The Essence of Culture

“Mostly because you can sweat almost anything down to this basic biological truth: Culture is a mating ritual. We are looking for ways to differentiate ourselves so as to attract one another. That is the deep dark secret of everything we do. It might be that black and white.”

— via Riff Market’s “RE HIPSTER RUNOFF’S ANIMAL COLLECTIVE POST

This post is deceiving. It starts off somewhere and ends up discussing (indirectly) the popular blog, Hipster Runoff, as an example of the evolving role of satire, snark, and nihilism in our culture. While the post really really needs an editor, it is well worth the effort of trudging through the prose. I will tell you that it helps if you have read Hipster Runoff before and you understand that there is a type of perspective to the site, not to mention its grammatical and stylistic quirks. I used to be an avid reader of Hipster Runoff — I think it was in my feedreader for about two years — until I realized that it was getting dull and was increasingly veering away from anything I found remotely interesting.

One response to “The Essence of Culture”

  1. libhomo Avatar

    I think there is some truth to that quote, but I also think that a lot of culture is produced as therapy and a lot of it is produced as acts of resistance.

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