I was at the mall the other day, which is always an interesting experience. The Mall of America, as well as being a shrine to capitalism, really is a gigantic teenage mating ritual. I'm happy to say I spent little time at the mall in my formative years. I was mostly at hockey pep band. But anyways, I likened this mall mating to a custom I observed last year in Italy. In many Mediterranean cultures, it's a tradition to dress up and walk with your significant other on a promenade in the city during the evening, mostly on the weekends. I forget what the exact term is, but you basically just walk and show off your woman and your status. That's really what the Mall of America is. It's a giant promenade, except the status symbols are Abercrombie and Hollister, and instead of a city walk, it's a never-ending quest to increase one's status (i.e., buy stuff). Like how pilgrims have to make 7 perambulations around the Kaaba in Mecca, there must be some general rule on how many times high school/college/young hip adult couples must circumnavigate the Mall of America's three tiers.
Maybe I'm just a complete and utter loser, but I fail to see how current American pop culture motivates people. I was discussing with a friend this week, how the fuck did Paris Hilton get into a position of emulation in our society? Here's a person who doesn't have a real job, doesn't embody any "traditional" American values of hard work, pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, etc, etc, etc. Is really only notable for inheriting a bunch of money, making a sex tape, doing stupid shit, and getting put in jail for a DWI. Why do people care what comes of her? I really don't understand. Is that what we as a people aspire to?
Going back to the mall, I find the store Urban Outfitters to be pretty fascinating. Now I'm not hating on it, I think they have cool stuff. I liked the shirt with the picture of the fist and the words "Obama told me to knock you out." And one with a bunch of automatic weapons and a guitar that said music is the weapon of the future. But basically it's trying to sell products that scream an alternative lifestyle to the one proposed by Abercrombie, etc. Retro stuff, shit that looks like it came from my dad's closet, music stuff, "edgy" gifts, yada, yada, yada. In all honesty, I like a lot of it. But everything costs the same as everywhere else, being insanely expensive. To me, excessive expense on clothing doesn't typically conform to what I view as the current subculture. I don't know, I guess most of the people I knew who actually dressed in that subcultury-grungy-alternative way bought most of their stuff from thrift shops and places like that. The whole point of dressing the way they did was to reject the social quota set up by the big name brands and the cookie cutter MTV social ideal that went along with it. Doesn't it seem somewhat strange then, that there's a whole section of the subculture that prizes this sort of disheveled, artsy, "independent" fashion, but yet its being marketed in a way that seems antithetical to its very ideals? I'm really quite confused. Basically, I think Urban Outfitters is a great store, but it should at least be honest with itself. It shouldn't try to market itself as this badass alternative to the other youth brands. It's exactly the same, caters to exactly the same entitled suburban kids as they perambulate. An expensive way to possibly mask one's own lack of imaginative fashion and give the appearance of Independent Thinking.
I'm really not one to speak much about fashion. My own fashion sense is self-admittedly slim, but hopefully adequate. I do like to look nice when needed, and in general, I'd hope my appearance comes off as passable and somewhat unique. One thing I've never quite understood is this need for brands. Well, scratch that, I did in middle school. Thankfully, I was lucky enough to break out of that. Now, this is not a rant against name brand clothing. I have a bunch of clothes from Gap, which is pretty name-brandy. I just object to people who define themselves by what brands they wear. People so obsessed with this shitty ass pop culture that dictates what you should be like by the make of your threads. Why, in this land that loves to emphasize its "freedom" are people enslaving themselves by an unreal pop culture? I'm just very confused. People who want to come across as independent shouldn't feel obligated to buy from Urban Outfitters or Ragstock, or Goodwill or whatever. They should just do what they believe and what feels right. If that means dropping $46 on a shirt, good for you. Or if that means raiding my dad's closet, sweet. Just make sure it's your decision.
For me, I think I'm going to stick with the power trio of blue, brown, and black.
But anyways, speaking of entitled, status obsessed suburban adolescents, I'm fairly certain I'm going to purchase an iPhone. I actually think I'll productively use it, especially once school starts.
But to re-convince you all (and myself) that I'm not one of the guys molesting their girlfriends at the Mall of America while simultaneously videoing it and sending it to their bros on their iPhone, I've been listening to a lot of Metallica lately. And you know, it's surprisingly good. I've never liked heavy metal, but some of this is actually quite good songwriting, I feel. And some of the songs are really catchy. Sometimes when you get real angry or frustrated, there's nothing like some thrashing guitars to help empathize.
I must work a lot this week, which blows. But I guess that's the only way to purchase an iPhone, and the amount of alternative thrash metal to counteract it. On a quick endnote, I love it when the Twins score thousands of runs at games I go to. You're almost assured of victory, and if they should fall, it would be such a monumental collapse it'd be worth seeing. Delmon Young must also have been listening to a lot of Metallica lately. Either that or he just has a lot of angst, for that home run was monumental. He hit a moonshot to center field that nearly broke the earth's gravitational pull. Pretty intense.
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