What a pointless, jumbled mess of a cover story:
Kill the hipster
Why the hipster must die
A modest proposal to save New York cool
By Christian Lorentzen
Has the hipster killed cool in New York? Did it die the day Wes Anderson proved too precious for his own good, or was it when Chloë Sevigny fellated Vincent Gallo onscreen? Did it vanish along with Kokie’s, International Bar and Tonic? Or when McSweeney’s moved shop to San Francisco and Bright Eyes signed a lease on the Lower East Side? Was it possible to be a hipster once a band that played Northsix one night was heard the next day on NPR’s Weekend Edition? Did it hurt to have American Apparel marketing soft-porn style to young bankers? Was something lost the day Ecstasy made the cover of the Times Magazine? Or was it the day Bloomberg banned smoking in bars? And how many times an hour could one check e-mail and still have an honest, or even ironic, claim on being cool?
Yes, the assassins of cool still walk our streets: Any night of the week finds the East Village, the Lower East Side and Williamsburg teeming with youth—a pageant of the bohemian undead. These hipster zombies—now more likely to be brokers or lawyers than art-school dropouts—are the idols of the style pages, the darlings of viral marketers and the marks of predatory real-estate agents. And they must be buried for cool to be reborn.
It was in the real-estate section of one of the city’s lesser dailies, under the headline luxury seems to be set for the lower east side, that I found an astonishing remark attributed to Michael Desjadon, the director of sales at Massey Knakal: “The profile of the typical renter in the area is changing from the ‘counterculture hipster’ to the ‘more mainstream’ hipster and young professional.”
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“I wish I’d thought of this phrase, but we call the Lower East Side ‘the last real neighborhood in New York,’” Desjadon, an amiable fellow and a patron of LES bars, told me when I called him up. “The mainstream hipster,” he explained, “is not an artist or a musician. He has an office job, and wears one hat to work and another at night.” Presumably, the latter is a trucker—or a porkpie—hat.
The mouth of a real-estate agent is rarely the source of truth, but Mr. Desjadon knows his territory (and is no doubt cashing in on this knowledge). He has unwittingly explicated the transformation of the hipster into the “indie yuppie,” an avatar we might imagine as the fusion of Kurt Cobain and Adam Gopnik. The indie yuppie is (literally) the child of the bobo, and just as his father the baby boomer did, he has learned to simulate rebellion while procuring and furnishing a comfortable two-bedroom. His haircut may be asymmetrical, but his dog never misses a walk. And around the corner, sleeping on couches, neophyte slackers dream until they wake up late for their temp jobs. The savvy among them soon grasp that they’ve arrived at the party too late. Photo: Alexander Milligan
Under the guise of “irony,” hipsterism fetishizes the authentic and regurgitates it with a winking inauthenticity. Those 18-to-34-year-olds called hipsters have defanged, skinned and consumed the fringe movements of the postwar era—Beat, hippie, punk, even grunge. Hungry for more, and sick with the anxiety of influence, they feed as well from the trough of the uncool, turning white trash chic, and gouging the husks of long-expired subcultures—vaudeville, burlesque, cowboys and pirates.
Of course, hipsterism being originally, and still mostly, the province of whites (the pastiest of whites), its acolytes raid the cultural stores of every unmelted ethnicity in the pot. Similarly, they devour gay style: Witness the cultural burp known as metrosexuality. As the hipster ambles from the thrift store to a $100 haircut at Freemans Sporting Club, these aesthetics are assimilated—cannibalized—into a repertoire of meaninglessness, from which the hipster can construct an identity in the manner of a collage, or a shuffled playlist on an iPod.
All isms seek dominance of human affairs, and in this, hipsterism in New York City has proved more virulent than any of its forebears. (Punk, after all, never really broke—except in the form of hipsterism.) At last there was nothing left for hipsters to do but to convert the squares, take them to the bar and let them pick up the tab. Secrets were shared. The hipster hooked up with the common consumer; he woke up a zombie.
How can this be undone? I propose that the only hope for a reanimated bohemia, if not a dezombified hipsterdom, is civil war.
