tumblr meme culture is really just a form of neo dadaism
I’d like to clarify:
dada was a largely european art movement that took place after wwi. this time and place is not a coincidence. let me explain.
dada art made no sense. the artists who made dada lived in a world in which nothing made sense – in which conventional logic led to the senselessness of a world war. so, making art that made no sense, making – well, you can’t really call it art, so making ANTI-art that rejected the conventions that brought about that atrocity in the first place – it made total sense. (if that makes any sense.)
so the artists did weird things. new things! putting things that were already made together and calling it sculpture, cutting up bits of pictures and putting them together and calling that something to frame – this site has some nice examples.
but from my perspective – there’s serious intellectual continuity between the absurdity of attaching a bunch of tacks to the bottom of an iron, rendering it useless, and say…. bath bomb posts. Put a fucking macbook in a bath. it’s useless now. Nobody fucking cares anymore. you want something funny? you want a punchline? gun. that’s your punchline. Take it. I am laughing
in a way it could be a method of venting some of the frustration and hopelessness and dissatisfaction that tumblr’s userbase (largely, disenfranchised millennials) feels in the modern day. I can’t really speak for anyone else, but… at least from a US perspective, there’s plenty to be disillusioned about. growing up in a constant state of questionably justified war, income inequality, an economic recession caused by the actions of a handful of wealthy fucks who didn’t even get properly punished, growing awareness of police brutality, being called lazy and self-absorbed by the generations that gave us these problems in the first place… I can’t help but think that these factors (and more) could produce a similar mindset to the one that precipitated the first dada movement.
so of COURSE we make nonsense jokes. it’s a coping mechanism for a world which doesn’t make any sense.
related: this isn’t by tumblr but I have to plug UCLA’s atrocity of a virtual gallery once more. it really needs to be experienced, but… it’s definitely also millennial neo dada. from the presentation (like an unplayable video game) to the content (THE DOGS HAVE ARRIVED), it is exactly what I am talking about. it is a fucking shitpost. and it’s high art, too! I love this
tl;dr: my generation is fed up with this bullshit, and the best way that we can express that is by shitposting. alternatively, dada was an early precursor to modern shitposting and we should all thank duchamp for signing a fucking urinal
a dear friend has given a perfect update to some of my phrasing, courtesy of their word replace extension:
you see this? this is exactly what I’m fucking talking about. the thing that I’m talking about is:
shitposting is the deconstruction of hegemonic discourse through the use of the absurd and surrealism.
I’d also say that while Dadaism was obsessed with the technological aspects of Modernity, of newspapers, of industrial mechanics and factory made clocks, neo-dadaism (of which shitposting but also the increasingly broad reach of the New Aesthetic and net aesthetics) is obsessed with the technological aspects of our time, or at the beginning of our time.
As just a comparison, the Clock in Absurdist and Dadaist art is both a symbol of the uplifting beginning of industrial relations (as one of the first complicated machines made by manufacturers, as the symbol of mankind’s ability to triumph and analyze nature and better ourselves) and as the deified symbol of horrific modernity (of demarcated time, labor hours, the oppression of the working class via managerial time), Neo-Dadaism/Absurdism has a similar relationship with early computers, which both symbolizes the utopian attitudes which we entered the digital age with, and the horrifying period we live in now, where the Digital is ever present and semi-deified.
My favorite dada satire is probably from Georges Grosz who takes the kind of robotic modernist tube people of folks like Leger:
and turns them into these mindlessly patriotic broken automatons chanting rote phrases:
And it’s so so funny to me that there’s all kinds of Gen X artists out there creating art about the millennials on their damn cellumar phones who think they’re the inheritors of this aesthetic but really it’s people who use the Madden gif generator to shitpost because they’re taking the technology meant for a coherent purpose for a particular narrative and they’re breaking it and turning it back on itself.
Aside from color palettes and materials used, I see literally zero difference.
This is one of the top 3 best posts I’ve ever seen on tumblr and I’ve been here for years.
Love
My grandmother took several classes on Dadaism, and I attended them with her growing up. Then I took plenty of art history when I got my BFA in Illustration.
This post is 100% legit in their observations. I’m seriously impressed.
Duchamp’s Urinal was one of the most famous, well known Dada pieces ever made, and he made it purely to prove that literally anything can be art. It was all about ignoring the Establishment’s rules of what art was and wasn’t, – this is exactly the same thing happening in real time.
This is The New Yorker article about how Korea is the world capital of plastic surgery. Which is true. But a white American visiting Korea to find out more about its innate inferiority? I see a problem in that.
Definition of
beauty has transformed over time in the modern history of Korea. The standard
prior to Western invasion was the round, flat nose and minimized eyes arranged in oblong face.
The Portrait Of A Beauty by Shin Yunbog (1758~?)
