swampman posted:

yeah here it is

some scientists recently made an app that can control human limbs via computer inputs hooked up to a noodle strainer helmet. which has really amazing prospects for amazing tricks id be able to do with my dick

cargojorts posted:

twerking is insanely popular and also popularized/partially originated southern queer black culture

the first person i ever saw twerk irl was a rowdy white redneck guy in 1997

ilmdge posted:

if saying a woman dancing in a certain way may have been influenced by patriarchal forces takes away a woman's agency and says women can't do things without men, that seems to say it's misogynist to acknowledge the existence of patriarchy in media and culture? because its presence is clearly there and is definitely impactful. men have for decades been using women in music videos to affirm their alpha player status and to show to the most literal extent possible the type of ass they can pull.

no and i think that's a bizarre leap to make. the maybe biggest problem here is that you make no distinction between this dance as physical act and this act as it exists in the field of the production of media. like when you characterize twerking as being "preferably naked but sometimes in a thong" which is clearly insane, this dance is performed in public spaces by fully clothed women. like i am not denying that this Worldstar Uncut (*Warning* Must Be 18yrs or Older To View) shit exists like yes, of course patriarchal media takes place in a political-economic field built on the selling of images of women's bodies as objects for male consumption, and so depictions of twerking in mainstream media or whatever channels that lend themselves to pornography are going to be subsumed by that, but this exists independently of the physical reality of women's own bodies, actions, expressions. because these take places outside of a system of economic exchange, it's a dance women take part of in their own volition in spaces that allow them to do so. i'm getting dangerously close to inane tumblr feminism 101 shit here but what you're doing is around the same logic as slut shaming - a women who chooses to have consensual sex with a significant number of partners has no relation to a prostitue because she is categorically not selling her body. or this idea that a woman is acting solely to sexualize herself for male attention when she wears short-shorts and a crop top or whatever as opposed to just dressing in the way she wants to for her own benefit. i mean i don't know or care if any these things are at all empowering but i don't give a shit about someone doing them either, not anymore than i give a shit if a girl wants to do elaborate butt moves when a juicy j song comes on in the club, or rehearse routines with her friends or whatever. it is gross that you are comparing women who enthusiastically and consensually participate in a dance culture for their own interest, independent of male consumption, to women who are coerced by patriarchal institutions of the political economy to sell their bodies. like basically my question is what makes this any different to other dances i referenced?

ilmdge posted:

i admit i may be not fully informed regarding the evolution of twerking but i dont think when dj screw invented it in houston it was after a study of traditional african dance that happens to share some similarities.

that dj screw comment is an epic troll. i need to elaborate the point i was making pointing towards those dances - i don't think black american culture has any necessary direct relationship with african or other afro-diaspora cultures anymore than i think a haitian person has any direct relationship with cultural practices in senegal beyond maybe whatever kind of shared notions of "blackness" exist there. but what i'm trying to point towards is that the white suprematist and patriarchal framework of bourgeois colonial / settler society enforces a certain mode of acceptable and "tasteful" discourse or practice that undermines alternative standards as being base, primitive and vulgar. so of course i don't believe black peoples or their cultures have any kind of essential predisposition to embracing a certain kind of dance but the fact that they may not share bourgeois-colonial notions of tastefulness means that the cultures developed indigenously within these communities may take forms that are not considered acceptable forms by the aesthetic edifice of white suprematist bourgeois society

ilmdge posted:

even moreso, you can acknowledge these things have certain cultural roots to some degree but at the same time recognize the way they manifest as mass media phenomenon arent exactly the same as their origins. certain women may legitimately be good at twerking and take pride in that skill and that's cool, and rap music can be cool too and it's definitely patronizing to solely follow rappers that take some kind of "correct" stance w/r/t gender/econonomics/etc. but imo the way we see "twerking" expressed currently is basically pop culture froth and not something so valuable that we need to be policing appropriation.