Hipsters in their present undead incarnation are essentially people who think of themselves as being cooler than America. But they are afflicted by that other ism sociologists made an industry of decrying in the 20th century: narcissism. The late prophet of our current moment, George W. S. Trow, posited that television had obliterated the context of American life. The only refuges remaining were TV, God and the self. Young people who live in cities notoriously shun God and television to cultivate themselves. Now, as the age of MySpace comes due for a backlash and the former teen idols of our crypto-ironic fascination start to show their age, the time has come for the hipsters in the garden of Union Pool to open their eyes, realize that they are surrounded by jackasses and milquetoasts, and stage their own dive-bar putsch.
The fault lines are clear enough already. We know that there are Sweet hipsters, who practice the sort of irony you can take home to meet the parents, and there are those Vicious hipsters, who practice the form of not-quite-passive aggression called snark.
On the Sweet end of the spectrum, The Believer lavishes its literary and pop-culture idols with a uniform layer of affection that renders it near impossible to distinguish the great from the mediocre. This aesthetic of relativism grants everybody an A for effort and allows anyone projecting the image of an artist to conceive of himself as such. It proliferates as a social plague among hipsters who invite their entire address book to readings, shows and art openings. The e-mails arrive, and though it is known in advance that the art will be nothing much,the trek is made. The avant-garde illusion ultimately sustains itself on free beer.
As the war claims its casualties, the Sweet may discover that behind their aesthetic relativism is an impulse more political than cultural: They are rightfully activists. Their cause has emerged in the form of global warming, and I would not be surprised if the color of cool in their future is green. Along the way they might rediscover a concept hipsters have lately had little use for: love.
Meanwhile, among those who adopt the Vicious pose, a lighthearted scorn perfected by Gawker is roundly applied to the objects of pop celebrity, both talented and (mostly) otherwise. The effect is akin to dipping sushi in wasabi sauce: The flavor is a little less bland, but it’s still mostly rice. The hipster who keeps up with the antics of Hilton, Lohan and Spears does so sneeringly, and her knowingness introduces one degree of difference between herself and the Midwestern housewife who buys Us Weekly at the Wal-Mart checkout line.
When I asked Gawker managing editor Choire Sicha whether it was possible to ignore talentless celebrities, he responded with the remorse of a custodian of cultural decline: “Everyone can, and should, be ignored. We were warned about this situation we find ourselves in by philosophers, and well before it happened. It’s just too bad we weren’t warned by celebrities, or we would have listened to them.”
So the Sweet will turn on the Vicious, and the Vicious will shun the Sweet. The sniping in the blogosphere will escalate, and turf wars will ensue. Power will be consolidated in the frontiers of the outer boroughs as the Vicious tighten their grip on Bushwick and the Sweet flee south to Kensington and Windsor Terrace, or give up and move to Queens (better yet, to their rightful home: the West Coast).
If they can vanquish the Sweet, the path for the Vicious is less obvious. A good first step might entail purging the lawyers and bankers lurking in their company. But on the other hand, those guys are good at footing the bill. Another tactic would require the conversion of snark to self-criticism, and that would necessarily involve ignoring no-talent celebrities, and mean an end to playing it safe. The safest game in town—in fashion and music especially—is retro, and if there is no Ezra Pound in corduroys out there to say, “Make it new,” let me be the one to say, “Stop making it old.”
What distinguishes the zombie hipsters at large today from the “white Negroes” Norman Mailer described in the 1950s is a lack of menace. The original hipster—Mailer had in mind James Dean and the Neal Cassady who inspired On the Road—was a “philosophical psychopath” who might steal your car and drive it to Mexico. The myth of menace survives in the pages of Vice, but the magazine’s signature feature—the “Do’s and Don’t’s”—suggests a safe path to transgression, a notion as oxymoronic as the “mainstream hipster.” Mailer, who traced hipster psychosis to the Holocaust and the atom bomb, would likely point to September 11 as the event that left hordes of twentysomethings whispering, “We would be safe,” to quote the Sweet hipster novelist Jonathan Safran Foer. Menace is now lost on anyone older than 20. It is left to those born after 1990 to move to town, frighten the zombies away, destabilize the real-estate market and restore something unsavory to what used to be called hip.
Until then, the battle will rage. Which side are you on?
― Hurting 2, Friday, 1 June 2007 23:47 (eighteen years ago)
Sorry, that'd be Time Out NY: http://www.timeoutny.com/newyork/Details.do?page=1&xyurl=xyl://TONYWebArticles1/609/features/why_the_hipster_must_die.xml
I mean what is this guy on about? Who is he even talking about?
