (twenty-two years ago)

am I getting it yet? =[

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Um, no guys, this is a pretentious thread.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Le plus ca change, eh?

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Friday, 27 February 2004 20:53 (twenty-two years ago)

You have all misunderstood the very concept of Pretension. Threads like this are the reason I despair of ILX.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 27 February 2004 21:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Just as I suspected.

― Dale the Titled (cprek), Friday, 27 February 2004 21:40 (twenty-two years ago)

There is a Latin phrase that sums up what I think of you all, but you wouldn't understand it and it is unrenderable in English.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 27 February 2004 21:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Hi, I'm Momus.

― NA (Nick A.), Friday, 27 February 2004 21:46 (twenty-two years ago)

eh hehehehehheheh ha ha.

― martin m. (mushrush), Friday, 27 February 2004 21:54 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread was better before all of you started posting.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 27 February 2004 22:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Don't mind me, I'm only posting to this thread for ironic reasons.

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Friday, 27 February 2004 22:20 (twenty-two years ago)

ILE in not getting point of thread SHOCKAH

― Sym (shmuel), Friday, 27 February 2004 22:21 (twenty-two years ago)

http://ilx.wh3rd.net/index.php

― //, Friday, 27 February 2004 22:21 (twenty-two years ago)

This just typifies everything i detest about "new" ILX.

― billislord, Friday, 27 February 2004 22:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Before we go on i think we need to define terms.
Can everyone provide the Webster's entry alongside each word in their posts please....then we can compare definitions, perhaps with the OED or Collins; then we might get somewhere.

'Assgoblins'

― pete s, Friday, 27 February 2004 22:25 (twenty-two years ago)

you guys need to read some more books before you come and post here.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 27 February 2004 22:29 (twenty-two years ago)

hmm will you please loan us your Dean Koontz and VC Andrews collections then, o brilliant thinker?

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 27 February 2004 22:31 (twenty-two years ago)

What?

― dean! (deangulberry), Friday, 27 February 2004 22:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Who are they? I've never heard of them.

― NA (Nick A.), Friday, 27 February 2004 22:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Ride the snake.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 27 February 2004 22:40 (twenty-two years ago)

but that's pretentious in a good way tracer.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 27 February 2004 22:42 (twenty-two years ago)

You call this shit pretentious? I spotted six syntaxical, four grammatrical and thirteen spelling errors so far.

― Seán (Ireland), Friday, 27 February 2004 22:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Skipping 26 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Momus is OTM. It's the reversal of the logic of pretentiousness that holds the greatest prospect for humanity. The accusation of pretentiousness is always potentially a confession to ignorance, conventionalism and conservatism. So let's celebrate pretentiousness. Or better still, let's be pretentious!

― run it off (run it off), Saturday, 28 February 2004 11:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Hahaha. Everyone was being pretentious by pretending to know what pretentious meant! ;)

― Speedy (Speedy Gonzalas), Saturday, 28 February 2004 11:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry, I'm still being earnest about pretension here, rather than being pretentious. I know it's less fun. But...

People often say that someone with a sense of humour can avoid accusations of pretentiousness by laughing at himself, or just making people laugh in general. I wonder if, since we raised the question of American idiot irony with reference to Alanis, we could look at a different kind of idiot irony, the idiot irony of the English when they put invisible inverted commas around all they say, not to prepare to problematize or play, but simply as an insurance policy against commitment to, or association with, anything at all. Let's call this kind of irony 'genteel English nihilist irony', shall we? If we say, now, that you also cannot be pretentious while practising the invisible-quotation-marks-in-the-air gesture with genteel-nihilist English fingers, is it still really great not to be pretentious? People often think the opposite of pretension is 'being down-to-earth', but in fact it might be 'waggling your fingers in the air'.

― Momus (Momus), Saturday, 28 February 2004 11:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm being earnest too, Momus. I have been all along.

When I saw this thread title I genuinely hoped for some pretentiousness. That's not an ironic statement. Pretentiousness (or at least taking the risk of appeargin pretentious in the eyes of others) is the opposite of safety in culture. Bauhaus theatre was pretentious in exactly this sense. In fact, the whole of the avantgarde between 1914 and 1925 was pretentious in this way. Transgression as liberation.

― run it off (run it off), Saturday, 28 February 2004 11:58 (twenty-two years ago)

It's also amusing that the pretentious person is said to be 'up his own arse', since such a lowly place would not likely be the goal of his high aspirations, and even if it were, no-one could contest his ownership of the orifice. (I have the title deeds to mine right here, somewhere... rummages...)