but like the thing here is that while you dismiss the idea of policing this kind of appropriation, if what the problems you see in all of that are things that come with being part of this pop culture froth then what you are doing is a concern about appropriation, where this particular practice is divorced from a creative community where women have an agency independent of outside consumption and decontextualized into a vehicle and bare signifier for this commodification of bodies. but your answer is for some reason not to police this appropriation but see it as being irreparably fucked and that this commodification is instead an inherent quality? why i think that shit you said was racist & patriarchal was because this is the conclusion you drew immediately even tho the people who that appropriation effects are communities of black women (& as was mentioned a significant number of queer people) from these regional scenes in the south. to which you're just like whatever guys wrap it up you dont have anything to contribute but the perversions of your secret white masters, which is pretty weird. even tho policing appropriation, whatever it is that entails, seems like a reasonable solution to your concerns but you just dismiss that because the contributions of this specifically black culture arent "valuable" enough to preserve?

ilmdge posted:

i know you wanna defend rap music and culture but as a nz kiwi who possibly has never even seen a black person before you need to be wary also of perceiving twerking in an orientalist framework that regards all ass shakin as some kind of super authentic piece of black culture... while it's obviously a piece of "black culture" it doesnt change the fact that large parts of it are controlled and influenced by people who aren't black at all and don't give a shit about that culture except how they can exploit it to make money. oh and btw, i will say miley slappin that big black ass maybe was kind of racist, possibly she was just trying to be sexual and get in any ol' ass but you know, using "big black ass" as a prop would be bad.

but the physical reality of the dancing practice has a long history independent of that froth you talk about. people have been developing this shit for like two decades, in fiercely regional scenes built around the trading of home dubbed cassettes and a handful of often militantly independent record labels formed by participants in these scenes (and so black owned)... like if you can pull back the curtain and expose the devious white hand of corporate masters behind the rise of cash money, so so def, hypnotize minds or no limit records from '93 to '98 or so then go ahead but i am pretty sure you are just talking about something you have no real knowledge of. this is some Secret Boardroom Meetings To Destroy Black Culture By Promoting "Gangsta Rap" conspiracy theory shit you find on email lists for 40 year old republicans. even when that shit broke through with shit like cash money being bought out by universal in the late 90s or three 6 & ying yang twins or whatever becoming national phenomena that was based on years of grassroots regional fanbases accumulating enough critical mass to catch the eye of the people who could capitalize on that. i could also write more about how the landscape of rap has had frequent shifts to and from commercial & creative independence, in cases eventually reaching the critical mass required to be capitalized on and exploited as mass media phenomenon (which i guess is not exclusive to rap at all but is just how cultural industries function) but that would end up getting significantly more nerdy than this already is and idk if anyone is interested in that. but roughly this total absorption into pop culture that makes things like miley cyrus twerking possible takes place after an important period of that independence. what i'm getting at is that white, bourgeois influence on black popular culture exists in specific material cases, not as some constant hidden puppetmaster enslaving black minds and forcing women to shake their butts, because thats fucking stupid

i guess a conclusion you can draw pretty easily from what i'm saying is that miley cyrus is engaging in racist appropriation so i guess i do believe that? put me down as supporting that jezebel article or whatever i am not actually going to read ftw

Edited by blinkandwheeze (Aug. 31, 2013 15:18:21)

blinkandwheeze posted:

this is some Secret Boardroom Meetings To Destroy Black Culture By Promoting "Gangsta Rap" conspiracy theory shit you find on email lists for 40 year old republicans. even when that shit broke through with shit like cash money being bought out by universal in the late 90s or three 6 & ying yang twins or whatever becoming national phenomena that was based on years of grassroots regional fanbases accumulating enough critical mass to catch the eye of the people who could capitalize on that.

you are now presented with purple key to my city, welcome: honorary screwstonian.

deadken posted:

ALL I DO THESE DAYS IS POST LINKS TO MY BLOG HERE HAVE ANOTHER

"The real critical task isn’t to complain that Miley Cyrus is diverting attention from real and important issues; it’s to see in her performance and the situation in Syria two parts of a single system."

lol jesus that's YOUR blog??

gyrofry posted:

aesthetics bitch

Superabound posted:

wait i always thought that was neo-Panther, "CIA spread crack in the ghettos", Blood Sacrifice/Jay-Z Is Illuminati, black nationalist anti-zionist conspiracy theory shit

i think its both, that stuff exists for sure but it also supports the idea that the valorization of thug culture or whatever in popular black media is the reason for the huge black prison population and dwindling economic conditions in black neighborhoods etc. so it pops up in conservative circles too