― Hurting 2, Friday, 1 June 2007 23:52 (eighteen years ago)
Williamsburg teeming with youth—a pageant of the bohemian undead.
Doesn't the presidetn of the noize board live there? :-/
― StanM, Friday, 1 June 2007 23:56 (eighteen years ago)
TONY: NEW YORK IS VARY EXPENSSSIVE
― Hurting 2, Friday, 1 June 2007 23:59 (eighteen years ago)
WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON, HURTING?
― latebloomer, Saturday, 2 June 2007 00:01 (eighteen years ago)
StanM: out-glib-ing all this bohemian undead one post at a time.
x-post
― strgn, Saturday, 2 June 2007 00:04 (eighteen years ago)
Youngsters who work temp jobs and live off their parents in the LES and invite their friends to their crappy art shows are the enemy, but "vicious" people who went to art school on their parents dime and live in Bushwick and invite friends to their crappy art shows are our only hope.
― Hurting 2, Saturday, 2 June 2007 00:06 (eighteen years ago)
might steal your car and drive it to Mexico
oh my god! anything but that! the menace... it's overwhelming!
― lauren, Saturday, 2 June 2007 00:09 (eighteen years ago)
"I hate hipsters" is the new "Why do they have to call it a 'grande'?"
― Hurting 2, Saturday, 2 June 2007 00:11 (eighteen years ago)
"Hurting going on again about hipsters" still equals "boring"
― sanskrit, Saturday, 2 June 2007 00:15 (eighteen years ago)
A point should really be made by paragraph 3, no? Or is the point that the author knows what is truly cool? Ironically, a cool person could make a point by paragraph 3.
― Spencer Chow, Saturday, 2 June 2007 00:16 (eighteen years ago)
TS: "Sweet" or "Vicous" ???
― dan selzer, Saturday, 2 June 2007 00:17 (eighteen years ago)
Great article.
― moley, Saturday, 2 June 2007 00:18 (eighteen years ago)
"When I asked Gawker managing editor Choire Sicha" I mean, does this person not know what he is?
― Spencer Chow, Saturday, 2 June 2007 00:32 (eighteen years ago)
that's a great article. but i feel the tide has already started to turn so the doomsday pitch is a bit uncalled for.
― Jeb, Saturday, 2 June 2007 00:47 (eighteen years ago)
i thought this was from like 2004 til the end
― A B C, Saturday, 2 June 2007 00:58 (eighteen years ago)
i didnt realize kokie's the international and tonic had closed
― jhøshea, Saturday, 2 June 2007 01:06 (eighteen years ago)
wait i'm drinking beer watching baseball and posting to ilx on a friday night - this is all starting to make sense.
i should go make some cocaines
― jhøshea, Saturday, 2 June 2007 01:08 (eighteen years ago)
― dan m, Saturday, 2 June 2007 01:13 (eighteen years ago)
i was drinking a drink with the duke of grimsby
― 696, Saturday, 2 June 2007 01:51 (eighteen years ago)
at one point Kokie's tried to sell at the door for their softball team. i'm talking about a team of 9 puerto rican dudes, not some ironic kickball thing. my $10 would have been better much spent on one of those.
― sanskrit, Saturday, 2 June 2007 01:54 (eighteen years ago)
err, they attempted to sell Kokie's t-shirts for their softball team. goddamn baby laxative and Ajax.
― sanskrit, Saturday, 2 June 2007 01:55 (eighteen years ago)
how much $ went out from there in bribes, i wonder? a friend claims to have seen a cop come in and receive a fat envelope from behind the bar, but i kind of doubt his memory.
― lauren, Saturday, 2 June 2007 01:57 (eighteen years ago)
it always seemed a little too obv - of course plant bar had those chest high glass shelves in their myriad bathrooms so i really have no idea what the cops care abt or anything
― jhøshea, Saturday, 2 June 2007 01:59 (eighteen years ago)
"a little too obvious"? quel understatement!
― lauren, Saturday, 2 June 2007 02:06 (eighteen years ago)
hello lauren im in the bottom of the well and someone locked both doors
― 696, Saturday, 2 June 2007 02:08 (eighteen years ago)
marooned in moon lake, as it were?