― Momus (Momus), Saturday, 28 February 2004 12:01 (twenty-two years ago)

And I'm buggered if I'm going to define pretension as 'being up an arse for which one has neither title deeds nor a search warrant'.

― Momus (Momus), Saturday, 28 February 2004 12:06 (twenty-two years ago)

(Perceived) pretentiousness is related to (perceived) elitism. I find myself defending so-called elitism quite a lot these days because the accusations come flying simply on account of the 'elitist' in question not restricting themselves to the established formulas.

― run it off (run it off), Saturday, 28 February 2004 12:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, there's always someone who wants to force you down on the bed of Procrustes, isn't there?

― Momus (Momus), Saturday, 28 February 2004 12:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Who is the modern Procrustes?

Disney has standardized culture more than anyone else I think. There is not an ounce of liberation in that company's cute version of control-freakery.

In art, Procrustes is a fundamentalist modernist who thinks that Disney is the only Procrustean around. The hardliners of aesthetic value in culture are as myopic as the purveyors of 'family values' in 'universal' cinema.

Bring on the Dandies and the avantgardists!

― run it off (run it off), Saturday, 28 February 2004 14:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Yep, this all sounds pretentious to me. Well done.

― kida, Saturday, 28 February 2004 17:33 (twenty-two years ago)

'And I'm buggered if I'm going to define pretension as 'being up an arse for which one has neither title deeds nor a search warrant'.'

Gay sex joke.....somewhere...in...here........

― pete s, Saturday, 28 February 2004 17:37 (twenty-two years ago)

No one got andy's Sargent Shriver reference? Typical.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Saturday, 28 February 2004 17:51 (twenty-two years ago)

So, the point of this thread is to be vaguely stand off-ish and rude to your fellow human beings? I have no desire to be involved in such a discourse.

― jel -- (jel), Saturday, 28 February 2004 18:00 (twenty-two years ago)

stand-offish and rude? Is that the worst you can come up with?

I think you'll find that by and large, the dandies and avantgardists stood off from the petty conventions that restricted the free play of emotions and human interaction. Sometimes you have to go against the flow in order to bring about better conditions for your fellow human being to flourish as human beings. That's what Wilde did. That's what the Surrealists did.

― run it off (run it off), Saturday, 28 February 2004 19:46 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.biscottiland.com/images/jpegs/Me%20&%20Momus.jpg

― dean! (deangulberry), Saturday, 28 February 2004 19:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Discussing pretension is SO pretentious

― Sym (shmuel), Saturday, 28 February 2004 22:48 (twenty-two years ago)

― Sir Hiss! a.k.a. Jon Williams in brrrrrrrrrrrRochester! (ex machina), Saturday, 28 February 2004 22:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, why don't you get a fucking job, ok?

― dean! (deangulberry), Saturday, 28 February 2004 23:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Wow, dig the infinite recursion.

― Lord Custos Omicron (Lord Custos Omicron), Sunday, 29 February 2004 04:57 (twenty-two years ago)

This is TOTALLY metro !!!

― Le Coq (DarrenK), Sunday, 29 February 2004 05:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Nobody understands me.

― NA (Nick A.), Sunday, 29 February 2004 06:06 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread is xantippean in the extreme.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Sunday, 29 February 2004 06:15 (twenty-two years ago)

FIRST SOLDIER The Jews worship a God that one cannot see.
THE CAPPADOCIAN I cannot understand that.
FIRST SOLDIER In fact, they only believe in things that one cannot see.
THE CAPPADOCIAN That seems to me altogether ridiculous.

― run it off (run it off), Sunday, 29 February 2004 09:38 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread will form part of a retrospective to be shown at galleries across the country. It is representative of the idiom, but by no means typical.

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 1 March 2004 15:10 (twenty-two years ago)

This is not a post

― Joe Kay (feethurt), Monday, 1 March 2004 15:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Except it is. N'est pas?

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Monday, 1 March 2004 15:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I wonder if, since we raised the question of American idiot irony with reference to Alanis,

You mean Canadian idiot irony, don't you? Tsk.

― spittle (spittle), Monday, 1 March 2004 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Clearly you haven't read my book.

― spittle (spittle), Monday, 1 March 2004 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

is that bruno brookes with momus?

― pete s, Monday, 1 March 2004 17:02 (twenty-two years ago)

This is not a post

Good try but not clever enough to count as pretentious.

What you fail to understand is that Magritte was literally correct to write 'this is not a pipe' next to a painting of a pipe. It was a painting, not a pipe.

If you are using the Magrittean phrase in the manner of Craig-Martin's 'Oak Tree' - a glass of water - then you have also failed. Craig-Martin's piece inverts Magritte's logic by supplementing the literal object with new meaning. This you have not done.