Photograph of a gisaeng in late Josun dynasty
As American consumer goods and Hollywood
movies started to bombard the Far Eastern world, Japan began its imperialist
agenda to take over the rest of the Asia. While ravaging the “primitive lands”
of its neighboring nations under the supremacist justification, Japan developed
a very unique standard of beauty.
It started as slavish replica of Western
commercial illustrations. The imitation gradually evolved to become very
distinctively “Japanese” ideal, such as Nakahara Junich’s depiction
of women with overly exaggerated highlights in the eyes, noses as a simple line
and a dot, and lips smaller than a fingertip. The ideal was passed down to
mangakas such as Takahashi Makoto in 60’s, further popularizing the typical
cosmic-eye look. The style has gradually matured to become an emblematic
particularity of manga, attracting the younger generations from all sides of
the globe.
Illustration of Singing by the Plum Garden by Toyohara Chikanobu, 1887
Notice the Japanese ladies are dressed in typical late Victorian dresses.
Nakahara Junichi (
1913-1988)
Takahashi Makoto
The change seems pretty dramatic, doesn’t it?
The modernization
process of Asia was ferocious and shameless. Behind the adorable sparkly eyes
lies an endless record of bloodthirsty savagery: Asia was kept busy killing
each other while the West exploited its resources; Japan, allegedly to
compensate for their recent defeat by the West, conducted uncountable forms of
systematic torture in the colonized territories. The Japanese rule is
remembered in many of the colonized Asian nations as equivalent to that of
Nazis: human-body experiments and sex slavery still remains in the collective
memory of the people.
There was much blame put on women who lost their virginity
to foreign soldiers, even when they were forced into sexual slavery, as if
their stolen virtue was symbolic of the nation’s soil and resource. In the
midst of such horror was the new set of standards for women. As a result, they
not only strived to look better than their neighbors, but also as good as the
Hollywood actresses with long, lustrous lashes and flaxen locks.
Asian women born and raised in Asia
still suffer from the ideal set by the “modernized” men of the early
20th century. Westerners tend to read it as an intrinsically Asian problem,
blaming the collectivist mindset rooted in Confucianism. Patricia Marx, in her
article About Face, goes on to interview
a few scholars in Korea to examine the origin of such craze over plastic
surgery.
A psychology professor at Yonsei University, one of the most
privileged educational institutions in Korea, assures that collectivism is the
main attribution to the popularization of cosmetic corrections.
“In Korea,
we don’t care what you think about yourself. Other people’s evaluations of you
matter more… It’s not that you’re trying to stand out and look good. It’s
that you’re trying not to look bad.” He continued, “This is a very competitive
society. In the old days, if your neighbor bought a new TV or new car you would
need to buy a new TV or car. Now we all have these basic things, so the
competition has moved up to comparing one’s looks, health, and spiritual things
as well.”
The rest of the
article is about Marx interviewing various people in Korea or simulating social
situations as an undercover journalist to revalidate Confucianism as the most
powerful motivation behind the plastic surgery.
Which must’ve been thrilling. I
wish I could visit a presumably less developed nation just to discover more
about their innate inferiority.
Let’s assume, although I’m about 99.8 percent
sure this is not the case, that all Asian girls want to reach the average
because of their fervent passion for Confucius.
Then where did the definition
of the average emerge? Who handed televisions and cars to Koreans in the first
place? How did the “competitive society” formulate and what are they
competing against? Are they really comparing themselves to each other, or the Western
standards barraged on their land through magazines and movies?
Isn’t the
psychology professor, serving in this article as a reliable resource for Marx’s
argument, also an individual who had been “cultured” with exclusively
Western ideas? Psychology didn’t exist in Asian scholarship until the West
brought it to the East. The West reassures its superiority by repeatedly labeling
Confucianism as the source of every Eastern vice. What brings Asian girls to
the operating table is not Confucius, it is the internalized racism: the belief
that everything white is inherently good. No one in Korea is fighting to get dread locks
and tan skin; it’s the eyelids, higher nose bridge, lighter skin and thinner
lips they want. Or they’ve been educated to want. While Korean girls pay a
fortune to recreate their looks closer to Caucasian, an expert in the Western psychology
objectifies them as submissive and vulnerable, so he can elevate in this Eurocentric world.
Why do Asians compare themselves to others instead of being themselves? Because the West made us the perpetual Other. Because Asians had to kill and rape each other in order to prove their worth in the eyes of the West. Because the world keeps telling you that no matter how good you are if you’re not white you’re not good enough.
It is important that you know, I am not even a Beyonce stan like that. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the post I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced of Jacob Marley’s death before the play began, then there would be nothing remarkable about him showing up at his “business” partner’s house to bitch him out in the middle of the night.