― lauren, Saturday, 2 June 2007 02:09 (eighteen years ago)
ha yah - i imagine kokies was somehow dialed in to the police
― jhøshea, Saturday, 2 June 2007 02:10 (eighteen years ago)
i wasnt marooned, i drowned! everyone knows this, just like when i got mixed up with the boys from teapot dome
― 696, Saturday, 2 June 2007 02:13 (eighteen years ago)
that was a spot of bother.
― lauren, Saturday, 2 June 2007 02:15 (eighteen years ago)
lauren, the story going around was that the owner was the brother of the local police captain. that's either apocryphal or a euphemism for big bags of cash to the right people.
― sanskrit, Saturday, 2 June 2007 02:32 (eighteen years ago)
I didn't know International Bar had closed. ;_;
― Laurel, Saturday, 2 June 2007 02:39 (eighteen years ago)
the story I heard wasn't a big wallet but a large jar filled with money. A much better image.
― dan selzer, Saturday, 2 June 2007 05:29 (eighteen years ago)
http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/The-Decline-of-Western-Civilization-Part-II-The-Metal-Years-Poster-C10376625.jpeg
Part III: The Hipster Years
― daria-g, Saturday, 2 June 2007 12:28 (eighteen years ago)
THAT WOULD BE A BORING MOVIE HUH
― jhøshea, Saturday, 2 June 2007 12:33 (eighteen years ago)
She actually made one about crust-punks, which hasn't been released on video, so the Hipster Years would be Part IV.
― kingkongvsgodzilla, Saturday, 2 June 2007 13:49 (eighteen years ago)
TONY would have made the article about how developers and landlords have killed NY and cool, but they get too much advertising money from them.
― Yerac, Saturday, 2 June 2007 15:19 (eighteen years ago)
"I hate hipsters" is the new "Why do they have to call it a 'grande'?" LOL TRUCKER CAP THREAD WELCOME TO 2003
-- Hurting 2, Saturday, June 2, 2007 12:11 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link
― That one guy that quit, Sunday, 3 June 2007 09:44 (eighteen years ago)
I'm surprised the guy didn't point out the *contradiction* of rich people drinking PBR.
― Hurting 2, Sunday, 3 June 2007 12:50 (eighteen years ago)
His haircut may be asymmetrical, but his dog never misses a walk.
i'm failing to see the connection.
― That one guy that quit, Sunday, 3 June 2007 13:04 (eighteen years ago)
mind you, i kind of have a side-parting and my dog gets a daily walk, so maybe he's talking about me.
― That one guy that quit, Sunday, 3 June 2007 13:05 (eighteen years ago)
you have a dog? i cant imagine you having a dog. does the dog stay home alone all day when you are at work?
― 696, Sunday, 3 June 2007 13:13 (eighteen years ago)
it's complicated.
― That one guy that quit, Sunday, 3 June 2007 13:16 (eighteen years ago)
I am curious about this idea of menacing young white people coming to destabilize the real estate market.
― Hurting 2, Sunday, 3 June 2007 13:19 (eighteen years ago)
<i>. The effect is akin to dipping sushi in wasabi sauce: The flavor is a little less bland, but it’s still mostly rice. </i>
but sushi is good!!
― s1ocki, Sunday, 3 June 2007 15:24 (eighteen years ago)
argh
everyone should have a dog. its difficult in a city though. i keep mine in storage
― 696, Sunday, 3 June 2007 15:25 (eighteen years ago)
i did have a cat, but that's complicated too.
― That one guy that quit, Sunday, 3 June 2007 15:29 (eighteen years ago)
Dogs rule. Although they tend to draw too much attention from the tourists. I preffer to be invisible on the street.
― django, Sunday, 3 June 2007 15:45 (eighteen years ago)
And that article sucks. Does he actually think New York is somehow easier to live in than before? Cuz it ain't. It's still a fucking hell hole and a psycho bitch that beats the shit out of you. It's just thug in fancy dress that mugs you right in your apartment. I see these kids move here and I think "How the hell do they do it?", forgetting that I moved here with $150 and a backpack full of underwear and socks. But they make it work. They have 12 roomates in a Bushwick loft. They work as assistants to fashion models and magazine editors. I couldn't think of a more hellish existence if I tried.