― run it off (run it off), Monday, 1 March 2004 17:06 (twenty-two years ago)

I repeated some of these arguments in the pub last night when the subject of the band James came up...(after two people in a row calling Tim Booth a "pretentious liitle twat") I'd been saying that with many of the band's I like it's their pretension that I like...bands like the Bunnymen whose claims and goals for their music always seemed loftier than the music itself..(also people like Malcolm Maclaren..no sense of rythmn, can't sing, can't write, ginger..you look awful , but trying to make the world's first punk/hip-hop/cuban crossover pop album)
Their argument was that what they disliked about James was not that they tried to do something that they weren't 'supposed' to do, in this case Eno-esque art-rock, but that they wanted the props for making that kind of music without even doing it. Pretension, in their eyes, was closer to hypocrisy, stealing the signifiers and language of a music that they couldn't themselves make.

Good Pretension v. Bad Pretension?

― winterland, Tuesday, 2 March 2004 08:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm with you on Echo and the Bunnymen pretensiousness. They were kind of culturally bloated in a good way. I'd personally put Lloyd Cole and the Commotions in the same category but I know they didn't rock as much as the Bunnymen in their prime. Maybe Lloyd Cole was more pretentious?

James, I never liked. It wasn't because they were too pretentious, though, it's because they were vacantly heroic - the opposite of what made the Bunnymen and Lloyd Cole pretentious.

― run it off (run it off), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 16:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Do you want some?

― the pinefox, Tuesday, 2 March 2004 16:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Have you got some?

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm working class, you know.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

four weeks pass...

Now that was superbly pretentious. My hat, with the great long feathered plume in it, is off to you, Momus, and I bow. From my chaise-longue.

A languid observation (as he leans back and sips at his absinthe). Wouldn't you agree that irony is "saying things in inverted commas"? Mwa ha. Ha. Thank you. Yes, of course you may quote me.

Another observation. (Leans forward in a confidential manner.) Don't you find the middle-classes are the most pretentious? Don't you? I do. Might write a novel on it. Now there's an idea.......

― Dorien Thomas (Dorien Thomas), Thursday, 1 April 2004 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

So I've been called pretentious by a couple women I've dated. They said it's not a bad thing. I'm wondering if everyone here on ILX is pretentious? Do you consider yourself pretentious? What does it mean? Should I correct it?

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 8 April 2004 05:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I wrote a terribly pretentious term paper for my film class the other day. I was ashamed to turn it in and I'm ashamed of it now. I guess it was the best I could do, but how do you know when using a particular big word or semicolon will make you look like an ass?

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 8 April 2004 05:53 (twenty-two years ago)

(I used Foucault and Barthes to explain The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu. Agony!)

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Thursday, 8 April 2004 05:54 (twenty-two years ago)

do not fear the semi-colon

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 8 April 2004 05:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Magritte was literally correct to write 'this is not a pipe' next to a painting of a pipe. It was a painting, not a pipe.

'pipe' is also french slang for a blow job, which I think Magritte was playfully referencing.

Pretentiousness is so often a lazy slur thrown by people who can't be bothered to try to understand something, but at the same time I kinda like it as an insult - who can honestly say they haven't been too dismissively lazy to try and understand something at one time or another?

― Dave Amos, Thursday, 8 April 2004 07:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I am only pretentious ironically.

― christhamrin (christhamrin), Thursday, 8 April 2004 08:15 (twenty-two years ago)

What's more full of shit, a semi-colon or a full colon?

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 8 April 2004 08:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Is my colon half full or half empty?

― christhamrin (christhamrin), Thursday, 8 April 2004 08:36 (twenty-two years ago)

puns are not pretentious

― run it off (run it off), Thursday, 8 April 2004 08:37 (twenty-two years ago)

eight years pass...

bwaha

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/the-10-most-pretentious-moments-in-history-readers-speak-out-20121226

― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 29 December 2012 15:42 (thirteen years ago)

"rolling stone" "pretentious"

― the memoirs of gaydrian (clouds), Saturday, 29 December 2012 15:46 (thirteen years ago)

it's Taibbi, c'mon

― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 29 December 2012 15:50 (thirteen years ago)

RS itself is of course pretentious, but that list (from reader submissions) isn't half bad - I'd forgotten about several of those mentioned. I'd have put William Bennett at #1 though (and lest anyone here thinks Reagan was a good president, just be reminded that he elevated so many despicable people like that to high positions in his administration).

― Lee626, Saturday, 29 December 2012 22:08 (thirteen years ago)

arrrrgh @ that Amis quote

― Old Boy In Network (Michael B), Saturday, 29 December 2012 22:37 (thirteen years ago)

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