It’s also important to note that Beyonce usually doesn’t go in for this sort of thing. She’s not really the Artist/Activist type. This video is the most political she has ever gotten, and I swear it took the convergence of Black Lives Matter, Black History Month, Mardis Gras, a Nat Turner Rebellion movie, the blatant disrespect of casting a white man to play Michael Jackson, and all the planets to bring us this blessing. Many have said Formation is the phrase, “I love my blackness, and yours.” given physical form. It is all that and more.
This opening line prepares us for the realness to come
Let’s start with the fact that Formation features a voice over by Big Freedia the Queen Diva of NOLA Bounce. If you don’t know Bounce music, or you don’t know Big Freedia–and if you don’t know Bounce, you won’t know Big Freedia–let me direct you to Youtube so you can educate yourself. I recommend you start with Excuse, and Y’all Get Back Now. Big Freedia also has a very nice feature in Ru Paul’s Peanut Butter.
All throughout this video we are treated to imagery from Black queer culture, from Big Freedia’s voice-over, to dancers, to queens just slaying in the beauty shop. Again, if you are unfamiliar with the richness of Black queer culture, I direct you to the internet, because there’s just too much to explain. Start with Paris Is Burning on Netflix and go from there I guess? Like, literal books have been written and it is too big an undertaking for me alone.
Beyonce heard all y’all talking that shit about “Why is her hair always done, but she can’t make sure her baby’s hair is done?” Uh, because Blue is a child, and that is her NATURAL HAIR, and she clearly is ROCKING IT.
In fact, this video features A WEALTH of natural hair, textured hair, weaves, perms, braids, Black hair in general.
Note: Baby hairs are small, fine, wispy hairs on your hairline that your mother would brush or gel in a specific way. If you don’t know what a baby hair is, ask a Black person, or someone with “ethnic” hair (gag).
In fact, every single person in this video is Black except for the cops.
And let’s talk about that scene
A little black boy dancing his heart out in front of a line of cops in riot gear,
and the cops put their hands up. YES YES YES YES YESYEYSYESYES!!!!!
Please note the multiple nods to Majorette culture (okay ladies, now let’s get in formation, prove to me you got some coordination, slay trick or you get eliminated) which is very southern.
Formation is very southern
From Southern Gothic imagery
to people dressed for Mardis Gras
To the scenes with people dressed in 19th century Creole garb, in their parlors, with fans.
Now let’s examine some of the lyrics:
My Daddy Alabama, Mama Louisiana
This is more than a statement about Beyonce’s roots. The vast majority of Black Americans can trace their ancestry to the South, after many of us moved to northern cities in the Great Migration. To this day, the majority of Black people in the US live in the South. I’m a New Yorker for generations back on either side, but guess what? The family reunion each year is held in Virginia, because that’s where my people come from.
I like my negro nose and Jackson Five nostrils
There has literally never been a more full-throated, stalwart, stark as hell positive affirmation of Blackness in mainstream, popular media since the original Black Is Beautiful movement in the 60′s. Maybe not since the Harlem Renaissance? I predict In a few years, people will be inverting their contours and getting plastic surgery to achieve the coveted Jackson Five nostril. Only by then they’ll rename it something more palatable to the mainstream (Read: white people).
I got hot sauce in my bag
Let me tell you something about my septuagenarian Grandparents: they literally always have a bottle of hot sauce in their car. Like many retirees, they like to travel, take cruises, do old people stuff. Never have they ever gone anywhere without a bottle of hot sauce. Never has my grandfather been in a restaurant and not requested hot sauce–even though he always has his own.
As I type this, I have a bottle of hot sauce on my night stand, next to my bed. Why? Because I put that shit on everything, and it’s just more convenient to keep it handy. I put hot sauce on pepperoni pizzas. Sometimes I sip out of the hot sauce bottle like it’s a fine wine.
I make all this money, but they’ll never take the country out me
A reminder to never forget your roots, a statement about preserving your identity under the pressures of assimilation, or commentary on respectability politics–no matter how much money you make, how famous you become, you’ll always be Black to the powers that be? Trick question. It’s all three
BLACK AS HELL
Note: Red Lobster is known to be the de-facto Black date night restaurant. I have no idea why.
All of this culminates in Beyonce, sprawled atop a NOLA police car, sinking into the flood waters of Katrina. She metaphorically drowns the police in a flood caused by the colossal abdication of responsibility by those in power at the expense of the disenfranchised. She is prostrated on the symbolic corpse of the oppressor as it is subsumed by water.
I Literally Can Not.
Other images that made me want to praise dance:
Black man riding a horse down the street. Little known fact, Black people were some of the first cowboys in the American west. For the most famous example, see the actual man The Lone Ranger is based off of.
The newspaper with the picture of Martin Luther King and front page headline that read, “More Than A Dreamer.” A reference to the #ReclaimMLK movement, which is about countering the sanitized, white-washed, commodified version of his message with the reality of his radicalism.
The fact that the portraits on the walls of the mansion are of Black women
ugh 