― django, Sunday, 3 June 2007 15:46 (eighteen years ago)
Django OTM. i love visiting new york, but christ, it'd have to be some sort of fantastic job or lady to get me to move there. all my friends who live there are strung out and working 60+ hours a week at multiple jobs and hardly get a chance to enjoy the city they live in. it seems so silly, yknow?
― the table is the table, Sunday, 3 June 2007 17:15 (eighteen years ago)
talk about kokie's some more
― jergïns, Sunday, 3 June 2007 17:24 (eighteen years ago)
He has unwittingly explicated the transformation of the hipster into the “indie yuppie,” an avatar we might imagine as the fusion of Kurt Cobain and Adam Gopnik.
hi dere 2005
― Eppy, Sunday, 3 June 2007 17:33 (eighteen years ago)
all my friends who live there are strung out and working 60+ hours a week at multiple jobs and hardly get a chance to enjoy the city they live in.
which is the precise reason they aren't cool any longer. to be fair, i think a better answer would be: the decline is due to the rest of the world having catched up with--and, in some instances, surpassed--NYC in coolness, rather than something having been lost.
― Jeb, Sunday, 3 June 2007 17:41 (eighteen years ago)
Dogs rule. Although they tend to draw too much attention from the tourists ladies amirite
― That one guy that quit, Sunday, 3 June 2007 18:29 (eighteen years ago)
You all are crazy; New York is tough but you don't have to work yrself to death to be here. In fact the only people I know who really work 60 hrs a week are either investment bankers, IT support staff, or people whose work goes in cycles, like photogs etc who will then have like a month off or get flown to Spain or something. So whatevs. You have to pay yr dues, I guess, to get somewhere in your field, but after a few years it sweetens up.
― Laurel, Sunday, 3 June 2007 18:34 (eighteen years ago)
yeah i think the whole 'killing yrself to make it in the big city' thing is very exaggerated. i moved here exactly a year ago and though not everything has been 100% easy, it has not been anything like living in a crowded, bedbug-ridden loft and working 60+ hours a week (fact: i did work 60 hrs/wk at one point but that was a choice to solidify future endeavors, not the only way to make ends meet). maybe i am not 'cool' enough and my office job makes me a sellout, but fuck that. i work 35-40 hours a week, have weekends (most of the time), hang out with friends whenever, drink what i want at the bar, go to shows i want, etc. and like laurel said, i don't know anyone who is working 60 hrs a week other than people who make tons of money (compared to me!).
― tehresa, Sunday, 3 June 2007 19:07 (eighteen years ago)
lol i'm working zero hours a week rite now
;(
― sanskrit, Sunday, 3 June 2007 20:35 (eighteen years ago)
or people whose work goes in cycles, like photogs etc who will then have like a month off
but to Laurel's point, being between jobs in NYC somehow amounts to working 20-30 hours a week without even knowing it
― sanskrit, Sunday, 3 June 2007 20:44 (eighteen years ago)
well yeah, granted, most of my friends do go on tour, or take weeks off to install in boston, or whatever.
― the table is the table, Sunday, 3 June 2007 20:50 (eighteen years ago)
-- That one guy that quit,
ok, what dog should i get
― 696, Sunday, 3 June 2007 22:06 (eighteen years ago)
depends what ladies you're after, i should think.
― That one guy that quit, Sunday, 3 June 2007 22:15 (eighteen years ago)
let me think about that
― 696, Sunday, 3 June 2007 22:16 (eighteen years ago)
ok, hot ones
CORGI
― Abbott, Sunday, 3 June 2007 22:17 (eighteen years ago)
Beagle
Greyhound; they are actually good apartment dogs if that's your living situation
there is seriously no way i can have 3 dogs
― 696, Sunday, 3 June 2007 22:18 (eighteen years ago)
although, on the other hand, if it meant 3 girls
― 696, Sunday, 3 June 2007 22:19 (eighteen years ago)
Them're just suggestions: I was trying to think of dogs that would make me pet and adore the dogs and talk to/fancy the owners.
― Abbott, Sunday, 3 June 2007 22:20 (eighteen years ago)
A small mutt with 3 legs would be amazingly endearing, too.
― Abbott, Sunday, 3 June 2007 22:21 (eighteen years ago)
ok, i'll see what theyve got on ebay
― 696, Sunday, 3 June 2007 22:23 (eighteen years ago)
well right. this is a good thread idea maybe. does "cute dog" say the wrong thing? nothing is cute about picking up their shit, tho'.
― That one guy that quit, Sunday, 3 June 2007 22:24 (eighteen years ago)
with the whole nurave thing im sure there must be some way to rock a poop-a-scoop
― 696, Sunday, 3 June 2007 22:25 (eighteen years ago)
IMO I would not say 'cute dog' as in 'mutant tiny' like papillon, pomeranian, chinese crested, etc. Nor 'badassical' like a doberman or something; nothing big like a great dane: all subcategories of dog not listed here are super for conversation. Also, picking up poop makes you look responsible and it's not like you have to walk around with a baggie on your hand the whole time.
― Abbott, Sunday, 3 June 2007 22:30 (eighteen years ago)
anyhoo mine is a terrier-spaniel mongrel. it gets more specific but i forget. he is cute but not cutesy.
― That one guy that quit, Sunday, 3 June 2007 22:34 (eighteen years ago)
It's seriously funny how they pin the whole CHANGING OF NEW YORK on the 20 somethings who move here ... the same types of people who have -always- moved here.
Yet, no one says a word about the people who are *actually* changing the landscape of New York: the mayor and council members who have completely deregulated land development, the greedy land developers who take advantage and tear down anything and everything to build up shoddy condos for rich idiots, and the American market-uber-alles economy that shits on anyone who isn't wealthy.
Of course, it's all the kids who live 10 to a loft who are the real problem. Doesn't that smell like bullshit to you? Of course this isn't too related to that incredibly lame TONY article (it's like reading an article in some restaurant's weekly newsletter).
― uhrrrrrrr10, Sunday, 3 June 2007 23:13 (eighteen years ago)
ultrahrrrl thx for the add
― sanskrit, Monday, 4 June 2007 00:53 (eighteen years ago)
Five years ago people talked about TONY as part of the problem.
― Hurting 2, Monday, 4 June 2007 01:39 (eighteen years ago)
i work 60+ hours/week. but that's because of my occupation.
― Eisbaer, Monday, 4 June 2007 01:49 (eighteen years ago)
I don't work all that hard. Most of the people who make those complaints are straight out of college and don't know anything about life. "WAH, I HAVE AN ABOVE-MEDIOCRE TALENT FOR WRITING - WHY CAN'T I IMMEDIATELY FIND A JOB THAT PAYS $50,000 WITH BENEFITS?"
― Hurting 2, Monday, 4 June 2007 01:50 (eighteen years ago)
TONY exists as something to lol at when I'm waiting for the deli down the block to make me a sandwich. Who buys this magazine?
― HPSCHD, Monday, 4 June 2007 01:55 (eighteen years ago)
i remember liking the original london edition
― sanskrit, Monday, 4 June 2007 01:58 (eighteen years ago)
maybe that's the answer, out-of-towners?
i'm late to this. this article gets my goat. the voice, itself, is too "cool" for its own good, which deflates the whole objective of the narrative. also, he could stand to leave out some fucking words.
u have to be really fucking eloquent to get away with trying to be cooler than hipster cool.
sorry i'm not sure why this is getting me so angry.
― Surmounter, Monday, 4 June 2007 02:05 (eighteen years ago)
A modest proposal to save New York cool: stop caring and have fun. m.
― msp, Monday, 4 June 2007 03:39 (eighteen years ago)
People hate fun. I think it's a new rule (that I'm trying to reject by way of relentless air guitar solos).
― Andi Mags, Monday, 4 June 2007 05:09 (eighteen years ago)
LOL TRUCKER CAP THREAD WELCOME TO 2003
senator I knew the trucker cap thread this sir is no trucker cap thread
― J0hn D., Monday, 4 June 2007 05:45 (eighteen years ago)
"now more likely to be brokers or lawyers than art-school dropouts"
― Hello Sunshine, Monday, 4 June 2007 07:34 (eighteen years ago)
-- sanskrit, Monday, 4 June 2007 01:58 (5 hours ago) Link
it was okay till about three years ago.
― That one guy that quit, Monday, 4 June 2007 07:59 (eighteen years ago)